THE BEATLES - ABBEY ROAD @ 55

 

Released on September 26th, 1969, the "sort of" penultimate Beatles LP, Abbey Road, turns 55 years old today. The confusion of its chronology comes from the fact that it was recorded after the Get Back/Let It Be sessions, but released before Let It Be. As such, it represents the last time the Beatles, as a group, were in a recording studio together at the same time.

The background for Abbey Road is inextricably linked with the Get Back sessions that preceded its recording. The Get Back project had rather spun off the rails to a large degree, with its plans for a return to the bands roots, documented in excruciating detail in a planned documentary film and capped off with an elaborate live performance, undermined as the group's internal relationships continued to fragment and their grandiose plans only culminated with a bizarre, albeit infamous, roof-top live performance atop the EMI recording studios (later renamed Abbey Road).

Following the rooftop gig, what would be the last ever live performance by the band, Paul McCartney suggested a regrouping effort to producer George Martin, who agreed to the concept with the provision that he be given full producer authority over the sessions like during the group's earlier albums. The fragmentation of the group had set in during the so-called "White Album" sessions, a situation that the Get Back project had meant to address, but which had only fermented more. Abbey Road was sort of a last-ditch effort to try to restore a sense of unity in the band, but even with the best of intentions, some antagonisms were simply too deeply rooted to extricate.

Lennon's insistence on including Yoko Ono in the sessions was one such ongoing source of conflict and consternation in the band. This even extended to the point where, after Lennon and Ono were in a car crash, resulting in an injury to Ono, Lennon had a hospital bed installed in the studio to accommodate her recovery and allow her to continue to observe the band's activities. Harrison's relationship with the group was also continuing to strain as he attempted to assert a greater influence on the album's content. But it wasn't all gritting teeth and exasperation in the studio. For the most part, the mood was actually mostly cordial and pleasant much of the time, though the underlying stresses would simply never entirely abate.

Despite the percolating tensions, the group's creativity was bolstered by the use of some cutting edge technology, principally in the form of an eight track recording system with a solid state mixing console, both of which helped the group to achieve a far more expansive sound, with the freedom to explore even more complex overdubbing. The other notable bit of kit was the MOOG modular synth system that Harrison had purchased the previous year and used for his sophomore solo release, Electronic Sound. While the instrument had been used for little more than noodling effects on that album, by the time it was incorporated into the Abbey Road sessions, Harrison's prowess with it was sufficient that it became integrated as proper musical accompaniment and not merely for exotic sound effects.

For the album's cover, McCartney had conceived of the idea of a photo of the band crossing the street outside the EMI studios building at Abbey Road, which would also give the album its title. Apple Records creative director John Kosh designed the album cover. It is the only original UK Beatles album sleeve to show neither the artist name nor the album title on its front, which was Kosh's idea, despite EMI saying the record would not sell without this information. He later explained that "we didn't need to write the band's name on the cover. They were the most famous band in the world". The iconic image has since gone on to become one of the most recognized, replicated and imitated group photos to ever be created. Scores of fans have tried to recreated the photo, and in 2011, a webcam was installed at the crossing. The cover also helped stoke the "Paul is dead" conspiracy, with McCartney appearing in the photo as out of step with the others in the band, holding his cigarette in the wrong hand, and the only one barefoot, leading to speculation that these were somehow symbolic of the person in the photo being an imposter.

The album was released with virtually no promotional campaign, amid internal disintegration, with Lennon already having announced his intention to leave and Paul about to make a public statement of his departure, thus formalizing the band's dissolution. But promotion wasn't much required as the album immediately shot to the top of the charts, where it lingered for quite some time. The group machinery continued to hang on long enough for a reassessment of the Get Back material, which was put in the hands of Phil Spector to get it finished while the group disintegrated.

While the sales for the album were brisk, critical response was mixed, with some finding the use of the electronics gimmicky and the songwriting inauthentic. Regardless of this initial ambivalence, retrospectively, the album has become considered perhaps the band's most lauded and appreciated release. While it may not have had the conceptual and cultural impact of Sgt. Pepper, in the long run, aficionados of the band repeatedly cite the LP as their crowning achievement. Whether that's the case is a matter of preference in the end.

JOHN LENNON - WALLS AND BRIDGES @ 50

 

Celebrating its golden jubilee at 50 years old is John Lennon's fifth solo studio album, Walls and Bridges, which was released on September 26th, 1974. While the album came along at the tail end of Lennon's notorious "lost weekend" era, its a remarkably coherent release, containing one of his most successful solo singles, Whatever Gets You Through the Night.

Back in June of 1973, Yoko Ono had suggested a separation between her and John, as an attempt to try to create some space between them and allow for a reassessment of their marriage. Lennon, with Yoko's encouragement, left NYC to set up camp in LA, taking along personal assistant and paramour, May Pang. Once in LA, Lennon briefly became involved in the now legendary LA party club, The Hollywood Vampires, an outfit that started as a softball team, but quickly mutated into a cadre of professional boozers haunting the LA strip, which included as its core members: ex-Monkee Micky Dolenz, Alice Cooper and Harry Nilsson. Lennon also got the chance to reconnect with firstborn son, Julian while in LA.

The initial plan was to record an album of classic vintage rock 'n' roll covers, with Phil Spectre producing. While the booze flowed and the tapes rolled, material was recorded, but the album went into limbo after Lennon and Pang returned to NYC and Spectre disappeared for a time with the recordings. The "Rock 'N' Roll" album would eventually get released in 1975, but in the meantime, Lennon returned to the east coast with a batch of new songs and a desire to get back into the studio to record something fresh.

Lennon began rehearsing his new material with studio musicians at Record Plant East in New York City in June 1974, which included Jim Keltner on drums, Klaus Voormann on bass guitar, Jesse Ed Davis on guitar and Arthur Jenkins on percussion. Once sessions began, a number of notable guests popped in, including Elton John, who helped out on Whatever Gets You Through the Night. Harry Nilsson contributed to Old Dirt Road, and son Julian played drums on the album closer, Ya Ya. Despite Lennon's debauchery in LA, the NYC sessions were noted as being surprisingly professional, with Lennon being organized and prepared throughout, though the core musicians were mostly responsible for working out their own arrangements as the recordings progressed.

The album proved to be exceptionally popular with fans, though critics were divided at the time, albeit the majority of reviews were some of the most positive for Lennon since the release of Imagine in 1971. Thought it might have seemed like Lennon was revitalizing his career, Walls and Bridges would turn out to be his penultimate collection of original music. The Rock 'N' Roll covers album would get finished and released in 1975, and then Lennon would take a five year career hiatus as he reconnected with Yoko Ono with the birth of their only child, Sean. Lennon's desire to be a present father for Sean trumped any career aspirations at that time. Sadly, as Lennon and Ono were on the path to reasserting their creative presence with the split Double Fantasy album, Lennon's career and life would come to a tragic end that fateful day in NYC outside his Manhattan apartment building.

THE RESIDENTS - ESKIMO @45

 

Marking its 45th anniversary today is the sixth studio LP from those mysterious masked music makers, The Residents, with their epic masterpiece, Eskimo, being released on September 26th, 1979. It's an album that would indelibly define the iconography of the group, while demonstrating their conceptual depth to a degree never previously achieved, and rarely match afterwards.

The background of Eskimo's genesis is shrouded by a combination of deliberate misinformation, myth and hearsay, with only fragments of the story seeming to have any firm basis in actual historical fact. Even the concept itself, while superficially intended to function as anthropological documentation, is in reality only conjecture based on cultural ignorance and stereotyping. This is a deliberate commentary on how British & European cultural imperialism has chosen to misrepresent indigenous peoples over the centuries. The album's themes and stories are all built on either popular misconceptions of Inuit culture and life, or outright fabrications, informed by consumerist archetypes and slogans. In that sense, the project is a deft commentary on how aboriginal culture has been distorted and appropriated by colonialist interlopers.

According to the group's internal mythologizing, the initial idea for the album came into consideration sometime in 1976, shortly after completing Third Reich 'N Roll, when the group's mysterious mentor, the enigmatic N. Senada. He had reappeared after going missing for a year, vanishing in the middle of the ill-fated Vileness Fats film project. He had apparently gone to the far north, returning with recordings of Arctic wind and a jar of air, and an inspiration for capturing the culture of the native peoples in song and stories. Given the group's penchant for fictionalizing their existence and history, trying to decipher the true instigation of the idea might be a little difficult. I can't be sure N. Senada even existed as a real person. Yet it is at least reasonable to accept that the idea for the album does, in fact, date to the period suggested.

What also seems to be believable, albeit with the specifics still being in question, is that the project became a beast for the group to tackle. It has been said that one critical reason for it taking 3 years to manifest is the fact that the technology for creating the album simply didn't exist at the time it was conceived, necessitating the group inventing instruments and techniques in order to achieve the desired results. Synthesizers were just beginning to become affordable for the average artist, and sampling was still a few years away from practical implementation. The conceptual complexity of the work, and its need to be a fully integrated and coherent expression, inevitably resulted in strained relationships within the collective, as various contributors held on to convictions that didn't always align with others. The brutal intricacy of it all put everyone involved into a state of high stress and exasperation as the project dragged on.

It's no wonder then that the group would have to let off some steam by indulging in some creativity unburdened by excessive conceptual constraints. Concurrent with the production of Eskimo, The Residents would release the Fingerprince LP (1977), and two EPs, which would quickly become combined into a single album known as Duck Stab / Buster and Glen (1978). Additionally, the Satisfaction single would see a reissue, spurred on by the success of DEVO's cover of the same song, and the Not Available album, recorded in 1974 immediately after Meet the Residents and intended to be an expression of the "theory of obscurity" by never being actually released, would be reluctantly issued as a stopgap while Eskimo's release kept getting delayed. According to the band's biographers, these latter releases caused conflicts between the band and their "management", the Cryptic Corporation, but given that those entities were, in reality, the same people, I can only assume what that means is that not everyone was in agreement with these titles coming to press when they did, further straining relationships within the group. There are even rumours of the "band" disappearing with the Eskimo master tapes in protest, requiring negotiations within the organization. Perhaps some faction did indeed take a powder with the masters, but all of this may simply be apocryphal fiction manufactured for the benefit of press and amusement of fans.

Despite all the struggles, the album did, finally, come together, as a single LP with six tracks, each accompanied by a narrative text relating the details of the tale being told by the music. Listeners were encouraged to read along with the music, a similar concept to what Michael Nesmith had done in 1974 with his concept album, The Prison, which was also a selection of songs that were accompanied by a book, with each chapter being integrated with a corresponding song.

Musically, what was presented was the most technically complex the group had ever constructed, with mostly electronic sounds emulating the cold, harsh environment of the Arctic while often unintelligible voices brought the stories to life, sometimes incorporating corporate giggle parodies, like the Coke-a-Cola song, into the tribal chanting. Taken as a whole, listening to the album was an entirely immersive experience.

For the cover graphics, the group debuted their brand new costumes, featuring the members in tuxedos with giant eyeball heads peaked by jaunty top hats. The effectiveness of the image was so utterly iconic and instantly recognizable that, virtually overnight, if became the default image for the group, a representation that would remain indelibly etched in the public mind for the rest of the band's career. Though they would subsequently evolve a wide variety of costumes, with entirely distinctive themes, they'd never be able to shake the association with those outfits.

Eskimo was my gateway into the world of The Residents. I'd seen the Ralph Records ads in various music magazines for a few years, but it was the striking look of that album, along with the crystal clear focus of its concept, that drew me to them, and I soon backtracked through their early catalogue thereafter, and followed the group closely through the Mole Trilogy. In my mind, Eskimo is something of a high watermark for the group, though they hit many highs before and after its release. Still, it remains the most emblematic of their albums. It certainly helped establish them as the masters of weirdness, securing them a dedicated fan-base among the alternative music fans of the post-punk era. They've done many concept albums throughout their career, but Eskimo will always stand in my mind as the most succinctly perfect of them all.