NICO - CHELSEA GIRL @ 55

 

Released in October of 1967, the debut solo LP by Nico, Chelsea Girl, is marking its 55th anniversary this month. Coming on after her involvement with the debut Velvet Underground album & Exploding Plastic Inevitable tour, Chelsea Girl is a rather skewed representation of the chanteuse as an artist, offering her little creative input for the album while obscuring her presence with distracting and unwanted musical elements.

After recording and touring with the VU in 1966 and early 1967, Nico moved to New York City and took up residence in a coffeehouse as a solo folk performer, often accompanied by Jackson Brown or various rotating VU members on guitar. When the proposition of a solo album for the German native loomed, her accompanists set about contributing songs for her to sing, with Brown, Lou Reed, John Cale and even Bob Dylan offering material. Nico only got a single writing credit for It Was A Pleasure Then. Production was handled by Tom Wilson, who despite Nico’s assertions, refused to use any drums or bass on the album and, without her knowledge or consent, added overdubs of strings and flute, much to the singer’s dismay. She is quoted as saying,

“I still cannot listen to it, because everything I wanted for that record, they took it away. I asked for drums, they said no. I asked for more guitars, they said no. And I asked for simplicity, and they covered it in flutes! ... They added strings and – I didn't like them, but I could live with them. But the flute! The first time I heard the album, I cried and it was all because of the flute.”

Stylistically, the album ended up landing somewhere between chamber folk and baroque pop. Critics have, in turn, praised it as a “masterpiece”, on one hand, and as having been “sabotaged”, as Trouser Press would eventually decry. Personally, I find it mostly enjoyable and listenable, but not particularly representative of what she’d eventually create with such monolithic & somber albums as The Marble Index, Desertshore & The End.

CAPTAIN BEEFHEART & THE MAGIC BAND - CLEAR SPOT @ 50

 

Marking half a century on the shelves this month, it’s Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band with their seventh studio LP, Clear Spot, released in October, 1972. While Beefheart had established himself as the owner of the outfields when it came to extreme music, with classics like Trout Mask Replica, bills had to be paid and pushing boundaries wasn’t bringing home the bacon.

This desire to align more to the mainstream had been a driving force with the Spotlight Kid LP from earlier in the year and it continued to push priorities for Clear Spot. However, while Spotlight Kid felt strained and left many in the band and their fans feeling less than satisfied, the recruitment of Doobie Bros producer, Ted Templeman, seemed to bring the balance between avant-garde and accessibility into an alignment which felt far more rewarding and far less like a compromise. The clarity of his production allowed the eccentricities of Beefheart’s music to mellow out enough to create an accessibility which had been elusive on previous albums.

Some of the ranks of the band were being shuffled around at this time with longtime drummer, John “Drumbo” French, departing and being replaced by Art Tripp. Zappa bassist, Roy Estrada, also joined along with regulars, Bill Harkleroad (Zoot Horn Rollo) and Mark Boston (Rockette Morton) on guitars. Much of the music had been developing since the Spotlight Kid sessions, but once it got into fully produced form, was certainly not anything that could be considered “leftovers”. Ultimately, the album proved to be the pinnacle of Beefheart's attempts at more mainstream, commercial variations on their angular, challenging aesthetic.

Unfortunately, the attempts to break into bigger sales figures still never materialized with the album barely charting in the US and flying completely below the radar in the UK. Though the effort may not have resulted in the popularity they’d wanted, the album still holds up as one of their most professionally realized productions, held aloft by solid songwriting and inventive musicianship. The edges were still there, but wielded with more restraint and intent. For those looking for a gateway album into the world of the Captain, Clear Spot might just be the ticket.

DONAL FAGEN - THE NIGHTFLY @ 40

 

Released 40 years ago today, it’s the debut solo LP from Steely Dan co-founder, Donald Fagen. The Nightfly was issued on October 1st, 1982 and immediately established Fagen both critically and commercially as a force to be reckoned with.

After working with Walter Becker for 14 years, first as a staff songwriting team for ABC Records and then founding Steely Dan in 1972, the duo were finding their relationship strained by the grueling experience of recording Gaucho, the 1980 album which would become the studio swansong for Steely Dan until some 20 years later with the 2000 release of their reunion album, Two Against Nature. Gaucho sessions were so difficult that the atmosphere was reported to be downright “depressing”, a situation aggravated the mutual perfectionism of the two and by Becker’s reported substance abuse issues at the time. Though the album ended up being another massive success, its aftermath fostered a mutual understanding that some creative space was needed, with Fagen already contemplating solo projects. Though it would be two decades between Dan LPs, the duo weren’t completely estranged from each other through those years as they would eventually contribute to each other’s subsequent solo albums and engage in some tours as Steely Dan in the interim. However, Becker wasn’t involved at all with Nightfly.

Creatively, Fagen decided to delve into very personal territory for song inspirations on his solo debut, dipping back into his youth and childhood memories. That ended up making the album more optimistic and nostalgic that cynical & ironic, as he was often prone to be. The opener is very much inspired by mid-century modernist & futurist conceptions of the “world of tomorrow”, with that “wheel in space” and “spandex jackets, one for everyone”. It all sounds very naive and overtly innocent, though you can still lightly sense the cynic lurking beneath the star gazing breezy melodies. The move away from irony and into pure “fun” was intentional, as was the shift to a jazzier style. Memories of late nigh jazz radio as a child are reflected in the album's music as well as on the cover, which shows Fagen as a DJ, spinning obscure records for a meager twilight audience, enraptured by his muse while feeling the loneliness of the booth. It may not have the bite of Steely Dan’s work, but it certainly had the ability to be evocative.

Technically, it was something of a groundbreaking record, being one of the first fully digitally produced albums. Much of the production team and many of the musicians were from the Steely Dan stable of producers, engineers and players, having worked on the group’s albums throughout the previous decade, but many had to take special courses with 3M on how to work with the brand new, state-of-the-art digital recording equipment. The challenge of dealing with the tech was only compounded by also having to continue to cater to Fagen’s meticulous perfectionism.

The album was recorded at studios in LA and NYC throughout 1981/82 and Fagen, rather than doing any “live in studio” recording with the band to get bed tracks established, opted to record each component individually, a process that was doubly painstaking as the techs struggled to develop an affinity for the digital tools. At times, recording was derailed by external distractions like a large magnet outside the studio, which was part of the NY subway system, causing a persistent hum in the guitar amp, and then there was the instance where a strange smell drove the staff to gut the studio, removing its air conditioning, carpeting, and recording console until they discovered the cause of the smell: a deceased rat in a drainpipe!

Hurdles surmounted, the album was finally released and its reception was decidedly positive on all fronts, gaining near universal accolades from critics and spawning two major hit singles. Like the preceding Dan LPs, audiophiles have made it a favorite demonstration record for their expensive hi-fi systems, though the initially CD version should be avoided due to having been mastered from a 3rd generation copy of the album. It was actually Stevie Wonder who helped identify that issue by reporting its compromised sound to Fagen. This issue has been, one would assume, remedied by later remastered editions.

THE DOORS - STRANGE DAYS @ 55

 

Released 55 years ago today, it’s the sophomore LP by The Doors, Strange Days, which was issued on September 25th, 1967. While its popularity was muted by the towering success of the group’s debut, creatively, it takes more chances and pushes the group into new artistic territory.

Part of the impetus for the experimentation employed for Strange Days was the receipt of an advance copy of The Beatles Sgt. Pepper album. The Doors were blown away by what they heard on Sgt. Pepper and immediately committed to pushing themselves in the studio for their next release. Technically, this was aided by being able to record on a state of the art 8 track system, which opened up a new range of production possibilities. The group and their production team also employed a wide range of experimental techniques such as vari-speed recording (changing the record/playback speeds of tracks to alter their pitch and tone) back-masking (reversing the direction of the tape) and incorporating unusual instrumentation. This included the use of the MOOG synthesizer system, which was - along with The Monkees on Daily Nightly & Star Collector in the same year, one of the first uses of the instrument in pop music. The band made every effort to explore new instruments and techniques wherever they could.

Upon its release, it sold and charted very well, but the shadow cast by their debut was impossible to escape and inevitably gave the follow-up a perception of being less successful. The fact that many of the songs on their second album were around during the recording of the first album gave some the impression that the best of the batch had been cherry-picked for their debut. But the reality is that Strange Days only lacks in comparison and, taken on its own merits, is a remarkably crafted example of psychedelic music which eschews the usual cliches of the genre and establishes itself with its own distinctive voice.

BLACK SABBATH - VOL. 4 @ 50

 

Celebrating half a century on the shelves today is the fourth studio album from Black Sabbath, Vol. 4, which was released on September 25th, 1972. It’s an album created in a blizzard of cocaine and somewhat miraculous in the fact that it managed to manifest and turn out as coherent and powerful as it is.

The album was recorded in LA when the band were at the peak of their dalliance with the “snow white”. They were literally having speaker boxes shipped into the studio filled with what they described as the purest, whitest, most potent blow they’d ever seen. No one had any idea where it was coming from, but it’s best not to ask too many questions about things like this. The drug and booze consumption during the sessions meant that the recording process was fraught with difficulties as the band teetered on the brink of oblivion. Drummer, Bill Ward, recalls feeling like he was on the verge of being sacked from the band as he struggled to nail one particular drum part for Cornucopia. He hated the song and spent a great deal of time in the middle of the room, just doing drugs. He eventually managed to nail the parts, but felt the cold shoulder from the band and was expecting to get the boot after that. But being fired might have been the least of his woes as Ward nearly met his maker when the band found him passed out naked in the mansion they were staying at and through it would be a laugh to cover him in gold spray paint. The drug situation became a point of paranoia after the group attended a screening of The French Connection, a film about an undercover heroine operation, which left Ozzy hyperventilating by the end of the movie, freaked out at the prospect of the band being busted.

Despite the chaos and substance abuse, the stars were still aligned enough for the band to craft another solid slab of metal mayhem. This was the first LP the band produced themselves. In reality it was mostly down to Tony Iommi for all practical purposes, though the band’s manager, Patrick Meehan, insisted on a co-producer credit. The band recount him having negligible involvement in the actual process, however. Musically, they were starting to try out some new tricks with their style. They still maintained their heaviness, but were able to showcase a more emotionally subtle range with tracks like Changes, which has since become an iconic example of their softer side. The song was written by Iommi with lyrics by Butler and was performed on piano and mellotron. Tony had taught himself how to play piano while killing time at the mansion they were based at. Ozzy recalls that Iommi just sat down at the piano one day and out popped this gorgeous melody for the song. Ozzy started to hum a vocal counter-melody while Butler wrote a heartbreaking lyric based on Bill’s breakup with his wife. Snowblind, on the other hand, delves into the band’s cocaine indulgence and was intended to be the title track for the album, but the band’s record label balked at the thought of such a blatant drug reference for an LP title and they were forced to settled with the rather more innocuous “Vol. 4” instead.

At the time of its release, the critics were in the habit of treating the band with little respect and had a tendency to dismiss, disparage and ridicule their output, though Lester Bangs would be one of the few who was able to appreciate their achievements on this album. While he’d been harsh on their previous albums, his review in CREEM stated: “We have seen the Stooges take on the night ferociously and go tumbling into the maw, and Alice Cooper is currently exploiting it for all it's worth, turning it into a circus. But there's only one band that's dealt with it honestly on terms meaningful to vast portions of the audience, not only grappling with it in a mythic structure that's both personal and powerful but actually managing to prosper as well. And that band is Black Sabbath." He went on to compare their lyrics to the work of Dylan and Burroughs. As the decades have passed and critics have moved beyond the trendy temptation to bash the band, albums like this now find themselves frequently populating top 100 lists of all-time best rock & metal albums. Negativity from the critics didn’t dent the band’s popularity with their fans and the album became a platinum seller with easy.

STEELY DAN - AJA @ 45

 

Marking its 45th anniversary today is the sixth and penultimate Steely Dan studio album before going on a 20 year hiatus from recording. Aja (pronounced “Asia”) was released on September 23rd, 1977 and took the group to new heights of complexity and sophistication, not only in terms of songwriting and performance, but also in the technical quality of the recordings they were able to achieve. Indeed, since its release, it has become a favorite demonstration record for audiophiles looking to show off their expensive hi-fi equipment.

Musically, Becker and Fagen were able to create a fusion of jazz and pop music which was so complete that it succeeded in obliterating any meaningful distinction between the genres. You can’t call it pop music with a jazz influence or jazz music slumming it as radio fodder. The distinctions are simply meaningless as the genetic codes of each are so completely intertwined that they are effectively inseparable. The result of this is a kind of music that is satisfying both as a casual listening experience while also rewarding those who wish to ply apart the layers and explore the intricacies which have been so carefully crafted within.

Lyrically, Fagan continued to develop his subtle insinuations of cynicism while superficially keeping a smile on his face. It’s an approach that mirrors the deceptiveness of the music in terms of presenting itself as aspirational towards the mainstream while clearly calculating a complexity meant to reward listeners who were able to move beyond mainstream artifice.

The music of Steely Dan was something I couldn’t appreciate in my youth while I was hip deep in teenage angst and the rebellion of "punk". I couldn’t see past the shiny veneer to comprehend the subversion happening beneath its surface. That’s something which only became possible with a level of maturity that could set aside old prejudices and hear these songs for what they really are. The album has become something of a staple in the realm of what’s come to be called “yacht rock”, because of the laid-back vibes, but I think it also underscores the decadence and perversions of the privileged class in a way that’s secretly malicious and therefore, subversively delicious!

TALKING HEADS: 77 @ 45

 

September 17th marks the 45th anniversary of the debut LP by Talking Heads, 77, which was released on this day in, of all years, 1977! While the band came along in parallel with fellow CBGB scene makers like the Ramones and Blondie, they cut a distinctive path of their own, which made it clear that the NYC scene was about far more than three chord thrashing, not that there’s anything wrong with that!

The band had been courted by numerous record labels for some time prior to finally signing with Sire Records to record their debut. The problem was that the group simply didn’t feel competent enough to pull off a satisfying recording and also felt their ranks needed to be expanded from a trio to a quartet, which took a bit of searching before coming across former Modern Lovers keyboardist/guitarist, Jerry Harrison. Lou Reed had taken a keen interest in mentoring the group early on after seeing them live a few times at CBGB. He even invited them over to his place for a critique one night where he advised them on adjusting some song arrangements, recommending a slower tempo for one song, and he cautioned David Byrne against wearing short sleeves on stage due to his excessively hairy arms. Lou nudged them towards his manager, who immediately offered them a contract, but the band were savvy enough to have a lawyer take a look at it before signing anything. He warned that the deal would leave them with virtually no control or cash from their efforts, so they respectfully declined, while tactfully maintaining their friendship with Reed. It was Ramones manager, Danny Hyde, who encouraged them to sign with Sire, in the end, stating that, while the label suffered from most of the same pitfalls as major labels, they were still more supportive of their bands in the long run.

Sessions for the LP started in late 1976, before Jerry had joined, but these were only preliminary efforts and proper work on the album wouldn’t start until April of the next year when the group had finalized its lineup. After two weeks, the basic bed tracks were completed and the final overdubs and vocal sessions happened after the group completed a short tour of Europe, which was an opportunity they couldn’t pass up.

Production on the album was a bit conflicted as one of the producers involved had proven somewhat difficult to work with. Tony Bongiovi was supposed to co-produce, but Chris Franz claimed he mostly talked on the phone, read magazines and talked about airplanes. He reportedly gave David Byrne a knife before recording vocals for Psycho Killer, telling him to “get into character”, but Byrne wasn’t into Tony’s approach to “method singing” and declined. David eventually asking that Bongiovi be removed from the session as he made him feel uncomfortable watching while he tried to record his vocals. The group made efforts to get a replacement producer while touring in Europe, but to no avail.

The album was released to consistently positive reviews across the board and immediately established Talking Heads as serious contenders within the NYC/CBGB new music scene. Defining the more intellectual spearhead of what would be distinguished as “new wave”, as opposed to the rawer, faster “punk” characterized by the Ramones, they became college radio darlings. David Byrne’s angular, jagged presence epitomized the character of the “power-nerd”. Critic Robert Christgau said of the album/band…

“Like Sparks, these are spoiled kids, but without the callowness or adolescent misogyny; like Yes, they are wimps, but without vagueness or cheap romanticism. Every tinkling harmony is righted with a screech, every self-help homily contextualized dramatically, so that in the end, the record proves not only that the detachment of craft can coexist with a frightening intensity of feeling, something most artists know, but that the most inarticulate rage can be rationalized. Which means they're punks after all.”