JOHN LENNON & YOKO ONO - WEDDING ALBUM @ 55

 

Marking its 55th anniversary today is the third LP in the triptych of experimental records released by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in the late 1960s, with the Wedding Album being released on October 20th, 1969. It followed Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins (1968) and Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions (earlier in 1969). The album was intended as a fan souvenir of the nuptials for John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

The first side of the album, John & Yoko, is something of an homage to Stan Freberg's 1951 novelty single, John & Marsha, where male and female voices are heard saying each other's names with varying emotional inflections atop maudlin romantic music, escalating the melodrama as the recording progresses. For John & Yoko, the music is replaced with recordings of the heartbeats of Lennon & Ono, and the exchange is extended across the entire side of the album, delivering nearly 23 minutes of an endurance test for listeners as the couple emote each other's names in dramatic exhortations.

Amsterdam, the side long recording on the flip of the LP, is something of a collage of interviews explaining their campaign for peace, conversations and captured sounds during the couple's "Bed-In" honeymoon. An early form of what would become "John John Let's Hope for Peace" forms the beginning of "Amsterdam". There were also four other musical interludes, including Lennon performing a blues-style composition on acoustic guitar, featuring the words "Goodbye Amsterdam Goodbye". Ono sings "Grow Your Hair", a song regarding peace. Lennon sings a brief excerpt in a cappella of the Beatles song "Good Night". The last interlude is a short recitation of the words "Bed peace" and "Hair peace".

The album was first issued in the US on October 20th, followed by the UK release on November 7th, 1969. The record came as an elaborate box set designed by John Kosh, including sets of photos, drawings by Lennon, a reproduction of the marriage certificate, a picture of a slice of wedding cake (inside a white sleeve), and a booklet of press clippings about the couple. It also included a Mylar bag that had the word "Bagism" printed on it. While it failed to touch the UK charts, it grazed the bottom of them in the US, peaking at 178 and lingering for three weeks. Regarding the limited success, Lennon later addressed it saying, "It was like our sharing our wedding with whoever wanted to share it with us. We didn't expect a hit record out of it. It was more of a... that's why we called it Wedding Album. You know, people make a wedding album, show it to the relatives when they come round. Well, our relatives are the... what you call fans, or people that follow us outside. So that was our way of letting them join in on the wedding".

Melody Maker critic Richard Williams was given two single-sided test pressings for his review (which appeared on the front page of the November 15th issue). Each had a blank side featuring only an engineer's test signal, but Williams mistook it for a double album. In his review, he noted that sides two and four consisted entirely "of single tones maintained throughout, presumably produced electronically", and that the pitch of the notes appeared to change slightly. Lennon and Ono sent a telegram to Williams thanking him for his review and writing: "We both feel that this is the first time a critic topped the artist. We are not joking."

THE SPECIALS @ 45

Released on October 19th, 1979, the debut eponymous LP from The Specials is turning 45 years old today. If you were to only have one UK ska album in your collection, it might as well be this one because it’s simply so concise and thorough that it captures every important aspect of the genre and movement, at least as far as it manifested in its revived form at the end of the 1970s.

Following in the wake of punk, the UK SKA scene took the anger and social outrage of punk and channelled it into a racially diverse commentary on cultural fusion. The “2 Tone” ideology of black and white working together, in balance and unity, was a forward thinking approach that seems so sadly distant in the post “Brexit” era of UK bigotry and anti-immigration furor. Though there were many vital artists who also came out of this scene, the Specials remain the most memorable and this album captures all the best of their essence across 14 compact and infectious songs.

The Specials came together starting in 1977, with Jerry Dammers as the principal instigator and architect of the band's sound. Initially billed as "Specials AKA", their first brush with success was independently releasing the split single, Gangsters b/w The Selector by the group, The Selector. The success of the single attracted the attention of the majors, and Dammers negotiated a deal with Chrysalis Records to set up 2-Tone as an independent sub-label, leveraging the financial input of the major label while retaining the freedom of 2-Tone to release records by unsigned bands, without requiring them to commit to any obligations to the parent label.

The band had also been making a name for themselves by joining The Clash on tour around the UK. The two bands were very simpatico in terms of their political and social stances, so it was a natural fit and helped to bring the band to national prominence. With their first singles then charting, a full length album was in order, and the group secured Elvis Costello as producer for the sessions. Recording was focused on mostly attempting to recreate the band's live set on LP, incorporating their mix of original songs with updated versions of classic Rock Steady and Ska tunes from the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Surprisingly, when the album was released, while it was a hit in terms of sales, critics at the time were divided on its success. Most of the criticisms that the album received were from people who were intimately familiar with the band's live sound, and they felt that Costello had dampened and muted the group's energy compared to what they delivered on stage. That may well be true, but for those not biased by such preconceptions, the album is considered a flawless masterpiece, encapsulating the spirit and essence of the times with a selection of songs that are unfailing when it comes to delivering the goods. It's an album that has retained every ounce of its power to engage, enrage and inspire, as sharply observant of the times while still completely relevant to the modern worlds. None of the issues it tackles have been really resolved in the decades since its release, so its critiques remain as valid today as they were 45 years ago. Plus you can dance to it!
 

THE ROLLING STONES - IT'S ONLY ROCK 'N' ROLL @ 50

Celebrating its golden jubilee, at 50 years old today, it's the twelfth studio LP by The Rolling Stones, It's Only Rock 'n' Roll, which was released on October 18th, 1974. After something of a slump with their previous album, Goats Head Soup, It's Only Rock 'n' Roll was a bit of a refocusing of the band, albeit it would be the final outing for guitarist Mick Taylor, who would find himself edged out by Ronnie Wood.

In fact, the LP title and associated song would all come from Wood's work on a solo album that happened around the time the Stones were gearing up for their next album after completing a tour to support Goat's Head Soup. Ronnie Wood, a long-time acquaintance of the band, began to get closer to the Rolling Stones after he invited Mick Taylor to play on his debut solo album, I've Got My Own Album to Do. Taylor spent some time recording and hanging out at Wood's house, The Wick. By chance, Richards was asked one night by Wood's wife at the time, Krissy, to join them at the guitarist's home. While there, Richards recorded some tracks with Wood and quickly developed a close friendship, with Richards going as far as moving into Wood's guest room. Jagger soon entered the mix and it was here that the album's lead single and title track, "It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)", was first recorded. Wood worked closely on the track with Jagger, who subsequently took the song and title for their album. The released version of this song features Wood on 12-string acoustic guitar.

The remainder of the album initially started out as a split concept, with the first side intended to be a set of cover versions of classic blues tunes, backed with a live B-side taken from their recent tour. However, while the band recorded several covers for this conception, only one was actually used for the album. Once they got recording and jamming, they soon found that the ideas for new, original songs were quickly percolating up, so the plan of a covers/live LP was scrapped, and an all new set of recordings was created.

As was the case with the previous album, Mick Taylor had been side-stepped when it came to receiving any writing credits for any of the songs, with all the original compositions being credited only to Jagger and Richards. There has since been conflicting comments from Taylor vs Jagger in terms of the assessment of his contributions, with the latter claiming his input was minimal. This certainly played a part in Taylor's decision to leave the group. The other factor was the band's opting not to tour to support the album, choosing instead to go right back into recording and preparation for their next album, what would become Black and Blue, the record that would debut Ron Woods as a full time permanent member of the band.

Another notable aspect of It's Only Rock 'n' Roll is the fact it was the first to be self produced by Keith and Mick, with regular producer Jimmy Miller stepping down from the role he'd filled since Beggars Banquet in 1968. By this point, "The Glimmer Twins", which was the name used for all future Jagger/Richards productions, felt that they had developed enough prowess in the studio to figure out how to get what they wanted. They had their own ideas about how to approach recording now, and didn't need the guidance of a third party.

The album, once it was released, did well enough commercially, hitting #1 in the US, but it stalled at #2 in the UK, breaking a string of #1 albums that stretched back to Let It Bleed in 1969. The title track and lead single also charted well in the UK, but failed to really catch fire in the US. Regardless, the song has since gone on to become a staple in the band's live sets throughout their career to the modern day. One of the most prominent promotional videos for the band of that era was made for this song, featuring the band in a tent, dressed in sailor suits, performing as the tent fills up with foaming soap bubbles. This is actually my earliest memory of seeing the band as a child.

Critical reception was definitely mixed, though on the measure, somewhat more positive than had been the case for the previous album. In the UK, NME voted the album as the second best album of the year, while in the US, gonzo music critic, Lester Bangs, said of the album, "The Stones have become oblique in their old age, which is just another word for perverse except that perverse is the corniest concept extant as they realized at inception... Soup was friendly and safe. I want the edge and this album doesn't reassure me that I'll get it, what a curious situation to be stuck in, but maybe that's the beauty of the Stones, hah, hah, kid? This album is false. Numb. But it cuts like a dull blade. Are they doing the cutting, or are we?"

Ultimately, the album marks a key turning point for the band as they settled into becoming the establishment entity that would sustain them as industry stalwarts for the next half century. The band became codified in their form and function after this, with the volatility and unpredictability baked out, making them a shelf-stable commodity that could be regularly banked on to provide a profitable tour every few years, and records that would sell enough to keep the machine rolling indefinitely.

FEMALE TROUBLE @ 50

October 11th marks the golden jubilee of John Waters' love letter to a life of crime, Female Trouble, which was theatrically released on October 11th, 1974. Following immediately on the heels of his midnight movie trash masterpiece, Pink Flamingos, Female Trouble doubled down on the disgusting behaviour as juvenile delinquent, Dawn Davenport, played by Divine, ruins Christmas, gets pregnant from rape and plunges into a life of crime. With a story inspired by Waters' prison visits with Manson family member, Charles "Tex" Watson, it's a muse on the beauty of celebrity status crime and the appeal of a perverse lifestyle, a sentiment succinctly expressed by the inimitable Edith Massey as Aunt Ida, when she declares, "The world of the heterosexual is a sick and boring life."

While Pink Flamingos often gets all the glory for its bad behaviour, Female Trouble, in many ways, manages to surpass its excesses with even more outrageous and offensive incidents. The "cha-cha heels" Christmas scene has become something of an iconic crystallization of entitled American white privilege petulance. It was even recreated on RuPaul's Drag Race, further solidifying its place as being elevated to the status of camp high art. The birth scene, where Divine chews on an umbilical cord made from condoms stuff ed with raw liver, is an exemplary moment of sheer outrage, the kind of thing that makes this film stand out, even above its predecessor.

Film critic, Rex Reed, utterly despised the film, infamously declaring, "Where do these people come from? Where do they go when the sun goes down? Isn't there a law or something?" John Waters was so enamoured by the quip that it became a permanent fixture in promotional posters for the film and its subsequent releases on DVD. Yet the film now holds a 90% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with a critics consensus that reads, "Director John Waters' affection for camp brings texture to societal transgression in Female Trouble, a brazenly subversive dive into celebrity and mayhem."

Personally, I place it only behind Desperate Living and just ahead of Pink Flamingos in terms of my holy trinity of Waters films. Taken as a triptych, they are a consecutive trifecta of trash transcendentalism. Waters brought his penchant for blazing past the boundaries of virtually every cinematic taboo to a crescendo of Divine-ly inspired perfection in these three movies, forever solidifying himself as the "Pope of trash". He's like the anti Mister Rogers, welcoming you into a neighbourhood of perverts, freaks and criminals, grotesquely decked-out in the most subversive behaviour, and you just wanna stay on that trolley and keep riding!
 

PUBLIC IMAGE LTD - MEMORIES (SINGLE) @ 45

 

Released 45 years ago today, on October 10, 1979, it's Public Image Ltd's third single, Memories. The A-side song is wailing denunciation of misplaced sentimentality. Wobble's thunderously insistent bass line drives the track against a furious disco beat, courtesy of former 101'R, Richard Dudanski, who filled the kit briefly during the Metal Box sessions. Keith Levene layers in Spanish Flamenco influenced guitar chords with what sounds like organ flourishes (no, it's all guitar), while Lydon's vocals swoop in, warbling and whooping through the song. "It should be clear by now" that this is one of PiL's all time best songs. The single mix is different from the Metal Box version, which inter-cuts two different mixes together in an alternating back & forth oscillation. The single version, however, sticks to the mix with the heavy bass, driving it home all the way through.

The B-Side features the track, Another, which would only be included on Metal Box in a radically different instrumental mix called, Graveyard. Wobble would also "steal" the backing track and remix it again for the instrumental, Not Another, on his first solo album, The Legend Lives On... Jah Wobble in "Betrayal". The vocal mix on the single is a perfect match-up for the A-side, reinforcing the overall "haunted house" vibe of the record.

The front cover features a series of black & white photos of a moustache wearing Lydon in a wedding scene to someone who looks like Jeanette Lee (she looks too short to be Nora), with the scratches and saturation making it look all worn and forgotten. The back cover is a shot of a spiderweb covered oval mirror, reflecting the PiL logo, that was at John's Gunter Grove house in London. It can also be seen on the front cover of the Flowers of Romance single from 1981.

The single would peak at #60 on the UK charts, but along with the previous single, Death Disco, it would provide a tantalizing sneak peak at the behemoth Metal Box album that was right around the corner.

THE KINKS @ 60

Celebrating its 60th anniversary today is the eponymous debut LP by The Kinks, which was released on October 2nd, 1964. While not fully indicative of the latent talents of the band, in particular the songwriting prowess of leader, Ray Davies, it is at least the home of the band's first chart topping single, You Really Got Me, a song that would become the blueprint for garage rock, hard rock, heavy metal and punk rock in years to come.

The band were founded by brothers Ray and Dave Davies in 1963, coming together in London around the same time as others of the looming "British Invasion", rubbing shoulder to shoulder with bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Who. The group had signed to Pye Records, who were initially frustrated by the band's failure to connect with its first couple of singles. Both their cover of Little Richards' Long Tall Sally and its follow-up, the Davies' original, You Still Want Me, were pretty much ignored by DJs and record buyers, despite significant promotion.

After those two strikes, the label gave them one more opportunity to hit a home run, and they did so with You Really Got Me. Another Ray Davies original, the hit version almost never materialized. After recording a preliminary version, Ray Davies insisted on modifying the arrangement to something slower and more raw. The label refused to stump up the cash for the studio time, however, but Davies persisted until session producer, Shel Talmy, broke the stalemate by underwriting the additional session himself. The song was inspired by The Kingsmen's version of Louie Louie, and was taken to another level by the innovative mutilation of a guitar amp. Dave Davies took a pocket knife and put a slice into the speaker cone of his amp, causing it to have a distinct buzzing distortion. It was a sound that instantly gave the record an idiosyncratic edge, sounding unlike any other guitarist out there. The single, released in August of 1964, became a top ten hit in both the US and UK. It's gone on to be widely considered the root for many of the heavier branches of rock 'n' roll that grew from its inspiration. That fuzzy distortion became intrinsic to the hard rock and metal sounds that would proliferate in the following decades.

The rest of the album, however, wasn't so blessed with as much distinction. As was the standard of the time, being a new group meant that the record company expected them to record mostly covers, rather than original material. This is a situation all of the British Invasion bands went through with their first recording efforts, which is why many of those debut albums don't properly capture the true essence of a lot of those bands, and this is certainly the case with The Kinks. Their debut LP offers only a bare glimpse into the greatness that the band would deliver once they were allowed to shine in their own light.

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE @ 50

 

With its theatrical premiere on October 1st, 1974, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre turns 50 years old today, marking half a century of setting the standard for "slasher" horror. It's a film that derives its authenticity from the fact that a lot of the misery and grotesquely unsettling horror was achieved through the use of real blood, bone and guts in a hot, humid Texas environment that was an ordeal in which to film, capturing the nausea of the experience in the celluloid itself.

The film's promotion said that it was based on a "true story", but while the inspiration for some elements was derived from the notorious serial killer, Ed Gein, who committed his crimes in Wisconsin in the 1950s, the bulk of the story is predominantly fictional, with the assertion of being a "true story", in reality, functioning as a commentary on the manipulation of the press of the era. Media and political "spin" routinely covered up the truth of what was happening in and around the major events of the time, promoting often entirely false narratives. It was also a response to the callous detachment of mainstream journalism as it reported the horrors of the day. Thus, framing the film as "true" was a wink at the audience to consider the source and never take anything at face value.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was Tobe Hooper's third feature film, for which he was writer, director, composer, editor and cinematographer. For the production, he was working with a very tight budget of $140,000 ($700,000 adjusted for inflation). With the principal expenses focused on equipment rentals, the cast and crew were required to work 16 hour days, seven days a week, in order to maximize equipment usage. The entire film was shot in Texas, utilizing mostly unknown local talent for the cast.

Filming conditions were brutal during the shoot, with temperatures routinely topping 100°F, and no AC for any of the interior scenes. With practical effects utilizing actual animal carcasses for props and set dressings, in varying states of decay, including smearing real blood on the walls, plus the inability to launder costumes and masks, especially those used by Leatherface, for fear of losing continuity, the experience on set must have been exceptionally putrid! It was an experience that made many of the cast and crew "hate" Hooper by the end of the production, requiring years for some to fully forgive the trauma of being on that set.

Conceptually, the film is notable for introducing the trope of using power tools for murder weapons, with Hooper having conceived of the chainsaw angle while waiting in a long line at a hardware store one day, musing on what might be an effective way to "thin the queue". The set and setting for the story had been lingering in Hooper's mind for a few years before, dealing with the ideas of isolation, the woods, and darkness. As previously mentioned, notorious serial killer, Ed Gein was a key inspiration for the main characters, and Gein would be a recurring reference point in the genre in subsequent years, with films like Silence of the Lambs also tapping into that history.

Gunnar Hansen, who played Leatherface, in order to better represent his character, spent time in the classrooms of learning disabled children as a way to get into the mindset of someone who is not able to communicate properly with other people. On set, Hooper would coach him to ensure that he would be consistent in his use of gibberish, though Hooper would make sure Hansen understood the literal intent of what he was trying to say. This attention to detail helped to lend the character a humanizing depth, something that actually made him all the more horrifying by grounding him in a sense of plausibility.

While Hooper had actually refrained from using an excessive amount of gore, in the hopes of landing the film a PG rating, the film board still slapped it with an R, but that didn't seem to hurt the box-office returns, which given the modest investment, were ultimately spectacular. Though it was certainly a commercial hit, it also encountered significant backlash in some markets, with certain countries banning the film, outright. Critics were also split on its merits, with some finding its brutality simply too hard to tolerate, questioning the ethics of the producers, while others were impressed with the acting and the films technical execution.

The film became the next in line to redefine the horror genre, following Night of the Living Dead, as an astute social commentary smuggled in under the guise of low-brow exploitative entertainment. Its rendering of a perverse backwoods family resonates even today, maybe especially today, in the era of "MAGA". It shows this backwoods family living in a state of grotesquely diminished and distorted ethics and values, morphed into some kind of monstrous assault on morality. In the context of the film, they're discards from a capitalistic post-industrial manufacturing wasteland. They worked at a slaughterhouse, in an impersonal industrialized factory dedicated to the process of dehumanizing both the product and the people who worked there. In a similar way, the MAGA crowd are equally disenfranchised and dissociated from normal perceptions of right and wrong. In that sense, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is an unsettling prediction of the decline of middle American values and ethics. Others have even interpreted it as a pro-vegetarian salvo, with its grizzly depiction of slaughter and meat being considered some of the best promotional material for vegetarianism around. Some have criticized the films abuse of women, with studies actually using the film as a test of male empathy. Whatever your interpretation, it's clear the movie has a depth of meaning that can be perceived from a variety of angles.

Ultimately, it has remained as a landmark in the genre of horror film making, establishing a number of different tropes in terms of how violence can be depicted and interpreted on screen. Personally, I consider it one of the essential films in the genre from that era, along with George Romero's previously mentioned Night of the Living Dead, and Sam Raimi's Evil Dead. I think those three films have a distinct hold on the reigns when it comes to pushing boundaries and setting standards in the domain of blood & guts film making.