Movie Review: Love & Mercy

Brian Wilson’s production masterpiece, “Good Vibrations,” was the apex of his popular success, topping the charts and selling more than a million copies. Released in October 1966, it was a psychedelic harbinger of 1967’s so-called Summer of Love, providing both a sound and a lexicon for nascent hippiedom everywhere.

Much could be – and has been – written about what makes “Good Vibrations” so innovative, but perhaps the most distinctive element is its modular construction. Rather than a through-composed and performed song, “Good Vibrations” is a mosaic, pieced together from months of recording sessions and untold numbers of musical segments that on their own seem quite unrelated to each other. Brian’s genius was in his overarching vision for the track and the workmanship involved in assembling the collage of sounds into a cohesive, compelling, and insanely catchy whole.

It was a new way of recording popular music, and the next evolution was obvious: applying this modular process to an entire album. That was what he attempted with Smile, aborted at the time and only completed under his own name in 2004. With Smile, specific sections of songs would be treated classically in a theme and variations mode, surfacing in slightly altered ways in other songs throughout the album. It was a daunting challenge, and with resistance from certain members of the Beach Boys and from Capitol Records, along with growing paranoia and self-medicating drug use, the project fell apart and was abandoned by its ambitious creator – who slipped gradually into a reclusive life of sporadic musical activity and ultimately an enveloping shroud of fear, pain, and undiagnosed mental illness.

In directing the new Brian Wilson biopic, Love & Mercy, Bill Pohlad effectively employs Brian’s modular approach. At the highest level, Pohlad slices Brian’s life into segments from the 1960s, where he is enjoying his creative peak with Pet Sounds, “Good Vibrations,” and Smile; and the 1980s, where he is under the unethical care of a doctor who after saving his patient’s life is now angling to siphon his fortune. But then Pohlad goes further, dicing his subject’s life into daring – and often scary – cubes that take us inside Brian’s head (at one point through his mostly deaf right ear) to hear the inner voices that plague him to this day; inside the eyes of his girlfriend and eventual second wife, Melinda, as she tries to break the legal and pharmaceutical hold that the doctor has on him; and inside Brian’s bedroom, where a prismatic, 2001: A Space Odyssey-like sequence shows us Brian in triplicate: as a struggling child, a struggling artist, and a struggling survivor, all observing each other lying near-catatonic in bed (where the Brian in the 1970s – a fascinating period alluded to but not covered in the film – spent the better part of three years under the covers, ballooning in weight and occasionally being pushed, and ultimately miscast, on stage with the Beach Boys, with seriocomic consequences).

As a certifiable Brian Wilson nut, I saw the movie three times in its opening week. It has been widely reviewed, and nearly unanimously raved, far and wide. My goal is not to review it as such, but to explore questions it raises for me. Chief among them is this: How is my experience of the movie different from that of a viewer who knows something or nothing about the history of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys? Part of what thrills me about the movie is that it seems to have been created for the choir, the brotherhood, the initiates; there is a distinct lack of context, explication, and connective tissue that would help a Brian novice follow along. I know the background and significance of certain scenes and don’t need Pohlad or the scriptwriters to awkwardly explain them to me (though this does happen from time to time, how else to introduce who Tony Asher and Van Dyke Parks are – two names that certainly separate the Brian nuts from the Brian novices).

Without providing spoilers, here are a few examples.

• Brian’s father, Murry Wilson, informs us in nearly every appearance that he was fired by his son. It is never specifically stated that Murry was the band’s manager in their earlier years and Brian, in a rare display of backbone in family matters, dismissed him of his duties because of his meddling and bad vibrations.
• While recording the Pet Sounds vocal tracks, Mike Love complains about the lyrics to a song called “Hang On to Your Ego.” (Mike’s balking at the lyrics and music for Pet Sounds and Smile is both historically accurate and part of the battering Brian’s fragile psyche took during this period.) The actual instrumental track is heard clearly. If someone seeing this movie didn’t already own Pet Sounds and decided to buy it (a win in every respect), that person would not find a song by that title. That’s because Brian relented and allowed Mike to write new lyrics. The song as released is called “I Know There’s an Answer.” That part is not mentioned in the film. (Interestingly, Frank Black of the Pixies recorded a cover of “Hang On to Your Ego” on his first solo album in 1993.)
• The Smile sessions are represented largely through a single sequence involving two songs performed in different contexts: Brian playing “Surf’s Up” by himself at the piano in his house; and “Fire” (also known as “Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow”) in the studio with the Wrecking Crew (the ace session players he employed). Both of these songs are of monumental importance to the Brian story; yet neither are identified by name, nor is their respective significance shown or explained.
• The “Surf’s Up” bit is clearly a recreation of a solo performance that Brian taped for a 1967 CBS TV special about pop music hosted by Leonard Bernstein in the midst of the Smile chaos. In the special, the song was summed up thusly: “There is a new song, too complex to get all of first time around. It could come only out of the ferment that characterizes today's pop music scene. Brian Wilson, leader of the famous Beach Boys, and one of today's most important pop musicians, sings his own ‘Surf’s Up.’ ... Poetic, beautiful even in its obscurity, ‘Surf’s Up’ is one aspect of new things happening in pop music today. As such, it is a symbol of the change many of these young musicians see in our future.”
• As for “Fire,” the track is an instrumental that brilliantly uses strings, whistles, and percussion to emulate the sound of a raging inferno. Brian insisted that all the musicians wear plastic fire helmets, and he created a small wood fire in a trash can in the studio to get everyone in the mood. This is recreated faithfully in the movie, except that Brian is shown holding smoldering sticks and running through the studio. What is not mentioned is that while recording “Fire,” a building across the street from the studio actually did catch fire. Brian, in his growing paranoia, believed that he had somehow been responsible for it; thus, this haunted track has become considered “another brick in the wall” of Brian’s ultimate breakdown.

Personally, I do not consider these to be devastating omissions because I can fill in the blanks and connect the dots; in other words, Pohlad is speaking to me in shorthand and I get it because I know the shorthand. The fact that others do not, however, could result in a different, perhaps less pleasing, experience for them.

There are at least two consolations. First of all, viewers should be assured that no matter how strange or confusing or even unrealistic certain scenes might be, this movie is highly factual. As with all movies based in fact, the chronologies are sometimes altered for clarity and more fluid storytelling. For example, the movie portrays Pet Sounds as having been the first album he produced after he retired from the road following his nervous breakdown/anxiety attack aboard an airplane. In reality, that event occurred in December 1964 and he produced three albums from then until Pet Sounds. But aside from such directorial conveniences, there is a high degree of veracity throughout the movie.

The other consolation is that the viewer is supposed to feel disoriented. The constant sudden shifts between the 1960s and 1980s, the disturbing aural collages that simulate the voices Brian hears in his head, the jerkiness of the hand-held cameras, are all a way through which we can empathize with Brian's splintering mental and emotional states. If things might seem confusing for the viewer, be assured they were confusing for Brian as he was living them.

I do have a few quibbles with the movie, things that, again, a Brian nut would notice and take exception to that likely would be uncontested by a Brian novice:

• Aside from chief antagonist Mike Love, the rest of the Beach Boys are not well cast and their lines (those who have them) are hardly worth recording. The actor playing Carl Wilson is too thin and is seen very often holding a beer bottle (he had a problem with alcohol later but it wasn’t a long-lasting situation; his Wiki page doesn’t even include the word “alcohol”). The actor playing Al Jardine is too tall. Dennis Wilson’s lines are about nothing but sex (not far from the truth, but certainly not accurate; by 1970, Dennis had proven himself a talented and sensitive artist in his own right).
• Brian’s first wife, Marilyn, is shown to be young and dippy, which she probably was to an extent, but it’s hardly a fair portrait. Melinda is certainly a stronger personality than Marilyn Wilson, but Marilyn had to live with Brian at his worst, and she deserves more compassion.
• Brian’s drug friends in the movie are dumb, generic stereotypes; his real drug friends were more interesting and accomplished people.
• Mentioned earlier, Tony Asher (Pet Sounds) and Van Dyke Parks (Smile) were Brian’s primary lyricists of the time period. They enjoyed close creative collaborations with Brian and produced excellent work; they deserve more and better attention in the movie.
• There is a scene after Smile is abandoned that shows a fat, stoned, unresponsive Brian sitting by the pool, with Marilyn calling out from inside the house that their baby (Carnie Wilson, though unidentified) just smiled. “Look at her smile,” Marilyn shouts. “She has your smile.” Yes, we get it. Brian has no Smile.

Aside from these minor complaints, though, the cast is extraordinary. Paul Dano is particularly impressive and could well receive an Oscar nod. As the 1960s Brian, he gained 35 pounds, took piano lessons, and does a great job actually playing and singing in the movie. He portrays the ecstasy and agony of Brian’s art and life equally effectively. John Cusack as the 1980s Brian has less of an acting challenge (mainly tics, fatigue, and social awkwardness) but he embodies Brian’s innate warmth and humor in his portrayal, and the way in which he delivers the line where he tells Melinda that he hears voices but didn’t want to tell her because he didn’t want to scare her off (shown in trailers) is very powerful because Cusack shows that Brian is so clearly vulnerable and scared himself. Elizabeth Banks as Melinda is exceptionally good with uncanny facial expressions that respond perfectly to the craziness she witnesses; she also is absolutely gorgeous in every scene. Paul Giamatti as the doctor (as you can tell by now, I don’t wish to honor the character’s one-time existence on this mortal coil by mentioning his name) is spine-tinglingly creepy. One reviewer astutely pointed that that while Murry Wilson and the doctor did not look anything alike in real life, the actors playing them in the movie have a great deal of physical resemblance to each other, emphasizing their dual-villain status.

So to sum up, if you are a Brian nut, the movie is a must-see. If you are a Brian novice, what kind of movie is it for you? As a biopic, it is about as good as the genre produces. You really will learn things about Brian and the Beach Boys, things that two previous TV movies on the band completely and perhaps deliberately got wrong (one was produced by John Stamos, a friend of Mike Love’s, and it’s laughably biased in favor of the man in whose “honor” a thriving Facebook group is named Mike Love Is a Douchebag). If you just plain like the music and want to be entertained, you will be and the music is there in all its glory. If Jurassic World is sold out, and Love & Mercy is the only movie you haven’t seen yet, go ahead. Two hours with Brian Wilson is a lifetime with anyone else. You will be touched by the story of a man who made the music he had to make despite the cost – which was nearly his life.

CD Review: Heliopolis, City of the Sun

Heliopolis

City of the Sun

10t Records, 10T10078 (2014)

Back in 1989, I was certain that progressive rock was dead. I had a fairly decent view of the landscape back then, as I was publishing a monthly newsletter on the genre entitled On Reflection. Though it wasn’t the reason I started the venture, one of the biggest perks was that labels and bands sent me their wares to review. Unfortunately, it was the quality of those wares that led me to believe that prog had indeed fossilized into the dinosaur remains predicted more than 10 years earlier when punk took hold. Simply put, most of the recordings were awful.

It wasn’t so much that the musicians didn’t have chops, manly of them were quite talented. The problem was that they were not progressive. They didn’t just wear their influences on their sleeves, they draped them over three-piece suits. There were bands that sounded just like Genesis, or just like Yes, or just like Emerson, Lake & Palmer. If a band had the courage to attempt to sound just like more complex outfits like Gentle Giant and King Crimson, I would give them points for effort, but they were justifiably few in number.

It got so bad that I eventually shut down the newsletter and plunged myself into the healing waters of jazz, where the musicianship was even more impressive, the idea of blatantly copying another musician or group was anathema, and the music was heartfelt and honest – with no Taurus bass pedals, no ridiculous lyrics, and no capes.

In the ensuing years, I have continued to enjoy the prog that I always liked and have been downright suspicious of any modern attempts to wave the banner. I have written features and CD reviews for Progression magazine (which, incidentally, was originally launched as a continuation of On Reflection by one of my subscribers, with my blessing and assistance) since 2010, and while no 21^st-century progressive band has joined my personal Mount Progmore, I do realize that there are artists doing interesting things with the tools and technologies now available, who have a couple more decades of influences to absorb, and who are facing an even more hostile recording industry.

So perhaps my heart has softened, perhaps I have become more sentimental and nostalgic, perhaps I have left my guard down, but I do now acknowledge that prog has a pulse left. Even so, nothing could prepare me for City of the Sun, the debut album of Los Angeles-based Heliopolis, which I have to say is freaking awesome!

At the outset, they have all the trappings of prog-chic: a cosmic name; a five-piece lineup with wailing lead vocalist and hot-shot guitarist, keyboardist, bass, and drummer; and suite-like songs in excess of 10 minutes in length. A Theremin even appears, played by Probyn Gregory of the Wondermints and Brian Wilson’s band (in the latter group it is he who plays the Theremin – actually a Tannerin – on “Good Vibrations”).

As for the music, well, it’s classic prog as well, and while influences are discernible (the opening suite, “New Frontier,” in addition to sharing a title with a Donald Fagen composition, starts off with Crimson-esque crunch and cacophony, and once the vocals appear the composition ends up sounding like it could have borne the credits of Lee, Lifeson, Peart), there are no slavish imitations of anything that came before. Rather, there is a rich diversity of moods, tempos, and arrangements, where pop overtones and reflective balladry meld smoothly with jazz fusion and hard rock. For example, the six-minute “Elegy,” dedicated to the late singer/drummer Shaun Guerin, is not in the least bit funereal, unless you’re talking about a Viking funeral. This track has energy and passion to spare.

As for the players themselves, the high tenor vocals of Scott Jones are more Steve Hogarth than Greg Lake, and his articulation and emotion make the words worth listening to. With drummer Jerry Beller, keyboardist Matt Brown, and bassist Kerry Chicoine supplying harmony vocals, the voice component of the musical mix is thoughtfully and effectively deployed throughout.

On multiple keyboards, Brown supplies a wide range of compelling sounds and textures. With a focus on evocative musical expression, he is not one to supply aimless synth washes or death-ray flares; rather, he uses interesting voicings to complement what I would call “real” playing, as on his funky/jazzy solo on “Elegy” or his spacy but substantial solo on the 14-minute closer, “Love and Inspiration.”

The “rhythm section” is typically more a topic for discussion in jazz than in prog, where in many cases the bassist and the drummer act as competing soloists rather than as collaborating cogs in a unified rhythmic system. Chicoine and Beller defy that characterization, deftly executing sudden tempo shifts and providing exactly what the complex music requires to keep from falling apart – along with ample opportunities to add exciting filigrees.

Guitarist Matier eschews the prog stereotypes of pretzel fingers and faux classical renderings, preferring to wring a mix of intensity and lyricism from his instruments, playing metal power chords one moment and soaring, melodic solos that get under your skin and drill intro your brain the next. On the short, Rundgren-esque Mr. Wishbone, Matier plays all the instruments except drums.

My personal favorite track on the album (with five tracks in all, the CD clocks in at a respectable 42:48) is the second, the nearly-nine-minute “Take a Moment.” Musical and lyrical drama and intrigue are built through an ascending vocal line, frequently shifting tempos and dynamics, and powerful solos from Brown and Matier. The lyrics includes the following lines:

Life’s but a journey

Never ending, Just unfolding

Always happening the way that it should be

Grudgingly, I have to admit that the same could apply to progressive rock, even in 2014. I guess I have Heliopolis to thank (or blame) for that.

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.

Musings on Record Store Day

Yesterday was Record Store Day, an annual, nationwide, well-intentioned attempt to get people back to record stores – specifically, independent neighborhood stores. Whether it ultimately is successful long-term in stemming the tide of online purchasing and downloading of music, or just a last-gasp effort from a doomed industry, I enjoy RSD and treat it as a holiday of sorts. On this day (it's been going on since 2008), my kids know to leave me alone and let me commune with thousands of pieces of plastic.

They don’t quite understand my fascination with record stores, of course. Being 14 and four, they (well, the older one anyway) get their music from the radio, YouTube, and any number of music-sharing sites. The idea of cracking a cellophane seal, handling a disc, God forbid flipping a platter that had to be removed from not one but two sleeves after 15-20 minutes to hear another 15-20 minutes of music speckled with pops, is as beyond their comprehension as a washboard is to me.

I, too, no antiquated primate, have downloaded plenty of songs from the Internet. It’s faster and cheaper, though the physical space savings are offset by the amount of hard disk space they take up on my computer. Many websites also offer free (and illegal) downloads of albums, as well as bootlegged live recordings you would never find at most reputable record stores.

To offset the allure of sit-on-your-ass music procurement, Record Store Day has become a trigger for the creation of special products to be sold or distributed at RSD-participating stores. These are publicized well in advance and as a result many stores see long lines of collectors (and, unfortunately, eBay resellers) assembling outside hours prior to opening. This means that many of the most coveted items sell out quickly, which is a shame for those of us of a certain age that may be coaching their kid’s soccer game that morning. But from the perspective of a local, independent record store, this is the whole point of RSD and a signal of its success. For that one day, anyway, hordes fill the stores.

Every RSD, I enjoy picking up special sampler discs and other cool stuff. The store I frequent, part of a legendary local chain called Newbury Comics, uses RSD as an excuse to give away piles of promotional materials that have been taking up space in their storeroom. Posters, stickers, magnets, poor-selling or promo-only albums are free for the taking. I’ve often found wonderful treasures in these piles. Just yesterday, I came away with a Beach Boys 78 rpm set that features official and alternate takes of “Good Vibrations” and “Heroes and Villains” over four ten-inch sides on sale for $9.59, the new CD by The Band’s Robbie Robertson on sale for only $7.99, two free jazz CDs, a free t-shirt for a movie I’ve never heard of, and a free promotional poster for Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin. Two years ago, I got a free orange-vinyl single by Brian Wilson so he’s become sort of an RSD totem for me.


Still, no matter how much fun RSD can be, to me the allure of being in a record store is not about the products or the pricing. Rather, it’s the atmosphere, the community. A record store like an archives or a library. There’s history there, and lots and lots to learn. Some of my favorite music-buying experiences have happened in record stores where I was shown something or where I had the opportunity to point something out to someone else. It’s the sharing of information, sharing the passion for music and musicians, that makes record stores indispensable, and no music BBS or Amazon review section can replace the hands-on, face-to-face experience of seeing someone’s eyes light up when a rare album is found or a new, exciting sound is discovered.

If you’ve read the book or seen the movie High Fidelity, you get a sense of what I’m talking about. But here are a couple of examples from my experience of how being in the physical presence of others in a record store helped me to find music of great personal value to me.


1979: I had just gotten into the progressive group Gentle Giant. I was in a now-defunct store called Popcorn, which had a large selection of import LPs. I was looking through the domestic Giant albums, and then looked in the import section. I noticed that there were two albums with the same exact cover art, except that one just said Gentle Giant on the front and the other said Gentle Giant/Three Friends on the front and a list of songs on the back. I was holding the two albums side by side, apparently looking confused, until a salesperson came over and told me that Three Friends was the group’s third album but only the first to be released in the U.S. The other one was the rarer eponymous first album. That’s the one I ended up buying and it contained a song called "Funny Ways" that became very important to me (though a female friend sneeringly calls it "Progboy's Lament") and cemented the group as a favorite.


1984: Early in the days of CDs, I was not particularly eager to buy digital versions of LPs I already owned and listened to. Instead, I saw CDs as a way to fill gaps in my collection. I’d decided I needed some Pat Metheny because while I was unfamiliar with his music, I understood him to be an artist whom the musically literate must possess works of. I went to a local store and stood next to someone who was browsing through the Metheny section. When he moved on, I took over. It was hard to choose since I had no frame of reference but one recording stood out: As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls, featuring the 20-minute title track. The fellow whose spot I now occupied saw me scrutinizing the disc and asked me if I was familiar with it. I said no, in fact I don’t know any of his albums but I want to buy one. “That’s a great album,” he said, “but it’s not for everyone. It’s very atmospheric and there isn’t really a rhythm section.” Sounds interesting, I said. “You just have to know that it’s pretty different from his other stuff," he continued. "It’s good, but it’s different.” It almost seemed as if he was trying to warn me away from it, but I was only getting more and more intrigued. I thanked him for the information and proceeded to buy it. It’s now a desert-island album of mine.


In truth, I don’t spend much time in record stores anymore, either because I’m chasing my kids through malls or because I don’t have the expendable cash flow to allow me to buy music as I once did (in high school, I would spend $50 a week at a used record store where most of what I bought was priced from $2.99 to $7.99). But whenever I do have the opportunity to visit one, I always feel a sense of belonging, a feeling of being home. I especially like used record stores, where every bin holds a potential surprise, and the smell of old vinyl and cardboard brings back happy memories of my adolescence.

I salute the record stores, past and present, that I have frequented in my life, sources of soul-enriching sounds and sympathetic seekers of musical treasure. Some of these are dead or dying, but some are still around. Thank you Nuggets, Disc Diggers, Looney Tunes, In Your Ear, Popcorn, Good Vibrations, Stereo Jack’s, Cheapo Records, Salem Record Exchange, Main Street Records, Newbury Comics, Tower Records, HMV, Midland Records, and others whose names I can’t remember. I also want to mention the Newton Centre Music Shop, where I made my first music purchase on my own, a 45 rpm single of Andy Kim’s “Rock Me Gently” back in 1972.

How I Got This Way

To my knowledge, I was not genetically predisposed to being a music nut. My immediate family was not particularly musical: my sisters and I went through a variety of instruments, committing any number of crimes against humanity as we defiled the intentions of noble instrument makers, without ever mastering one. My grandfather Harry, though, he was another story. He possessed a magnificent bass-baritone voice and as a younger man performed in synagogue choirs, local operas, and even gave concerts.

In the early 1930s, he sang on a long-defunct Boston radio station under the less-ethnic name of Harry Robbins. A recording exists of three songs he cut at Ace Recording Studios, 120 Boylston Street in Boston, on October 27 and November 2, 1947: “Old Man River,” “Der Becher” (“The Cup”), and “Eibik” (“Eternity”). At his wedding in 1926, he sang a popular tune of the day called “Until” to his bride; he reprised it at each of his five children’s weddings and at least a couple of his grandchildren’s weddings as well.

His children, my father and his siblings, therefore grew up in a house filled with opera and lieder. None of them, however, seem to have gotten an ounce of his talent. I grew up with radio broadcasts of operas, from which I ran as fast as I could. I would not be influenced by my father’s music and instead took to rummaging through my older sister’s small stack of LPs and 45s. For the most part, this was a choice selection of early ‘70s pop and soft rock: Carpenters, Carole King, Three Dog Night, Bobby Sherman, and James Taylor.

Of course, I knew the Monkees from their TV show, which I loved and still do to this day. In fact, I’m still a huge Monkees fan and sincerely believe they belong in that abomination called the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. True, they didn’t play their own instruments (most of the time) and didn’t write all their own material (though they did write a fair share of it, especially Mike Nesmith, who had at least a couple of songs on all their albums and whose solo material alone warrants significant hero worship), but guess what? Neither did the Temptations.

Looking back, it’s kind of funny how much rock music I got from television in those days. It seems like most of the kids shows I watched had some interstitial musical segment that usually featured psychedelic visual effects – an odd introduction to acid culture to an eight-year-old audience. For example, one show I enjoyed a lot was called Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp, which featured a bunch of trained, costumed monkees – er, monkeys – doing Get Smart for kids not ready for the humor of Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. In each episode, the chimps were decked out in Haight-Ashbury uniforms and toy instruments, and lip-synched (well, obviously) to some pop dreck as Lancelot Link & the Evolution Revolution.

Another rock animal act for kids was the Banana Splits, a group comprising four dudes dressed in dog, gorilla (hmm), lion, and elephant suits. According to Wikipedia, music for the Splits was composed by the likes of such legitimate talents as Al Kooper, Barry White, and Gene Pitney. Then, of course, there were the Archies, the Partridge Family, the Hardy Boys, and who can forget the episode of Gilligan’s Island when the Mosquitoes showed up for a little R&R? Even the Brady Bunch kids took time out from their incestuous offscreen hanky panky to sing “Sunshine Day.”

So despite my father’s contempt for rock music, there was no escaping it in my house. In time, I was buying my own records. Inspired by their Saturday morning cartoon series, I started getting records by the Jackson Five and the Osmonds (to this day I have an almost-complete collection of the works of the original Osmond Brothers, and still listen to them). But in no way did I exhibit the characteristics of a music nut. I just enjoyed what I enjoyed. I listened to AM radio but didn’t really know who sang what songs, and didn’t really care. I was the kind of listener I now despise: someone who passively and dispassionately accepts whatever inoffensive sounds reach his ears.

That all changed in 1976. The year of our country’s bicentennial was a turning point for me. I was 13 years old, had my bar mitzvah, and became a certified, card-carrying music nut. Here’s how it happened.

My best friend and I did everything together in those days. One day we saw an ad in a magazine for the RCA Record Club. For a buck, you could get six records and best of all, two-record sets counted as a single selection. My friend and I would each select three, and we agreed that we should each pick one two-record set so as to maximize the value of our shared investment. My friend chose Frampton Comes Alive, which was all over the radio at that time. I didn’t know what record I should choose. My friend offered to help me make my selection. He decided I should get Endless Summer by The Beach Boys.

“What’s on it?” I asked. I wasn’t aware that I knew any of their songs.
“I think it has ‘Barbara Ann’,” he replied. (He was wrong.)

So I ordered it. When our shipment arrived, it was exciting as anything. It was the first time we had purchased something through the mail. When you’re a kid, any kind of mail addressed to you is special, but when it’s a big square cardboard box, probably 14”x14”x1.5”, it’s momentous. The only downside was that there were only five records in the box. One of my selections had been back-ordered. However, RCA included a coupon entitling me to another free selection. I decided I would hold off on making that selection until I checked out my other records (aside from Endless Summer, I also had ordered John Denver’s Greatest Hits, Volume 2, which I still own).

And so it was that I broke the cellophane on Endless Summer, the gatefold cover smothered with a richly colored cartoon mural of the Beach Boys in a tropical setting, including a gull perching on a bikinied breast. I didn’t know who any of the Beach Boys were individually, all I could tell from the cover was that they were a hairy bunch, and one of them had a particularly sour expression and was seemingly trying to hide behind the foliage.

The records were sided as they were in the old days, designed for stacking on the tall spindle of the record player: sides 1 and 4 on one record, and sides 2 and 3 on the other. This was before I had a nice stereo system so I was used to the stack concept, but I wasn’t sure I’d want to hear two sides in a row right off the bat (after all, a quick peek at the song list told me that my friend was wrong about “Barbara Ann” being on the set, thus I was initially disappointed), so I just put on side 1. Five songs: “Surfin’ Safari”, “Surfer Girl”, “Catch a Wave”, “The Warmth of the Sun”, and “Surfin’ USA”.

I couldn’t believe it. I knew four of the five songs (“Catch a Wave” was new to me) and liked them all. Those incredible melodies and harmonies, especially on the two ballads (“Surfer Girl” and “The Warmth of the Sun”) and the pumping beat of the uptempo tunes was absolutely entrancing. I immediately put on side 2: “Be True to Your School”, “Little Deuce Coupe”, “In My Room”, “Shut Down”, and “Fun Fun Fun”. Are you kidding me? How is this possible? How can any group have so many quality songs? While the Chuck Berry-inspired guitar on “Fun Fun Fun” got my blood racing like a dragster, the Beach Boys had me at “In My Room”.

I cannot underestimate the profound impact that “In My Room” had on me. I was 13. I was overweight. Painfully shy. Intensely insecure. My life to this time had been centered on superhero comic books (Marvel, of course). My favorite was the Thing, the brute made of orange rock who was the muscle of the Fantastic Four. He was powerful yet gruesome, the perfect role model for a boy who felt ugly and impotent. And so I lost myself in the colored squares of comic book narratives, lying on my bed and imagining myself making things right with my big fists and confident cry of “It’s clobberin’ time!”

With “In My Room” (which I didn’t yet know was recorded and released in 1963, the year of my birth), for the first time I felt that a song truly spoke to me, that a lyric really spoke for me. I felt understood, and the music conveyed with astounding accuracy the quiet sadness and morose yearning of someone who feels less safe, less comfortable among most of his school peers than he does in the solitary confinement of his own bedroom. This is the song that made me a music nut, that made me realize that I couldn’t content myself with these magical sides, that I needed more, that I needed to collect this artist and others that spoke to me. With “In My Room” I realized for the first time that there was a music that was made just for me.



Needless to say, after side 2 I spun sides 3 and 4. When I was done, having sampled the likes of “I Get Around”, “Don’t Worry Baby”, “California Girls”, and “Help Me, Rhonda”, I had heard 20 songs, liked them all, loved most, and had a new favorite group. More important, I looked at the composer credits and found that Brian Wilson (abetted on many of the tracks by a separate lyricist) was responsible for all of this brilliance. If I had thought it impossible that one group, one album, could have so many amazing songs on it, how much more outrageous was it to learn that it all came from the mind of one man? (The man, incidentally, with the sour expression trying to hide behind the foliage on the cover.)

I wasn’t done. I still had a coupon for another selection. I looked at the catalog and there was Spirit of America, the companion compilation to Endless Summer (which did include “Barbara Ann”). When it arrived, I had 20 more slices of insanely catchy melodies to play. I began collecting Beach Boys records and researching the history of the group. I came to realize that Brian Wilson wasn’t just the mastermind behind the group, he was now my hero. Not a hero like the Thing, someone who would help me through my adolescence, but a hero I could grow up with, someone whose music and whose very life would continue to inspire and speak to me to the present day, even after the thousands of other LPs and CDs I bought after he turned me into a music nut.

The Ecstasy of Music

“O come, let us sing unto the Lord: let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation/Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.” – Psalm 95: 1-2

I don’t care what your view on religion is, you have to love the psalms. No one knows what the first music was, or who wrote the very first songs (it wasn’t Barry Manilow; it wasn’t even some-time Beach Boy Bruce Johnston, who wrote “I Write the Songs”), but it’s clear that a primary purpose and subject was praise to God or gods, using melody, meter, and rhythm to come closer to the unknowable. Sure, there are spoken prayers and unspoken pleadings, but it was well understood that to cut through the clutter, you needed a trumpet, a timbrel, a tune.

How important were songs to the ancient Israelites? Let’s glance at another psalm:

“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion/We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof/For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion/How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” – Psalm 137:1-4

This one, of course, was written during the time of the Babylonian Exile. It is an extremely mournful psalm, no less than a dirge. They sat down, they wept. Further, they hanged their harps on the willows! Their instruments were of no use anymore, so inconsolable were they. And to add insult to injury, their captives, their tormentors, made them sing their songs, like a cruel overseer standing before a group of African slaves demanding to hear a song of celebration from the land in which they were taken, the land where their ancestors are buried. How indeed can they sing such a song in a strange land?

And yet, how has any group successfully made the transition from one country, one culture, to another, whether the move was voluntary or forced? By hanging onto their traditions, of course. Their cuisine, customs, clothing; their language; their holidays; their music. It’s why the Jews have survived everywhere they’ve gone, it’s how Asians, Africans, Latinos, Europeans, and all other groups maintained their identities regardless of where they are transplanted. By bringing their songs with them into the strange land.

As an art form, as a mode of communication, music cuts deeper than anything else. I suppose it, like anything else, affects different people differently, but throughout history music has been shown again and again to serve as soother, motivator, convener, wooer, and consoler. It’s everything you need it to be, and it has served all those roles and more for me throughout my life.

Like anything that excites the chemicals in your brain, music can also act like a drug. I certainly have felt high while listening to music, and the best part is that it’s readily available and doesn’t cause bad come-downs. Back when I used to indulge in such behavior, I always knew that when it came time to marry and start a family, I would do so cleanly. And in fact, the last time I smoked pot was the night before my wedding. I was solid in my decision and confident that I could close one door while opening the other without wanting to turn back. The one thing that concerned me, though, was whether I could enjoy music as intensely straight as I had stoned.

See, one thing pot does to you is to give you immense powers of focus and concentration. Taken to an extreme, it can leave you totally fixated on something or nothing to the extent that you look and act catatonic. That’s why when you’re straight and you’re within a group of stoned people, you realize how boring they are when they’re stoned. But I loved listening to music stoned, feeling every note and beat pulsing through my entire being. I felt like the music was consuming me, or that I had consumed it, the music and I were one, intertwined and ecstatic at this magical union of sound and spirit. I used to close my eyes at such moments and visualize the music as being a silver rope dancing in dark space like a cobra to a charmer’s flute in a street market in India.

Happily, I found – and am all too happy to promote the idea – that drugs don’t make the music listening experience so satisfying, the music itself does. Drugs really don’t add anything to the mix, other than allowing you to ignore everything going on around you, which isn’t always the best thing for you anyway. I still feel the ecstasy of music, still seek it out like any addict would his fix, and am grateful for those experiences when it all goes beyond simple enjoyment into another realm of deep spiritual fulfillment and inspiration. When it becomes, in other words, a religious experience.

I remember seeing the documentary The Gospel According to Al Green – actually I’ve seen it a few times, but the first time I saw it I was this close to converting. There was footage at the end of the movie where Reverend Al, still as sexy and sultry as when he sang secular hits like “Let’s Stay Together,” was singing in his church. And the sweat was pouring down, and people in the congregation were swaying and shouting and near to passing out with the sheer pull of the music, and as I sat there in my seat I could feel the tingling in my legs and it was all I could do not to stand up and be overcome with the spirit, shouting to witness and pleading for a blessing of salvation.


I was in a bookstore once, one of those places that has stacks and stacks of discontinued titles for small money. And I saw a book with a cover photo that made me stop and look closer. It was a black-and-white photograph of a long-haired cellist with a look of pure ecstasy on her face – not at all the composure of a typical classical musician. It was a biography of Jacqueline du Pre, whom I’d never heard of. But I was so compelled by that photo (and the low price) that I bought it and began reading it immediately. By the time I was halfway done with it, I’d already bought a 3-CD set of her cello concertos. She was touched with a gift beyond quantification, an intoxicating combination of the sheer joy of creation and the sheer force of spiritual awakening. I was hooked on the book, the music, and the person, who tragically died young, no doubt by the incredible weight of all that musical feeling.



In light of that, there have been times I have seen Brian Wilson in concert and been reduced to tears at the miracle of his endurance; without music, he could not live. Whatever brain damage he may have from his years of drug abuse and mental illness, it has not affected his capacity to make music and his ability to sustain his artistry when so many others of his generation are gone is testament to the life force that music is to him. There are those, among them unknown autistic savants as well as professionals like Brian, Andy Pratt, and jazz trumpeter Tom Harrell who only seem “normal” when they’re playing music. When the playing ends, their ability to successfully interact with the external world is hindered to some extent. What is it about me that envies people like that?


One more. My wife, when we were dating, would ask me lots of probing, difficult questions to learn more about me. It was like doing a psychological intake. One of the questions she asked me was, “If you had to give up either your sense of sight or your sense of hearing, which would you give up?” I didn’t even think twice about it. I’d rather be blind than deaf. Apparently, most people answer the other way, believing that not being able to hear is less of a handicap, especially in terms of personal safety and happiness, than not being able to see. But I didn’t see it that way; blind I could still enjoy music. And as tangible proof for why I need my hearing more than my sight, I offered up the 20 seconds of Aretha Franklin’s song “Angel” from about 3:37-3:57 where she sings, “There’s no misery – aaaaahooooow – like the misery I feel in me/Gotta find me an angel in my life.” That “aaaaahooooow” sums up every ounce of pain and loneliness in the singer’s heart and it’s a howl at the moon, a cry in the dark, and a shriek in the woods lost alone at night that seizes my own heart and makes me feel exactly what Aretha’s feeling. I can only imagine that I would be able to visualize that feeling even more without the sense of sight. But to not be able to hear her sing that again – even just that 20 seconds – is simply unimaginable to me.


So where is all this coming from? I was driving in my car this morning, listening to a Van Morrison live album called A Night in San Francisco. The track was a 16-minute medley of Brook Benton’s “I’ll Take Care of You” and James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World.” I can’t even describe to you how the performance progresses, but it builds with intensity, then the band pulls back a bit, inserts a piano solo, then builds it back up, eases a little, then plows ahead and when the music seemingly hit its peak it just kept going and I was going with it – going crazy with ecstasy, that is. I started getting chills, literally, goose bumps up and down my arms. Then the background singers did this funny chant, “Van is nooooooo prima donna” over and over, but instead of being funny it was totally fucking true and another wave of chills and goosebumps came over me. Then one of the band yells out, a reference to another Morrison tune, “Did you get healed?” and now my goosebumps have goosebumps (“Hell yes!” is my enthusiastic response) and the music’s not giving an inch, it keeps on pounding and suddenly I was overcome with that feeling of such intense pleasure where it’s almost too much of a good thing, like when a woman keeps licking your knob after you’ve shot your load and I just had to shout out loud and I did and thank God my windows were closed and thank God for ears that hear and good Lord what a joyful noise that was and I could sing this song in any land. And at that moment, no drug and no religion and no woman could have given me the feeling that that music gave me. And like a junkie has to find that high, and Aretha has to find that angel, I have to keep finding that feeling from music. And the good thing is, I know I’ll find it, again and again. And that’s why I’m a music nut. Hosanna.