BADFINGER: HEAD FIRST (1974; 2000)
1) Lay Me Down; 2) Hey, Mr.
Manager; 3) Keep Believing; 4) Passed Fast; 5) Rock'n'Roll Contract; 6) Saville
Row; 7) Moonshine; 8) Back Again; 9) Turn Around; 10) Rockin' Machine.
I really should be doing this in the «Addenda»
section, but this album almost made
it on the store shelves. Almost, that is, before Warner Bros. suspected that
the band's manager Stan Polley was stealing funds (actually, Badfinger
themselves suspected the same, but for whatever reason Warners sued both
Polley and Badfinger) and, over the
course of the accident, rejected the completed album. The master tapes were
subsequently left to rot, and were never recovered, so this particular Head First,
finally out with a twenty-five year retardation, has been reconstructed from
rough mixes (so that one can only guess what the actual ʽSaville Rowʼ must have
looked like: this track here is only thirty six seconds long, an atmospheric,
artsy keyboard-based introduction that fades away before you can even try
guessing where it might lead).
Head
First was cut in two weeks
over a focused work period in December 1974 — an admirable feat, actually,
considering the heavy blow that befell the band with the withdrawal of Wish You Were Here, the subsequent
resignation of Pete Ham (replaced by Bob Jackson), the subsequent return of Pete Ham (because Warners were
not willing to work with the band without Pete), and the subsequent resignation
of Molland. Under such circumstances, you'd normally expect either a disaster
or a masterpiece — but Head First is
neither. Maybe the master tapes, had they survived, could produce a different
impression, yet I somehow doubt it.
Just like in the days of Ass, Pete is keeping his head down here. He gets the usual honor of
opening the album, and ʽLay Me Downʼ is a respectable power-popper, but
without a particularly memorable or emotional riff to kick it up to the skies
of ʽNo Matter Whatʼ or even ʽJust A Chanceʼ, and the nagging chorus of
"need your loving, need your loving, need your loving, it's everything to
me" sounds a bit perfunctory and repetitive. The rhythmic
acoustic-and-slide ballad ʽKeep Believingʼ is a little better if you like your
Pete Ham in a subtle / tender / confessional mode better than you like him in
«power» mode, but the hooks are nowhere near great.
Since Molland was already out, Evans, Gibbins,
and new band member Bob Jackson had to take the burden of songwriting on their
own shoulders. Jackson's solo contribution ʽTurn Aroundʼ is a rather lumpy hard
rock anthem that, truth be told, is more Grand Funk than Badfinger, only without
all the testosterone. Gibbins continues with his fairy-light folksy stuff with
ʽBack Againʼ, a pleasant cowboy ditty without any cowboys, but with some
curious harmonica vs. synthesizer interplay. And Evans is the one to serve as
the band's personal spokesman here. He takes it out viciously and vivaciously
on their enemies with telling titles like ʽHey Mr. Managerʼ and ʽRock'n'Roll
Contractʼ — the two best songs on the album, actually, suggesting that, before
setting up an installment plan for suicide, it might have been a good idea to
come up with a fully conceptual album on the evils of rock management.
Overall, I wish I could say that it doesn't show this whole thing was tossed
off in two weeks time, but more often than not, it does. But if we look at this
from a different side — yes, they really needed something out on the market
quick, yes, they were in a complete mess, yes, none of them were genius
songwriters, yes, these are rough mixes, and still it's a perfectly nice record
that does not in the least pathetically wallow in self-pitying (even such a
lyrically bitter tune as ʽHey, Mr. Managerʼ tries to be as upbeat as possible
when castigating Mr. Manager for "messing up my life"). As a «swan
song» for the original Badfinger, it does not work, but as a worthy addition to
the hardcore canon, it isn't any worse than any of the band's second-tier
albums. Thumbs
up, but do not expect a revelation or anything.
The official edition, by the way, adds a whole
extra CD of mostly acoustic demos saved up from the same sessions — some of
which could have been nourished to full health, had they had the time and will,
but by early 1975, they clearly had nothing left. Was it all really that desperate? Did Pete really have to hang himself, or was that just
the hideous effect of a nerve wreck shattering an already unstable mental
system? Who the hell could tell? In a way, I've always thought that, perhaps,
it wasn't all just a matter of bad luck and unfortunate accidents — maybe the
eerie downfall of Badfinger has to be thought of in «Altamont terms», sort of one
of those symbolic events that separate the idealistic 1960s from the grim
1970s. After all, Badfinger were an
idealistic 1960s band at heart — at a time when the whole thing was becoming cynically
obsolete. They learned to sound different from the Beatles, but they did not
want to learn to sound like the Bay City Rollers, either, and paid the symbolic
price for that. In any case, there must
have been more to the whole thing than just a treacherous manager and poor
understanding from the record industry bosses. Mustn't there?
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ReplyDeleteTo answer your last question, we would like to think it was more than that. Bad management is like the common cold in rock n roll....and really any artistic/entertainment endeavor, so it's not like these guys experienced anything unique. However, it was a ruthlessly brutal tsunami of bad faith, poor bookkeeping, heavy-handed distribution and general disregard of the wellfare of the band members themselves that was the outrageous misfortune of this sad tale. Not knowing Pete Ham from Adam, and even in reading the recollections of those that did, the reasons why it happened lurk much deeper than merely a sensitive artist being the victim of fraudulent and greedy scheisters.
ReplyDeleteAmong the proposed answers, my feeling is that it was "the hideous effect of a nerve wreck shattering an already unstable mental system." I won't conjecture as to what may have went wrong emotionally, but he had so much to lose by going through with it that you have to wonder if much thought at all preceded it, what with a young son and a baby girl. Desperation and deperession have a way of swirling the mind's ability to judge situations properly.
(Note -- I composed this shortly after your post, but was having weird cookie problems and couldn't post. I did save it, and really like this album, so here it is.)
ReplyDeleteDude.... "Passed Fast" and "Moonshine", the Yin and the Yang, are probably the two best songs here. "Passed Fast" is a dizzying, desperate howl: "nothing is impossible, you know what you must do / the flame of hope will see you through / are you through? / THROUGH! THROUGH!". Tom has a bit of a knack for pithy lyrics, and never more devastatingly than here. Try listening to this song right after the end of With You Were Here and see how the intensity carries over.
"Moonshine"... the album's happiest and fully realized song, a nice multipart number by Mike, Tom and Bob (who also was in on "Passed Fast"). This would have been a good permutation of the band, and by all rights they all would have stayed on the planet, succeeded somehow, and done many a tour, making a lot of people happy playing this song out under the stars.
Regarding the significance of the Badfinger tragedy, well, yeah, the answer's in the question. A personal tragedy in public, especially one that highlights an existing flaw or evil, cries out for meaning. It's pretty clear from listening to Badfinger's songs that they were sensitive guys (I concur with poster above), and probably especially at risk if subjected to getting royally, persistently screwed. I suspect Pete and Tom were moderately bipolar. It's the people who don't get crazy high, but rather go through cycles between kinda high and very low -- often involving remarkable creativity -- who tend to kill themselves. Personal tragedy happens, in public = a cautionary icon is born. Altamont on a personal level. I hate when that happens.