Alanis Morissette: Havoc And Bright Lights

ALANIS MORISSETTE: HAVOC AND BRIGHT LIGHTS (2012)

1) Guardian; 2) Woman Down; 3) 'Til You; 4) Celebrity; 5) Empathy; 6) Lens; 7) Spiral; 8) Numb; 9) Havoc; 10) Win And Win; 11) Receive; 12) Edge Of Evolution; 13*) Big Sur; 14*) Guru; 15*) Permission.

We all usually prefer to snobbishly dismiss sales figures as irrelevant to what we like and what we hate, but «irrelevant» is not quite the same as «meaningless». Look at Alanis and the curve of her US sales, for instance: Jagged Little Pill — over 14 mln. copies sold; Junkie — less than 3 mln.; Under Rug Swept — around 1 mln.; So-Called Chaos — less than 500,000; Flavors Of Entanglement — approximately 230,000; Havoc And Bright Lights — 54,000 copies so far. Look up «exponential behavior» in any mathematical encyclopaedia, and you will probably see a picture of Alanis grinning at you in one of her trademark toothy styles.

What is really funny, though, is that I actually relistened to Jagged Little Pill right before taking a plunge into Alanis' latest «commercial dwarf», just for a quick memory refresh, and God help me, I just can't hear the crucial difference. Yes, a lot of anger, tension, paranoia has been lost, dissipated, scattered over the years, which is only natural after seventeen years. But come now, haven't all those fans from 1995 — people for whom Jagged Little Pill mattered so much, all these 14 million Americans and 20 more million people worldwide? — haven't  they, too, grown older, so that they could follow their teenage idol through all of her phases and stages, breaking down when she breaks down, straightening up when she straightens up? What's up with loyalty and fidelity these days, anyway?

Not only that, but Havoc And Bright Lights mostly received disparaging critical reviews — seems even worse than Flavors Of Entanglement — with people complaining about almost everything. Too hookless, too happy, too overproduced, too archaic, too boring, something that I just don't get — it's as if «she used to be fine and now she sucks», when in reality there has never been any insurmountable gap between any of her albums. Screw the whole Zeitgeist thing: Alanis is not a very good artist, but she is an artist, want it or not, not just some helpless carrier of the supernatural spirit of 1995, randomly selected in some heavenly lottery.

And there are some good songs on this album, no more and no less than on the previous one. To be honest, the production does not bother me at all. She retains her producer from Flavors (Guy Sigsworth), but they go a little bit easier on the electronics and a little heavier on the guitars this time, and although the album doth suffer from overcompression, the sonic textures are at least varied — some of the arrangements lean towards traditional grungy alt-rock, some have ringing folk-rock patterns, some are electronically processed, some are acoustic, basically, I just don't mind: in any case, the instrumental backdrops, as usual, only serve as backgrounds for Alanis' vocal hooks, and these particular ones, at the very least, aren't annoying.

And what about these hooks? Well, I don't see why long-time fans of Alanis should turn away from them. Something like ʽGuardianʼ is very much Alanis — quiet soulful beginning, exploding into loud ecstasy as the chorus is being hammered into your brain, only this time, it is a little con­fusing because there is no hateful madness attached: now, screaming "I'll be your keeper for life as your guardian", she is just giving a lively oath of faith, not cursing the hell out of us all. Yes, this might disappoint those who'd rather see her rail and rant. But it's a good chorus all the same, or maybe I'm just growing old.

In fact, the tendency seems to be this: the more she tries to whip herself up into an aggressive posture, the more embarrassing it looks, and vice versa. ʽWoman Downʼ positions itself as a fe­minist anthem, but not only does it have some of the silliest «feminist» lyrics ever committed to tape by, er, a formerly major artist ("calling all woman haters, we've lowered the bar on the beha­vior that we will take" — what's that supposed to mean?), it is also set to an equally silly, jumpy pattern punctuated by merry synth whoops, in a befuddling nod to those early dance pop days when "I wanna feel your love!" was about as deep as this lady would go. Lesson not learned: you don't combine serious (if clumsily stated) messaging with this kind of music.

Another flat pancake is ʽCelebrityʼ, where the lyrics are a bit more coherent and, perhaps, could even — in theory — touch the senses of all the "tattooed sexy dancing monkeys" to whom it is addressed, but the spark is just not there: try as she might, she cannot reach the proper level of hatred or derision for all the "wheels, heels and vintage Gucci"... which might, after all, have something to do with the fact that the lady is not above a vintage Gucci herself (just google «Ala­nis Morrissette and Gucci» and look at all the nice, fine images). Hmm, hmm.

Anyway, cut to the chase: when she is being who she is on this record — a settled down family lady with a small kid and a happy home in Los Angeles — there are no big problems. ʽTil Youʼ is an old-school adult contemporary ballad with pretty voice modulation, soulfulness, and humi­lity; it had me even thinking of late-period ABBA for a moment out there, which may not be a coin­cidence because, for instance, the double-tracked vocals on the chorus of ʽLensʼ also sound sus­piciously Swedish in origin. ʽSpiralʼ is speedy, optimistic and catchy, even if its ringing guitars and swirling synths sort of cancel out each other in an overcompression bout — but after a couple of listens, the chorus gets head-stuck anyway.

And on and on and on, these songs are surprisingly even — there are very few of her «Eastern Darkness» trademarks (although ʽNumbʼ, with some of that modality and an atmospheric violin part to boot, is at least as good as anything on Junkie), for the most part it's this very even, not too pretentious semi-alt-, semi-folk-pop with stable emotions, credible sentimentality and occa­sional hooks. Not too clever — remember who we are dealing with — not too dumb. Little to love, but absolutely nothing to hate. Plus, her voice seems to be improving in clarity and range as the years go by — some of the notes hit on ʽTil Youʼ are downright gorgeous.

After some consideration, I go with a thumbs up, as I'd go with any not-untalented person being relatively honest with herself and her listeners (we'll agree to overlook the Gucci fiasco for once). Essentially, these days Alanis Morissette just sounds more basically human, so who the heck cares about a stale old Zeitgeist from almost two decades ago, anyway? Good for you, 54,000 loyal fans who bought this album — it is hardly likely that I will ever want to revisit it, but I cer­tainly don't regret the time spent on trying to understand why I never got around to hating it, or to getting bored out of my skull with it.

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Bad Religion: Stranger Than Fiction

BAD RELIGION: STRANGER THAN FICTION (1994)

1) Incomplete; 2) Leave Mine To Me; 3) Stranger Than Fiction; 4) Tiny Voices; 5) The Handshake; 6) Better Off Dead; 7) In­fected; 8) Television; 9) Individual; 10) Hooray For Me...; 11) Slumber; 12) Marked; 13) Inner Logic; 14) What It Is; 15) 21st Century (Digital Boy); 16*) News From The Front; 17*) Markovian Process.

Another year... The only generalization that can be generalized about this record has already been made in the All-Music Guide review: Bad Religion sign up with a major record label and, in or­der to convince the fanbase that this is not a sellout, try their best to come up with an «authentic» BR record, dumping all the variety of the previous two albums. That is as correct as they come: Stranger Than Fiction is all tense, all fast, almost all a stylistic clone of Suffer. Whether this is good, bad, or who-the-heck-cares is a different thing. In a way, Bad Religion might be like AC/DC — it's very easy to get sick of the formula, but nothing else seems to work as efficiently. Change and perish, always stay the same and prosper.

For tactical reasons, the band re-recorded ʽ21st Century Digital Boyʼ for this album — now that they had a larger distribution base, re-releasing their most famous song seemed like the right thing to do. According to one of the versions, they were forced to do this by the people at Atlantic who wanted a hit single and saw no potential in the rest of the songs. Were they right or were they wrong? Well, let's just take a look at these other singles.

ʽInfectedʼ, the album's slowest and «grandest» number, starts off with a few blasts of feedback that almost sound like a pompous brass intro­duction — then chuggishly builds up towards a look-at-me-suffer chorus. It is the only song here that would not seem fit for their late 1980s albums, and for a good reason: it sounds like a boring post-grunge teen-angst anthem — not even graced with another set of Graffin's intellectualized lyrics: "You affect me / You infect me / I'm afflicted / I'm addicted / You and me" is not exactly the most inspiring chorus in BR history.

Third single was the title track: London Calling-style punk-power-pop here, upbeat, martial, lyrically rich — and not catchy in the least. You know something's not right when the song's idea of «catchiness» is to insert the word "obituary" in the empty musical space between the chorus and the next verse. It's not even shocking. And the fact that "Life is the crummiest book I ever read / There isn't a hook, just a lot of cheap shots" is not something I'd be willing to take for an excuse. Even if that is true, it does not mean that art has to follow life in everything. I, for one, did not start listening to Bad Religion for any «cheap shots».

That leaves us with the fourth single, and it is the only one worthy of close attention: ʽIncom­pleteʼ is probably the best song on the album, just because the tough, passionate start — "Mother! father! look at your little monster, I'm a hero, I'm a zero, I'm the butt of the worst joke in history" — is overwhelming, the best shot of inspiration on the album. This is classic Bad Religion stuff: anti-social ranting, well constructed lyrics, speed, fury, hatred, madness, and wisdom.

There are quite a few other songs like that on Stranger Than Fiction, scattered here and there — ʽTiny Voicesʼ, ʽThe Handshakeʼ, ʽIndividualʼ, etc. — but there is also quite a bit of stuff that goes easy on the hatred, or the lyrics, or the speed, or the fury, and that's bad, because it does not add much to the album's general feel of diversity, yet makes it less intense and cutting-edge than the Suffer-era trilogy. And the very fact that they had to re-record a much earlier song to stimulate interest in the album is quite telling.

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Baker Gurvitz Army: Elysian Encounter

BAKER GURVITZ ARMY: ELYSIAN ENCOUNTER (1975)

1) People; 2) The Key; 3) Time; 4) The Gambler; 5) The Dreamer; 6) Remember; 7) The Artist; 8) The Hustler.

This is probably the best of the three Baker/Gurvitz albums, even though the general movement tendency leaves space for worrying: the vector is strongly biased towards «more Gurvitz, less Baker», which would culminate in the trio's disappointing final album. But for the moment, the major difference is just that there is no equivalent of ʽMad Jackʼ. Elysian Encounter, starting already from the cool-sounding, but overtly pompous title, is bent on taking itself more seriously and ra­tionally — which leaves more space for «layman-accessible» melodic overlays and less space for one of the world's favo­rite crazy drummers.

Not a lot less space, though; and fortunately, for Elysian Encounter, a sort of concept album built as a «musical portrait gallery», the Gurvitzes come up with a coherent framework, a fine set of riffs, melodic themes, and vocal hooks, and a fine production style that takes the best of all worlds — progressive, R&B, fusion, roots-rock — and leaves me no grounds for complaining. Okay, so the vocals are a bit hicky in places: for some or most of the parts they hire an additional vocalist, hiding behind the suspicious pseudonym of ʽMr. Snipsʼ (real name is Steve Parsons), who is absolutely nothing special — then again, I wonder if hiring Meat Loaf would have really been a better idea. Probably not. In any case, the music of Baker Gurvitz Army is not about great vocals — it's all about setting up a melodic groove and putting as much on top of it as the faithful horsie can stand without burying its hooves in the ground.

Thus, ʽPeopleʼ is exactly the sort of jazz fusion that I like the most — with all the trademarks of the genre (technique, speed, complexity), plus a strong basic riff-based hard rock theme, plus vocals, plus crazy solos that contrast nicely with the vocals. In the end, the energy, precision, and «intelligence» of the whole thing are not squandered, but tightly packed into a four-minute long thunderfest that might well be worth an entire album by the Mahavishnu or late period Soft Ma­chine (not any album, but you probably know what I mean).

ʽThe Keyʼ, on the other hand, is a somber cold shower after the thunderstorm — a tight, swinging groove with a soulful atmosphere and several «devil-or-angel»-type slide guitar overdubs that sounds like everything else and nothing else at the same time. Eventually, the whole thing starts inducing trance, as the slide parts pile up and the wailing reaches psychedelic heights, with Gin­ger's drumming and the "God only knows how I found you" mantra acting as the «lullifier» and the slide guitars acting as the «covert indoctrinator».

This is just two examples, but, really, each and every song on this album joins together disparate, familiar, oftentimes trivial elements and results in a synthesis that is, at worst, curious, and at best, awesome. Look how, on ʽThe Artistʼ, Ginger masterfully wiggles his way around a basic waltz melody, and a set of pretty, pastoral slide lead lines (well fit for a George Harrison solo record) are perfectly integrated with jarring electric blues solos. Wonder at how ʽTimeʼ sounds so much like early 1970s Traffic, and yet packs so much more angst and tension than a typical Traffic track (so is it our problem that Steve Winwood and his pals never whetted their instruments be­fore entering the studio?). Think about whether ʽThe Dreamerʼ would have fit in on the Allman Brothers' Brothers And Sisters — probably wouldn't, since the vocal melody is more Byrds than Allmans — making it an even quirkier combination, since these busy country guitar runs are just so much Dickey Betts in style.

They leave the busiest for last, though: ʽThe Hustlerʼ wraps up things on an even more frenzied, self-choking note than they were opened — here we have nearly seven minutes of groovy phased guitar backing, freight train drumming, and overdriven speed runs (this time, with some of them worthy of an Alvin Lee or even of an Angus Young) that never feel like seven minutes. It's a bit cheesy, yes, but heck, that's just what the progressive genre needed in 1975 — a little novelty and cheesiness, just a little whiff of cheap excitement atop the complexity and the seriousness.

Maybe if it weren't so over-the-top derivative in all respects, Elysian Encounter would not be as forgotten as it is today. People like their masterpieces with at least something that's totally indi­vidualistic — a personal chord change, a guitar tone, a unique vocal, anything. This here is a mo­saic, consisting of shrink-wrapped, sold, and delivered pieces, in which even Ginger's drumming style is sort of reduced to a slightly inferior imitation of itself. But then there's always the cooking process, and in this particular case, the three chefs are beyond reproach. Thumbs up — for one of the most underrated records of 1975.

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The Band: Cahoots

THE BAND: CAHOOTS (1971)

1) Life Is A Carnival; 2) When I Paint My Masterpiece; 3) Last Of The Blacksmiths; 4) Where Do We Go From Here; 5) 4% Pantomime; 6) Shoot Out In Chinatown; 7) The Moon Struck One; 8) Thinkin' Out Loud; 9) Smoke Signal; 10) Volcano; 11) The River Hymn.

Cahoots is like Stage Fright without the spark, completing the transformation of The Band from something deeply extraordinary, which they were in 1968, into something completely ordinary. If The Band was an epic undertaking, masquerading as a roots-rock record, and Stage Fright was a roots-rock record, preserving some traces of «epicness», then Cahoots is just a roots-rock record, period. Maybe not coincidentally, it represents an almost complete takeover on Robbie's part: on­ly ʽLife Is A Carnivalʼ co-credits Rick and Levon for anything, and the other two songs that have somebody else's name on them are either a fresh Dylan cover (ʽWhen I Paint My Masterpieceʼ) or a bit of guestwork on the part of Van Morrison, who happened to drop by (ʽ4% Pantomimeʼ).

Curiously enough, all of the songs are good — once all the bile has been spent, these Cahoots tunes stay with me at least until the end of the day, and maybe more. We just naturally expect more than «just good» from a bunch of guys that happened to have the nerve to set themselves such impossibly high standards. In particular, I would want more «band» involvement: it almost seems as if the idea of bringing in New Orleanian bandmaster Allen Toussaint to lead a big brass band on ʽLife Is A Carnivalʼ put the rest of the teamplayers out of focus, particularly Hudson, who does not come up with even a single outstanding keyboard pattern. For this album, it looks like he was there in the studio just to get paid — diligently playing his organ, accordion, and sax parts on whatever songs require them, then packing it in for the night. The rest of the band follow suit. In addition, the vocals are horrendously produced for most of the songs — Levon? Richard? Rick? Who cares, it's all one big mess.

But these are still good songs. Sad, intelligent, cynical, ironic, soulful, and «hooky» enough. The mid-tempo «rockers» (quotation marks are necessary, since by this time Robbie had completely forgotten all about what it means to «rock», and most of the other guys never knew it in the first place), such as ʽShoot Out In Chinatownʼ, ʽSmoke Signalʼ, and ʽVolcanoʼ, are lazy, lumbering sloths that formally fulfill their purpose — get you to sing along to the merry chorus of "shoot out in China town, they lined 'em up against the wall", the ominous chorus of "smoke signal, hear the drums drumming", or the puffed-up, angry chorus of "volcano, I'm about to blow!", and no, the latter is not about humping — it's about feeling bad, which is this album's weakest point: no matter how they huff it and puff it, it just doesn't sound like they're about to blow.

Maybe they are at their «about-to-blow-ing-est» on ʽ4% Pantomimeʼ, which, halfway through, turns into a wild screaming match between their guest star, Van The Man, and all of the singing members of The Band, who just barely manage to outshout the toughest throat in Ireland. For the typical Van Fan, well accustomed to The Man's lack of conventional structure and emphasis on «blue improvisation», this will be a nice addition to the canon — for a Band fan, maybe not so much, because improvised, out-of-control rucus is not one of their strongest sides.

I think, although I am not sure, that if Cahoots has a heart, it is buried somewhere in the ballads — ʽLast Of The Blacksmithsʼ, with a medicinal dose of Manuel's universal sorrow, is the only track that would feel relatively at home on The Band; ʽWhere Do We Go From Hereʼ is a simple, but relevant title, and Rick sings the song so plaintively that you almot do feel sorry for the crew; ʽThinkin' Out Loudʼ is a solid grower, an exercise in «quiet desperation», and so on. These are all emotional songs — never get around to working real magic, but they do try to make the best of these guys' knack for soulfulness, even despite the so-so production and the fact that we have already heard it all before: try as it might, ʽLast Of The Blacksmithsʼ cannot beat the stateliness of an ʽUnfaithful Servantʼ.

In the light of this all, it is mighty mighty ironic that Cahoots kicks off so deceptively, with the Toussaint-led ʽLife Is A Carnivalʼ. The match is not made in Heaven: Toussaint is the legitimate carrier of the New Orleanian go-merry, nonchalant, Mardi Gras attitude, whereas these guys are stern, morose, humorless Canadian hicks, and they can only exploit the atmosphere for sarcastic purposes, which they do. In the end, all this merry brass sort of goes to waste, even if the song is still relatively well written and memorable. In fact, it might have been a big mistake to include it as the album opener — it immediately casts off a whiff of confusion, and you know all about these critical ratings: nothing influences them as much as the first song on the record.

That The Band themselves never thought highly of Cahoots is well reflected on Rock Of Ages: a double live album recorded in late 1971, a time when they should have been heavily promoting the new album, includes nothing from it except for ʽLife Is A Carnivalʼ (ʽWhen I Paint My Mas­terpieceʼ only got added on later as a bonus track). And I will say that Cahoots works better as a whole than as a sum of its individual parts — implying that any individual songs in any live show would inevitably pale next to their earlier competition — but I will also say that, if you need to save up shelf space, this is where you can allow yourself to stop. The Band, by definition, could never release a truly «bad» album (fortunately, they disintegrated before the Eighties hit hard upon all the veterans), but whatever they had to say, they said it all on their first three records. The rest is just variations for the loyal adepts. Still, if only for reasons of generous inertia, a thumbs up here is not out of the question.

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Billy Preston: The Most Exciting Organ Ever

BILLY PRESTON: THE MOST EXCITING ORGAN EVER (1965)

1) If I Had A Hammer; 2) Lowdown; 3) Slippin' And Slidin'; 4) Drown In My Own Tears; 5) I Am Coming Through; 6) The Octopus; 7) Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying; 8) Soul Meetin'; 9) Let Me Know; 10) Billy's Bag; 11) The Masquerade Is Over; 12) Steady Gettin' It.

It is quite likely that each of us has an individual opinion on what exactly is the most exciting organ ever and to whom in particular it happens to belong... but hang on there, this is a Billy Pres­ton review and we are actually supposed to talk about his contributions to the world of key­board-based music, or are we not. The album, with one of the most provocative titles ever, was released a few days prior to Billy's 19th birthday on the VJ Records label (notorious for being the first overseas label to gain rights to Beatles' recordings, before EMI got around to their senses), and is often considered his first «proper» album, even though it really is the second.

And there is relatively little substantial difference between Billy at 16 and Billy at 19, except that now, almost half of the tunes are original instrumental compositions for the organ (ʽI Am Coming Throughʼ gets to have its title chanted in group harmony form, but that's about as far as it goes with vocal presence). None of them are particularly memorable or interesting per se — the themes are fairly basic — but even the most rhythmically and tonally generic, like the basic blues shuffle of ʽLowdownʼ, are all quite pleasant for those who like Preston's style in general.

Of course, his «conversing organ» style is best appreciated where he is emulating classic melo­dies: my favorite bit is the attempt to emulate Little Richard's singing intonations on ʽSlippin' And Slidin'ʼ — not a lot of rock'n'roll excitement here, but the comic-seductive vibe is carried over very well, by heavily taxing the organ keys instead of the vocal cords. ʽIf I Had A Hammerʼ is somewhat less recognizable, but even more inventive in exploring the organ's capability to beat the human voice as primary message-carrier.

Overall, though, the whole thing is surprisingly less exciting than 16 Yr. Old Soul. Maybe it is because of the backing band, which seems sort of slack and disinterested, acting like a mere dummy (at least on 16 Yr. Old Soul there were actual guitar solos, competing with the organ). Maybe it is because the choice of covers is a bit off (I mean, who the heck is interested in Don Covay's ʽSoul Meetingʼ?), and the originals aren't quite up to par. Or maybe it is because, in the end, the whole thing sort of comes across as just a blunt publicity campaign for the Hammond.

On the other hand, there is no need to be condescending. Billy's level may be incomparable with that of, say, Jimmy Smith (it is always tough to compare the levels of «pop» and «jazz» musici­ans, even though so few people actually listen to the latter), but this is his vision, and there was nobody else around with a vision like that in 1965. The Hammond, with its thick sound and extra elec­tronic capacities, could do lots of tricks for the rock and pop world that an ordinary piano could never reproduce, and Billy, both here and elsewhere, is quite keen on discovering as many of these as possible — pitch, tone, strength, modulation, whatever. What the hell, in a way, this could be the most exciting organ ever. I mean, I like Rick Wakeman and all, but maybe whatever he brought into this world should be described by some other word than «exciting». A thumbs up here, for reasons that go beyond «historical», even if not too far beyond.

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Bo Diddley: Bo Diddley's Beach Party

BO DIDDLEY: BO DIDDLEY'S BEACH PARTY (1963)

1) Memphis; 2) Gunslinger; 3) Hey Bo Diddley; 4) Old Smokey; 5) Bo Diddley's Dog; 6) I'm All Right; 7) Mr. Custer; 8) Bo's Waltz; 9) What's Buggin' You; 10) Road Runner.

Few of the great rockers of the 1950s lived long enough, to put out a great live rock'n'roll record. Not surprisingly, Bo Diddley's first live album was recorded almost at the same time as Jerry Lee Lewis' — with about a year's difference — and both were lucky enough to capture them still in their performing prime, even if no longer a vital critical and commercial presence. Bo Diddley's Beach Party certainly sounds like a crap name for a great rock'n'roll record, but what can you do if it was, actually, like, recorded at the Beach Club in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina? (At least it wasn't really recorded directly on the beach, as one could suggest from looking at the cover). The important thing is, it is actually Bo Diddley's finest album of the decade — worth every ounce of praise that has slowly, but steadily accumulated over it through the efforts of historically-oriented critics, like Ritchie Unterberger, Bruce Eder, and that annoying hipster next door.

Anyway, the sound is shitty (come to think of it, if this were recorded on a beach, right after a volleyball party, I wouldn't actually be surprised, but then again, this was 1963), the songs are nothing new, and neither Bo nor The Duchess have bothered to learn any dazzling new moves for the show, but that doesn't matter one little bit. What does matter is that this is the most «triba­l­istic»-sounding LP released up to that date — James Brown, fine as he is in so many other re­spects, does not even begin to come close. This is Mr. Bo doing his thang, leading the audience in a cult dance around the bonfire, never minding the melody as long as the groove is enough to keep the spirit (and the spirits) properly agitated. In fact, he doesn't even mind the lyrics — half of the songs have no words other than scattered howls, yells, and hollers, and even those that are supposed to have had some words, forget all about them (ʽRoadrunnerʼ). And who cares? We all know Bo Diddley can't sing anyway. That's not exactly why he was born into this world.

The setlist has practically nothing to do with Bo as a hitmaker — other than ʽRoadrunnerʼ, depri­ved of its lyrics (but featuring a funny little intro tidbit on the origins of the song), and ʽHey Bo Diddleyʼ, which is certainly not included here because it was a hit, most of the songs are not too well known, and, in fact, most of them just function as excuses for setting up a twin-guitar groove where, typically, The Duchess keeps up the grinding rhythm, and Bo either sends down his cas­cades of machine-gun fire against it or joins his «sister» in perfect, or intentionally non-perfect, sync. The approach does not differ much regardless of whether he is working on well-rehearsed chestnuts like ʽHey Bo Diddleyʼ or ʽGunslingerʼ, leading a «diddlified» take on fellow Chuck Berry's ʽMemphis Tennesseeʼ, or choosing a less distinctly African, but equally raucous power level on the rearrangement of ʽOld Smokeyʼ.

One tune that most people probably know off here is ʽI'm Alrightʼ, since the Stones got that one from Bo early on in their act, and turned it into one of their own live highlights throughout 1964-65. The difference is amusing, although, unfortunately, not exactly in Bo's balance: Bo does in­deed sound like «he's alright», simply giving himself and his listeners one more feel-good kick, whereas Jagger would often turn the song into something overtly psychotic, sometimes bordering on desperate — maybe not intentionally, but that's the way it turned out. Still, there is no getting away from the fact that the riff is pure Bo, and also that Jagger couldn't credibly «parrot» the way Bo does all that amicable hollering; in any way, it is more fun to just compare and spot the dif­ferences than to draw subjective judgements.

Bo is, first and foremost, an entertainer, and he does everything in his power to entertain — how­ling (quite authentically) on ʽBo Diddley's Dogʼ, luring the audiences into silly, «slumbery» wal­tzing before unexpectedly crashing back into the Diddley groove (ʽBo's Waltzʼ), slipping in jokes and anecdotes, making whatever funny guitar noises he can think of in 1963, etc. etc. But enter­tainment comes in different flavors, and this one is wilder, more reckless, and far more targeted at the «beast within» than just about anything there was at the time. Come to think of it, the natu­ralistic lo-fi sound is actually on Bo's side here — clean, clear sound separation would only help reveal the technical weaknesses; when it all sticks together, the guitars, bass, drums, and even Jerome Green's maracas become a testosteronic monster.

It is too bad that practically none of this was captured on film — Bo's TV appearances from the late 1950s / early 1960s are scarcer than hen's teeth, and he was notoriously «tamer» inside the TV studio than when hidden from the camera's eye. This particular show, on the contrary, is rumored to have been broken up by the cops when tension got too high (with Jerome Green all but stagediving into the crowds), and that certainly seems believable, as the whole show is no­thing but one large, crude, effective audience provocation. Total thumbs up to this little glimpse of the «rock'n'roll underground» in the pre-garage rock era (which it definitely influenced).

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And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead: Lost Songs

AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEAD: LOST SONGS (2012)

1) Open Doors; 2) Pinhole Cameras; 3) Up To Infinity; 4) Opera Obscura; 5) Lost Songs; 6) Flower Card Games; 7) A Place To Rest; 8) Heart Of Wires; 9) Catatonic; 10) Awestruck; 11) Bright Young Things; 12) Time And Again.

With an album title like that, most people would probably think that this is a barrel-scraping out­take collection — coming fresh and hot off the trail of Tao Of The Dead, too, since you do not usually expect bands to put out bunches of new original product each year these days. I have no idea if this was a conscious exercise in self-humiliation, or if somebody just wanted to stamp on the nicely fashionable word «LOST» in there somewhere, but the important statement is: Lost Songs is a damn fine record, and a great return to form. Looks like I was a bit too hasty to write these guys off last time around.

Conventional opinion seems to have solidified around something like this: Lost Songs is a retro-oriented record, with a somewhat more blunt, punkish approach, and its lo-fi production values hint at the desire to recapture the impact of the band's earliest records (such as Madonna). To me, this seems both true and untrue. True, in that the «artsy» excesses of Tao Of The Dead — which, I insist, were really excesses, because nobody cuts an art-rock record in ten days — have mostly been drop-kicked in favor of simpler, cruder, but much more effective melodies. The trademark wall of sound stays firmly in place, and now it comes in huge, but properly delineated blocks, rather than one unbearable monolith with tricky subtleties hidden well beneath the surface.

But false, in that I do not feel much in common between Lost Songs and the early days — other than, indeed, a somewhat slackier approach to production, so that Keely's vocals are once again buried deep in the mix, reaching out to you from under all the guitar layers like a drowning man's last call. Which is surprising, actually, considering the record's agenda: Lost Songs was supposed to directly address many of today's social and political issues (such as the war in Syria, to which ʽUp To Infinityʼ was supposedly dedicated; later on, the band «re-dedicated» the song to Pussy Riot, and the list may be far from over) — so it is a little strange that none of that can really be guessed without taking a close look at the lyrics sheet. Isn't it clear that, if the world is truly so fucked up these days, the kids might lack the appropriate reading skills?

Anyway, the big deal is that many of these melodies hit the senses very effectively — bracing my­self for the worst after all the frustration with Tao, I was all but amazed at how many emotio­nally impressive hooks there are. They may be too simple, yes, for listeners who are already used to jud­ging the Austin lads according to the twistedly esoteric standards of «progressive rock», but I keep on insisting that that is a mistake — loud barrages of relatively generic heavy rock chords are usually inef­fective when used as the basic foundation in «progressive» purposes. In other words, on Lost Songs they are locked in a perfect union with their reason for existence, whereas on Tao the connection was rather... uh... perverted.

There is very little that is actually new about the overall sound. A few of the tracks are notably faster than usual — including the already mentioned ʽUp To Infinityʼ, but especially ʽCatatonicʼ, propelled forward by a simple, but very distinctive blues-rock riff, one of those nasty little bas­tards that you feel you have already known for your entire life, yet can never pinpoint the exact source. The final track (ʽTime And Againʼ) is also unusual, in that it rests upon an acoustic bed­rock, while at the same time running along at a good tempo and featuring plenty of electric over­dubs — with a specific folk-rock vibe, to soothe the nerves and provide a slightly relaxing finale to the thunderstorm, this time, stormier than ever.

Not everything is equally memorable, but the songs do have their individualities. ʽOpen Doorsʼ is like a heroic Lieder-style opener — Keely's vocal parts match the instrumental chords to give you a fine opportunity to aggrandize your spirit while singing about how "this world is lost in suffer­ing" and "we survive behind the times, we walk through blood to save the world" (okay, so these lyrics could have used fewer clichés, but remember, «bluntness» and «accessibility» was the main motto in the creation of the album). ʽOpera Obscuraʼ is all built on a ferocious tribal/martial drum pattern (war, baby, war) that very reluctantly fades away even after the song is over. The title track is unexpectedly poppy, with a thin, New Wave-era style riff winding its way through the thick drumming and getting intertwined with the catchy vocal chorus. The cool point of ʽFlower Card Gamesʼ is how its very simple, deep bassline and its very simple looped guitar riff com­plement each other — with a strong emission of ominousness in the process — and so on.

Yet I have to say that my favorite track here is still the one that comes closest to a «power ballad» status: ʽAwestruckʼ may have the most awe-striking instrumental mid-section these guys ever had the inspiration to come up with. Perfectly calculated, meticulously planned, the guitar melody, beginning as a weeping, quasi-countrified, slide solo, then turns into a series of rising and falling trills that epitomize beauty — like the ringing dreaminess of Cocteau Twins multiplied by the piercing loudness of The Edge. Not that the Austin lads never had this particular kind of sound before, but somehow, this is the first time it hit me that hard. Beautiful sequence — I almost wish the song were completely instrumental, since Keely's nasality can hardly do it justice.

Overall, it seems like this impulse to «get back to reality», crawl out of their fantasy worlds and find inspiration for their music directly from all the mountains of crap that surround us on all sides, if we only cared to look — seems like it worked for these guys. (For the record, it does not work for everyone: you are still supposed to have some real talent to burn before you start writing songs about the Arab Spring and global warming). So, here's hoping that complete and total para­dise on Earth does not arrive before they plan on making their next record, and a healthy thumbs up in the meantime.

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Aimee Mann: Charmer

AIMEE MANN: CHARMER (2012)

1) Charmer; 2) Disappeared; 3) Labrador; 4) Crazytown; 5) Soon Enough; 6) Living A Lie; 7) Slip And Roll; 8) Gumby; 9) Gamma Ray; 10) Barfly; 11) Red Flag Diver.

Okay, I happily admit to having been wrong. This is by no means an innovative or unpredictable record, but it definitely soars above «mediocre». Essentially, this is Smilers done right. Same laid back atmosphere, same laziness, same meditative vocals, same silly synthesizers, same humble­ness — but with more electric guitars, deeper production, and, most importantly, with better writ­ten songs. This is at least as consistent as Forgotten Arm, maybe more so, and it has a couple instant classics for all future gold compilations.

Since the themes of the record do not differ much from Aimee's usual bag — mainly character assassinations, varying only in degrees of abstraction — it is gracefully short, curtseying out of sight some time before the fourty-minute barrier is over, and for most people, there will probably be a couple pieces of moody, but insubstantial filler, making its charms even shorter (me, I do not care for the dreary-slow waltz of ʽSlip And Rollʼ). And that is good: humble albums have to have humble lengths, even if a three year period might seem like a long enough term to write up a CD all the way to its limits.

Cut to the chase: ʽCharmerʼ (the title track) kicks in with a ridiculously catchy «kazoo synth» melody, attenuated by some friendly vocal humming companionship, and this makes it into the most irresistible album opener since ʽHumpty Dumptyʼ — ten years, give or take. The lyrical matter (a sarcastic jab at the quintessential charismatic leader, cleverly set for election year) does not really matter — all that matters is that silly-sweet synth pattern, drifting in and out of Aimee's free-flowing, intelligent singing. Which is what makes Aimee into a first-rate artist: she could just as well be singing about tying her bootlaces, and the song would still produce the same impres­sion — but the lyrics are quite clever anyway.

That strange passion for synthesizers that got rekindled with Smilers is still with her — and, ap­parently, cooks her up a good name with today's critics, some of which nostalgize quite heavily about their long-gone days of listening to 'Til Tuesday. Not that anything on Smilers or here really sounds like anything that Aimee did in her 'Til Tuesday days — that was in a different world — but it is a possibility that Aimee herself regards this new passion as a rejuvenating move. More power to her, anyway, if it helps her write songs as fine as ʽCrazytownʼ, where the synth line acts as a sorrowful counterpart to her conspicuously «light» vocals. "The girl lives in crazy town / Where craziness gets handed down / Whoever's gonna volunteer / Will only end up living here" is fairly bleek, but her intonations introduce the picture as amusing rather than tragic — and that's good old Aimee for you, always throwing on a cloak of ironic intellectualism over simple emotions, just the way we like it.

The best number on the album, however, is neither ʽCharmerʼ nor ʽCrazytownʼ. It is ʽSoon Enoughʼ, a noble epic in the vein of old warhorses like ʽDeathlyʼ — in fact, I could easily see it making its way onto the Magnolia soundtrack, provided P. T. Anderson still had some spare foo­tage in the vaults for a «new director's cut» or something. It is undescribable — it's all in the vo­cal hooks this time, and the hooks are mostly intonational and could only come from Aimee — but it is the perfect combination of a little melancholy, a little irony, and a little desperation on top of a bombastic arrangement (capped off with a screechy guitar solo). It's just the kind of song that Smilers so desperately needed to get to the appropriate level.

Other good ones include ʽLabradorʼ (sounds like a Forgotten Arm outtake with all these «tired» harmonies, but an unjustly lost one), the harder-rocking ʽGamma Rayʼ (with a sci-fi battle betwe­en the «cosmic» synthesizer and the psycho guitar, as would befit the title), and the rootsy ʽBar­flyʼ, whose guitar hook and nonchalant attitude could almost reflect a J. J. Cale influence. But honestly, most of them are good.

In the end, it was all well worth the wait and the non-forgetting. Aimee is not young anymore (al­though I do have to say that she generally sounds younger here than on Smilers — maybe it's be­cause the singing is «clearer», not as much loaded with deep nasal twang as it was), and her re­cession into black holes, dark corners, introspection and humility will bar her from making a Bachelor No. 3 or a Found In Space, but she still has her head on, she still rocks when she wants to, and if she can still write one great song per year on the average, that is actually more than is needed to keep her on a steady payroll. At this time, we probably couldn't expect any bet­ter — count this as a fully satisfied thumbs up, and one of 2012's best.

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Bad Religion: Recipe For Hate

BAD RELIGION: RECIPE FOR HATE (1993)

1) Recipe For Hate; 2) Kerosene; 3) American Jesus; 4) Portrait Of Authority; 5) Man With A Mission; 6) All Good Soldiers; 7) Watch It Die; 8) Struck A Nerve; 9) My Poor Friend Me; 10) Lookin' In; 11) Don't Pray On Me; 12) Modern Day Catastrophists; 13) Skyscraper; 14) Stealth.

Unfortunately, the degeneration continues, and on Recipe For Hate starts getting seriously noti­ce­able. While musical change is certainly welcome per se, the reasons behind this kind of change had more to do with Graffin's growing self-importance than any sort of desire to explore new mu­sical ground. As the mean punch grows weaker, the pathos gets stronger, and the album hardly even begins living up to its name — by now, influences from pop, country, folk, and the newly nascent grunge scene (Eddie Vedder even contributes guest backing vocals to one of the songs) have seriously eroded Bad Religion's ability to generate pure, raffinated hatred.

To be fair, the title track works well in the old style (except for the bridge, which slows down the tempo and turns the song from hardcore into grunge), but already ʽKeroseneʼ, with its sing-along, melodic chorus shows that Bad Religion have made a serious investment in the pathos market, and it only gets worse from there. Now we have an abundance of slow tempos, melodies drowned in buzz and distortion, and vocals that invite us to sing along with anthemic pride. Yes, the lyrics are still decent enough, but it's not as if things have changed much, or Graffin has found any new subjects to sing about, in the past few years — just a bunch of verbal modifications to describe the PSS (Permanent State of Shit) in which happy America finds itself.

Even though I will have a hard time remembering them, the best songs here are the ones that would fit in well on Against The Grain — speedy, bitey, with flashy solos and fast-fleeting vo­cals, like the title track, ʽMy Poor Friend Meʼ, and ʽLookin' Inʼ. I couldn't care less about ʽMan With A Missionʼ, which tries to spice things up with a slide guitar part and «soulful» vocals that sound like a cross between Eddie Vedder, Bono, and John Doe from downtown (Eddie wins, be­cause in the end it does sound just like a sped up Pearl Jam with some country guitar on top). Nor do I give a damn about the «martial» overtones of ʽAll Good Soldiersʼ, or about the pub-folk vibe of ʽWatch It Dieʼ, no matter how vehemently it keeps on preaching the apocalypse.

Apparently, at this moment the apex of Bad Religion's creativity is supposed to be ensconced in a track like ʽStealthʼ — a fourty-second splicing of excerpts from George Bush's Union Address, making him say stuff like "this weekend I will spend over 800 million dollars on drugs" and "I will continue pushing free narcotics for all low income people". Umm... what? Is that considered to be funny, or instructive, or inspirational? Okay, so it is just a silly joke tucked on to the end of the album, but somehow I've always preferred "her Majesty's a pretty nice girl".

It's fairly indicative of the overall spirit, though — as «socially relevant» lyrics and statements to­tally get the better of the band, they simply become... boring. I mean, why write new and worse songs about the same old shit if you can just keep on singing the old and better ones? Recipe For Hate, you say? Well, I prefer my hate to be cooked without any fucking recipes. Good title, good album cover, fairly sorrowful content-to-form match — even if it was their best-selling album to date, but that's just because people usually do not like to take their medicine at break­neck speed: with Bad Religion taking more and more cues from the grunge movement, their commercial po­tential keeps growing at an exponential.

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Baker Gurvitz Army: Baker Gurvitz Army

BAKER GURVITZ ARMY: BAKER GURVITZ ARMY (1974)

1) Help Me; 2) Love Is; 3) Memory Lane; 4) Inside Of Me; 5) I Wanna Live Again; 6) Mad Jack; 7) 4 Phil; 8) Since Beginning.

In the late 1960s, there used to be a band called Gun in the UK, run by the creative brotherly duo of Adrian Gurvitz (guitar) and Paul Gurvitz (bass). Both were accomplished musicians, but not terribly original songwriters, dabbling in psychedelic art-pop, progressive hard-rock and whatever else there was en vogue at the time. They were young, naïve, derivative, and not quite sure about how best to dispose of their talents. They did have one hit (ʽRace With The Devilʼ, a grinning mock-evil boogie piece that may actually have been a bit of an influence on Black Sabbath, evil laughter and all), but couldn't capitalize on it, dissolved, reunited as yet another band (Three Man Army), then crashed again in a commercial stupor.

And then along came Ginger Baker, fresh from the dissolution of his five hundred and fifty se­venth project (Ginger Baker's Air Force). Ginger, of course, wasn't much of a songwriter, but he was much of an «adventurer», and the ensuing brief romance between Baker and the Gurvitzes turned out to be almost surprisingly fruitful — particularly on this self-titled debut album. In a strictly mathematical sense, it was probably incorrect to label their power trio an «army», but they certainly generate enough rucus for at least a small squadron.

Essentially, the relative uniqueness of Baker Gurvitz Army comes from the clashing back­grounds. The Gurvitzes cut their teeth on blues-based «heavy art-rock», with a somewhat conven­tional approach to «aggression» and «beauty» in music. Ginger, on the other hand, came from a less «common-sense-oriented», so to speak, jazz background, to which he had also been adding a passion for the true African roots of jazz (he'd been living in Nigeria in the early 1970s). And the merger is lucky. On his own, Ginger couldn't have supplied the songwriting (not to mention the singing), and the Gurvitzes, without his aid, would have probably just made another Gun album — smooth, bland, and forgettable.

As it is, the record alternates between pop-rock anthems à la Grand Funk Railroad (ʽHelp Meʼ), stern, arena-flavored jazz-fusion workouts (ʽLove Isʼ), rootsy confessionals with weeping slide guitars (ʽInside Of Meʼ), orchestrated gospel sendouts (ʽI Wanna Live Againʼ), freakout jams (ʽMad Jackʼ), electric blues sendups in the style of Duane Allman (ʽ4 Philʼ), and atmospheric major key improvisations to brighten up your day (ʽSince Beginningʼ). It's not really quite as di­verse as that, because all of the band members have their trademark tricks that they reproduce in all genres, but still, fairly impressive, eh?

Ginger takes the firm spotlight only twice — during a (fortunately) brief drum solo on ʽMemory Laneʼ and lengthy spoken (actually, muttered) ramblings on ʽMad Jackʼ. But his presence is just as deeply felt, and overall, more impressive everywhere else. On ʽLove Isʼ, for instance, in be­tween all the mammoth riffs and flashy soloing, it is his polyrhythms, off-beat venturing, and unstoppable energy that breathe real life into the music. The Gurvitzes may be a little too stiff and stern at times, taking more care not to make any technical mistakes than to let in real rock'n'roll drive — Baker, on the other hand, couldn't care less about conventions, and simply flails in all directions with the same recklessness he showed in his Cream days (still sort of fresh in his me­mory, I guess, at such an early date). For those used to tighter, less impressionistic, but more te­chnically complex patterns in 1970s prog drumming (think either Bill Bruford or Carl Palmer), this combination might be a fine distraction (or a sacrilege).

Not that I'm diminishing the merits of the Gurvitz brothers in any way, because they do come up with lots of cool riffs and occasionally breathtaking bits of guitar interplay. The slide melodies of ʽInside Of Meʼ, for instance, have that emotional enigma that should be embedded in the best of 'em; ʽ4 Philʼ does deserve the comparison with Duane (as derivative as those bends and vibratos are, they are delivered with honesty and inspiration); and ʽHelp Meʼ, as funny as it is, sort of pre­dates all the best sides of Ozzy Osbourne's solo career a semi-decade before the fact (the idea came to me as I realized the similarity of the vocal parts, but really, the whole idea — cheery, me­lodic pop disguised as hard rock — is quite comparable).

The only track that does not manage to get off the ground is, amusingly, the one track that for­mal­ly tries to — ʽI Wanna Live Againʼ is pompous soul with gospel overtones, too idealistically pretentious for a bunch of white guys to pull off convincingly and, furthermore, misplacing Gin­ger's talents: this is the only track on which he is just a backing player, nothing else. But I sup­pose they just didn't dare put out an album without a single ballad on it, and I cannot imagine Ginger making a valuable contribution to a ballad, anyway.

Overall, the album did not leave a strong trace on the scene of 1974, falling through the cracks as usual — too much of a stylistic melange to amass a strong, devoted fan base, too many fluctuati­ons to appeal to «prog» crowds, «hard rock» crowds, or «glam» crowds in particular. But for to­day's retro-favoring fans of various intellectual or «intellectualized» directions of the 1970s, Ba­ker Gurvitz Army is a must. It's professional, it's loud, it's memorable, and it features a one-of-a-kind talent combination — what's to ignore? Thumbs up, of course.

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The Band: Stage Fright

THE BAND: STAGE FRIGHT (1970)

1) Strawberry Wine; 2) Sleeping; 3) Time To Kill; 4) Just Another Whistle Stop; 5) All La Glory; 6) The Shape I'm In; 7) The W. S. Walcott Medicine Show; 8) Daniel And The Sacred Harp; 9) Stage Fright; 10) The Rumor.

There is a lot of good songs on The Band's third album, and it is respectable that, even though everyone probably expected them to make a carbon copy of the self-titled LP, they went ahead and did something different. The bad news is, Stage Fright is no longer a record targeted at ma­king you kowtow to it. It is a good album, but not a grand one. And when the ambitions of The Band no longer amount to «grandiosity», things may start getting plain dull. Who needs goddamn roots-rock if «it's only roots'n'roll», after all?

The usual judgement is that Stage Fright recedes from the mode of «Americana Bible» and del­ves into more personal matters — that most of these songs reflect Robertson's troubled state of mind in the wake of the band's critical and commercial success, and also in the wake of the Six­ties-to-Seventies transition, what with the burnout of hippie idealism and all. Since one man's «sincerity / honesty» is another man's «egomania», Stage Fright splits listeners and critics, de­pending on how far they are willing to go in their feelings for Mr. Robertson.

The title track is a prime example of how this split can work even over one person. On one hand, it is undeniably catchy, energetic, well-arranged (major kudos, as always, go to Garth Hudson for providing that shrill, piercing, slightly paranoid organ backing), and — I guess — as sincere as they come. And with the right singing choice: Rick Danko, much better at delivering ecstatic, bleeding heart confessions over fast tempos than Manuel (who works more efficiently in slow, drawn-out situations) and Helm (whose Southern mannerisms would be out of place here).

But on the other hand, I can never get rid of the feeling that Rick and Robbie overdo it — the lyrics, the jerky tempo, the hysterical notes (especially those glottalized high pitch bombs on the third line of each verse — yes, Rick, we know the protagonist is supposed to feel bad), all of this is a little too much for a tune that, essentially, deals with just a common phobia. I mean, singing about fuckin' stage fright? Vietnam, Altamont, the Hendrix/Joplin deaths, and these guys are ma­king a Shakesperian tragedy out of stage fright? Always seemed inadequate to me, even if we agree to take the whole thing as a metaphor for something bigger.

Similar feelings apply to the second classic off the album: ʽThe Shape I'm Inʼ, a song that is, curiously eno­ugh, also elevated to forget-me-not status through the inspiration and hard work of Hudson, huffing and puffing behind the organ, layering layers of impressively magical passages onto the song's somewhat dumb-sounding simplistic martial structure. This time, it is more about a general sense of dread and desperation ("Out of nine lives, I spent seven / How in the world do you get to Heaven?"), and Manuel gives it an earthier, more easily credible feel than Danko on the title track, but there is still something that doesn't feel quite right about it. Maybe if they'd in­vented another 19th century character to sing the song...

Basically, what I am trying to say is that I don't care all that much for Robertson's attempts to turn The Band into an outlet for venting his personal frustration: that's a much narrower vision than the one he displayed just a year earlier, and the clear-cut reason for Stage Fright as the begin­ning of The Band's slide into irrelevance and (relative) mediocrity. But this is only a problem if we look at the curve in its entirety: sitting there all by itself, Stage Fright is still essentially impec­cable, especially because the other members of the crew are still enthusiastically backing Robbie and coming up with good creative support.

In fact, there probably isn't one single duffer in the basket. Even a generic country-blues opener like ʽStrawberry Wineʼ still stands out, courtesy of Levon Helm's ridiculously «nasal» delivery (was a clothespin involved or what?) and Hudson's cheery-drunken accordion part. A long-time favorite of mine is ʽThe W. S. Walcott Medicine Showʼ, one of the most sarcastic-sounding tunes on showbiz ever written and arguably The Band's most focused victory over the music hall genre (and "once you get it, you can't forget it" indeed — this is the album's most seductively hum­mable tune). ʽTime To Killʼ was released as an A-side, overshadowed by ʽThe Shape I'm Inʼ as its B-side, but is hardly inferior — it just doesn't hammer its hooks into your brain with the same muscular brutality as its lucky counterpart, but its «treated» guitar sound gives it a delicious, al­most power-poppy resonance, one of those unique experimental tones of the early 1970s: if you ever felt that way about Big Star's ʽSeptember Gurlsʼ, this is kind of a close feeling here.

Parts of the album are notably more Dylanesque than anything on The Band: most notably ʽAll La Gloryʼ, where Levon's phrasing and modulation sound intentionally modeled after Bob — this song is best enjoyed on some lazy, hazy afternoon when your own dreams aren't enough and you are in the mood for some half-psychedelic, half-rootsy romanticism. Most of the verses of ʽThe Rumorʼ also sound like they could have been written directly in «The Basement». Not surprising, perhaps — now that they are out of their Civil War uniforms, it can't be helped if they keep sub­con­sciously drifting back to the man who, want it or not, taught them their songwriting in the first place. In any case, these are all good, credible stylizations.

Overall, Stage Fright is not a textbook masterpiece, but it does work as an «alternative» greatest album for those too haughty, snobby, or fed up with the double crown of Big Pink and The Band, and whatever be, it sure ain't a lazy record — the concepts, feelings, general ideas may be less sweeping and impressive, but the craftsmanship level here remains at an authentic A+. The final thumbs up has a lot to do with Hudson, in particular — the one man out there to clearly show that the best «roots rock» still comes fully equipped with stems, leaves, and branches.

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Billy Preston: 16 Yr. Old Soul

BILLY PRESTON: 16 YR. OLD SOUL (1963)

1) Greazee (Pts. 1 & 2); 2) Lost And A'Lookin'; 3) I Can't Stop Loving You; 4) Born To Lose; 5) Ain't That Love; 6) Bring It On Home; 7) God Bless The Child; 8) Pretty Little Girl; 9) In The Spring; 10) Good News.

Most people in the world — certainly, almost all of the people outside the U.S., myself included — have only heard of Billy Preston due to his involvement in the last period of the Beatles' acti­vity in 1969, including participation in the Rooftop Concert, and, perhaps, due to his later friend­ship with George Harrison, stretching all the way from the Bangla Desh Concert period and right down to the posthumous «Concert For George» thirty years later. Not everyone knows, though, that Billy was not just a random figure picked out for no good reason: he'd known the Beatles from their Hamburg days, where, in 1962, they crossed paths with Little Richard and his touring band. But most importantly, even though messing 'round with the Beatles certainly gave Preston's career and notoriety a shot in the arm, he was already a noted presence on the R&B scene.

In fact, he was noted as early as 1957, when the young prodigy did a ʽBlueberry Hillʼ duet with Nat ʽKingʼ Cole on TV (check it out here — in case of difficulty, the young prodigy can always be recognized by the large funny gap in his front teeth: that, and the fluent organ-playing tech­ni­que, have forever remained two of his permanent trademarks). Then came supporting gigs with everyone who mattered, from Mahalia Jackson to Little Richard to Sam Cooke, and eventually, in 1963, came the solo debut on the small Derby label — an LP of fully instrumental tunes, focusing exclusively on Billy's organ and piano playing. (Technical note: 16 Yr. Old Soul is frequently ignored in the discographies, due either to the limited nature of the original release, or chronolo­gical confusion — it was re-released in the UK in 1969 under the title Greazee Soul — but this is definitely where it all begins).

Now, actually, from a technical point of view the record was somewhat groundbreaking: instru­mental albums with a keyboard fetish were nothing new for the jazz world in the early 1960s, but in the — still quite young and fresh — world of R&B, recording a whole set of vocal-less num­bers was practically unheard of, and the very fact that little Billy got such a proposition would suggest that there was something really special in his keyboard playing. Or, perhaps, that he was just too shy to sing in the studio, and would rather have his trusty organ do all the singing. Other­wise, one would rather expect somebody of Ray Charles' caliber to be the first in line.

In any case, 16 Yr. Old Soul is not exactly a masterpiece, but it is also much, much better than one would think, just by looking at the song titles and learning the basic facts. The thing with Bil­ly was not that he was a top-of-his-class «virtuoso», or that he'd mastered everything there was to piano and organ playing, but that he had his own way of making the keys sing. Listen closely to his inspired take on ʽGod Bless The Childʼ, for instance, and you will notice that he has Billy Ho­liday's original in his head all the way, trying to capture the nuances, the shadows, the echoes, varying the tones, the pitches, the force, everything — basically, doing the sort of thing that every instrumental jazz performer would do, of course, but with as much invention and feeling as the best of 'em, if not necessarily with the same technicality.

The one major highlight is the instrumental ʽGreazeeʼ, four minutes of moody blues-waltzing spent exploring the world of threatening riffs and flashy solos, showing Billy's easily recogni­zable «whirlwind» playing style already fully established: at his most revved-up, he does it all, from creaky Morse code passages to tricky bends and glissandos... well, maybe not that tricky, but they do rock in an openly aggressive manner — in the world of the electric organ, ʽGreazeeʼ is quite the equivalent of Link Wray in the world of the electric guitar, and it lets you know, from the very start, that the young Billy would be mingling more and more with the rock crowds.

Some of the tracks are too dependent on Billy's jazz piano mentors, whoever they might have been (ʽLost And A'Lookinʼ), but whenever the band hits a fast / tight groove, he always ends up shedding superfluous academicity and just plugs along — ʽAin't That Loveʼ and ʽGood Newsʼ, in particular, are great showcase for Billy's «abandon». And second best are those tunes where the point is to capture the spirit of the former vocal part in the keys — like the already mentioned ʽGod Bless The Childʼ or Sam Cooke's ʽBring It On Home To Meʼ. Plus, I have no idea what ʽIn The Springʼ, credited to Lowell Johnson, was originally supposed to be, but here it's a lovely, up­lifting, optimistic piano anthem to start a day with.

Despite all the originality, 16 Yr. Old Soul did not make much of a splash, being targeted to­wards the pop rather than jazz market — and the pop market was relatively indifferent to instru­mental albums, unless we're talking real hot white teen dance music like The Ventures. But it is still an absolute must for those who appreciate Billy's talents, because it already shows an accom­plished master of his trade: Billy would never go on to learn to be a first-rate songwriter or unpre­dictable innovator — all he had for himself was sincerity, passion, technique, and a great ability to channel other people's feelings through his own soul, and in one way or another, it's all here al­ready. Not a jaw-dropping masterpiece, just a highly pleasant musical show that fully deserves its honorary thumbs up.

Check "16 Yr. Old Soul" (MP3) on Amazon