Tag Archives: Rock and Roll

“Sea Cruise,” by Frankie Ford. Song 1013*

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“Sea Cruise” – single from 1959.
Bouncy, exuberant, timeless.

(2 min. read)

*Note – I’m not going to try to rank songs, but I do plan to periodically write a little bit about some songs that I like.

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You never know when you’ll hear a song that sticks with you. For example, you might be in your early 20s, visiting a douchey high school friend in his Philadelphia apartment a couple years before you realize what a horrible human being he is. He might suggest going to some dive bar nearby, and you might stay when he leaves with some young woman. Maybe you stay because the little blues band that’s playing is really rocking. And that band might play a song you hadn’t heard before, but that is a classic old rock and roll tune that just completely rips.

That’s how I first heard “Sea Cruise.” I don’t know why I loved it immediately, or why it’s since become one of my all time favorites. But I did, and it is.

“Sea Cruise” opens with some nautical sounds to set the stage, then the drums, bass and piano immediately get the ball rolling. A honking sax plays a riff before Frankie Ford starts in wailing. His vocals really make the song rock, and you feel he REALLY wants the woman to go on that cruise. He sings with an abandon, nailing the syncopation and squealing “ooo-wee-baby.” The drums and horn section sound like proto-ska. It’s a beat made popular by The Skatelites, in the 60s, and The Specials, in the 70s. The boogie piano on top of it is super-infectious, and Ford sells those vocals for all he’s worth.

As happened constantly in the 50s, “Sea Cruise” was recorded by a Black artist, then remade by a white man, in this case Ford. In fact, Frankie Ford simply sang his vocals over the instrumental version of the original track. Typically, I’ll find the original version of such songs to be superior. And the original version, by Huey “Piano” Smith and the Clowns, is really peppy. But Smith sounds too controlled, with a harmony vocal that takes the edge off the wild urgency of the song. It’s nice, but I prefer Ford. He really delivers some Little Richard-style chaos. It’s pure, old-time rock-and-roll, so it’s a fast-paced song that ends quickly, without changing much throughout. But that’s just fine, the song has everything it needs.

Ford himself was kind of a corny showman, as this American Bandstand clip shows. “Sea Cruise” went to #14 on the US charts, and Ford never hit the Top Forty again. But the one time he did, he really made a splash.

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51st Favorite: If You Didn’t Laugh You’d Cry, by Marah

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If You Didn’t Laugh You’d Cry. Marah.
2005, Yep Roc Records. Producer: Marah.
Purchased, 2006.

IN A NUTSHELL: An under-appreciated, little-known band with a history of nearly going big-time, but sadly missing, presents an album of songs that mirror the band’s story: what might have been? It’s a bluesy, Americana, country-rock tour-de-force, and the star is the songwriting of the Bielenko brothers, Dave and Serge. The sound is great, and Dave’s voice is noteworthy and unique, centering the songs right in the heart.
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Ahh, the drunken sadness of unfulfilled dreams…

I’ve had a bit of a problem with alcohol in my past. I haven’t gotten dangerously drunk in a long, long time, but way back in my past it was a rather regular occurrence. Luckily, I never hurt myself or anyone else (physically) while it was all happening. I made a lot of bad decisions under the influence of booze, and pulled lots of stupid stunts and I came through pretty much unscathed – so it must have involved some luck. As a parent of teenagers, my antics particularly frighten me – because I can’t say they weren’t fun[ref]Except the parts I can’t remember – which are multitudinous, and which remain extra-super frightening.[/ref].

My folks drank alcohol so rarely that it’s honest to say – though technically untrue – that they didn’t drink at all. My dad drank about two beers in a year – the two remaining beers from the case of Miller High Life bought for our annual family Christmas party and drank by my uncles and cousins. He’d finish both cans off by the end of February, then go dry for another 10 months. My mom frequently alluded to her dad, who died the year I was born, having difficulties with alcohol, and this fact clearly influenced her own tee-totaling ways. I recall her and my grandma making banana daiquiris one New Year’s Eve, each drinking one, and have no other recollection of her imbibing during my youth. My parents weren’t drinkers – one of many ways in which they hewed to the straight-and-narrow.

I followed in my parents’ footsteps all through high school, traveling along the trail they blazed of clearly-defined Right through a wilderness of Wrong. That wilderness was described for youth like me in Parables of Poor Choices: teens trespassing after midnight in public pools, paralyzed in shallow-end dives; boys blowing off hands while playing with shotgun shells; girls getting so drunk they were now unsure of who the daddy is. Among these Wrongs, the path I traveled kept me safe from teen drinking[ref]Additionally, late-70s/early80s TV was chock-full of programs about problems, many involving alcohol and teens, and I was a TV junkie.[/ref]. But it wasn’t so much that wilderness of immorality that frightened me as it was my parents’ potential reaction if I got off the path.

That concern was removed on a late-August afternoon in 1985, as I waved goodbye to them from the curb in West Philadelphia as they drove off in their ’78 Ford LTD wagon, beginning their two-hour drive back home from my new college. That night I went to a bar with my new friends.

And I had lots of fun.

That initial feeling of being buzzed has always been a pleasant one for me, from the first couple beers I ever drank. I’ve always felt like an extrovert – someone who enjoys other people and is energized by interactions with them. However I’d learned that the righteous path of my youth was best traveled with minimal social interactions, the better to avoid both temptations of the wilderness and beatings by its denizens, who could become agitated by the inferences they drew about my own self-regard as I viewed them from my elevated path through their surroundings. As a result, I assumed the role of “shy guy.” But the initial lightheaded feeling of a hastily-drank beer opened a doorway on the path that I could step through to engage anyone I wished. I felt like the self I always knew I was.

Alcohol was the formula that unleashed a superpower within me, my own radioactive spider bite or gamma radiation, and it took many years for me to realize that a) the superpower existed without the booze as trigger; and b) more booze did not equal stronger superpowers. There were some regrettable moments in the meantime … but there was a lot of fun, too!

I find being a little bit drunk quite enjoyable. I get a gentle swirly feeling, a sense of subtly floating and a belief that those around me are subtly floating, too. Conversation flows, jokes are funny, a bit of physical contact is affably shared. Of course, all of these characteristics are unhappily stretched, unpleasantly engorged and distorted with further drinking: swirling floatiness becomes shambling stumbles; conversation becomes assholes who won’t shut up; jokes become provocations and physical contact becomes worthy of filing charges. That boundary separating the goodnatured warmth from the ugly derangement of alcohol use is as delicate as a soap bubble. But when one is capable of properly monitoring what is being ingested, and how it is affecting one’s actions, it is possible for some folks (particularly those without a genetic predisposition to alcoholism) to maintain a happy, healthy use of alcohol.

Just as hostility in the ugly drunk is an attenuation of the charming authenticity of the floating drunk, I find the blubbering sorrow of a melancholy drunk to be simply a distortion of something positive about drinking: that wistful sadness of the gentle blues. Maybe it’s because, as an American man raised in the 70s & 80s, I have difficulty expressing emotion without alcohol’s little nudge; maybe it’s because I’m mildly clinically depressed all the time; but whatever the reason, there’s something I like about feeling a little blue with a little booze.

This gentle blue feeling – like most positive aspects of mild alcoholism – is best shared with a friend. To sit together and reminisce while sipping a bourbon or beer; to consider past glories as roundabouts on life’s highway that could have sent you in three different directions; to allow speculative wonder to navigate an alternate trajectory; to burnish memories with little fibs, like splicing explosive bits of blockbuster films into the humdrum documentary of your life, and therefore arrive at the destination of your dreams; and to finally assert that, for all the possible unchosen avenues, you’ve got to admit you’re happy with how life’s turned out so far … these are the steps to a happy sadness, the gentle blues[ref]That last step, recognizing both the joy of reality and the fantasy of what could’ve been, is key. If you don’t resolve to this step, you’ve either drank too much or you have some serious decisions to make.[/ref].

This feeling pervades the Marah album If You Didn’t Laugh, You’d Cry. The first phrase I wrote down when I started this post was “The drunken sadness of unfulfilled dreams,” and for so many reasons this is the feeling I get from this band. I first heard of Marah around 2005, when I was still performing stand-up comedy. I would frequent an online Comedians Message Board, and someone whose taste I trust recommended the band and its latest album. I bought it blindly, and I became a fan of the band. Not only is their music tinged with sadness, but their story is, as well. A Philadelphia band, touted by giants like Stephen King and Nick Hornby, they were the darling of the critics, but never able to push through, despite some national TV exposure; and then a final splintering provided lots of questions of what might-have-been. A band named Marah still exists, but its Bruce Springsteen dreams are now a DIY reality of Americana pickin’ – and they seem okay with it. They seem gently blue.

If You Didn’t Laugh You’d Cry opens with a brief, jaunty slide guitar melody that is revisited throughout the album, then flies right into “The Closer,” a flying, bar-band stomper with a nifty riff, a sing-along chorus and a recorded phone message …

Singer Dave Bielenko writes the songs with his brother, Serge, who also takes lead vocal on a few songs. Dave has a distinctive, nearly-out-of-tune voice that carries a whiff of drunken abandon with it on nearly every song he sings. Or – in the case of this song that’s all about wild intoxication – far more than just a whiff.

The band also shows a fondness for cramming lots of words into their lyrics, in a Bruce Springsteen/Bob Dylan manner, which sounds really good when done right. It’s a feature of the next song, “The Hustle[ref]Not the classic Van McCoy disco song.[/ref],” and the coming-apart-at-the-seams feel is enhanced by the sloppy/cool guitar throughout and the lyrics’ working-artist content.

It’s another straight-ahead rocker, although the bridge at about 2:05 changes things up and deposits the song back again at about 2:30 with a different guitar riff and a disco bass line, demonstrating the band’s dexterity and playfulness. The song ends, then a clip of sad music follows – some interstitial sound linking the pieces together.

Next up is one of those gently blue, bittersweet songs, “City of Dreams.”

It’s a lovely acoustic song, with a mournful lap steel and mellotron accompanying. Dave holds back a bit on his voice’s drunken affectation as he sings about being a dreamer in the big city. His voice can be very expressive, despite its scruffy nature, particularly on these slower songs. One of my favorites is the us-against-the-world love song, “Out of Tune.” It builds from a voice and guitar, adding brother Serge on banjo and harmonies, finally adding handclaps around 1:54 as the initial sadness turns to the pride and unity of shared love. And I love the message, and chorus, of the song: “So what if we’re out of tune with the rest of the world?”

The songwriting is what carries this album. The Brothers Bielenko are excellent composers, and their arrangements – full of slide guitar and banjo – fit the tunes perfectly. The band sounds like an excellent bar band, all rough edges and passion, and I regret that I’ve never seen them live. There are many videos on YouTube of their live shows, and they seem like they put on a terrific show. A song that I think captures their fun energy, and that I’m sure is great live, is “Poor People.”

It’s got a different beat, again uses a simple guitar riff to drive it and includes a banjo in the background to pull things together. It builds to a point at 2:30 where the entire band fills in with background vocals – which is where I’d be screaming lyrics back to the band, if I heard it live. It’s about the indignities of living poor, where “The mice are crazy from paint chip crumbs/As the iron lung of the icebox hums/There’s cool ranch dust on our lunchtime thumbs.” And the lyrics again have a certain drunken pride – though they suggest a lousy life, the singer celebrates it, almost daring the listener to criticize. Marah is a Philly band, and this deep-seated pride is a characteristic I associate with Philadelphia and its citizens. In the 1970s the Philadelphia Phillies had a player named Mike Schmidt, one of the best players ever in the game. But Phillies fans booed Schmidt frequently, and griped about his play constantly. HOWEVER – if a fan of a different team put Schmidt down, he could expect an earful in support of Schmidt, and perhaps a punch in the face. There’s an Older Brother quality to Philadelphia that Marah’s music captures: I can talk shit about my little brother, but nobody else better do it!

Philadelphia, pride, sadness – they all play a big role in “Walt Whitman Bridge,” a song set on the Philadelphia landmark, where the singer contemplates a lost love and life itself, with great imagery of celebrating life’s miseries with memorials such as shoes on phone lines and words strewn like bread crumbs.

It’s a folksy, blue number with a nice acoustic guitar and some Dylan-y harmonica. Some lap steel and tinkling piano provide nice color, and the harmonies in the chorus, first heard about 1:17, give me chills every time.

The Bob Dylan influence is particularly noticeable on the gem “The Dishwasher’s Dreams,” a song with a constant stream of words set to an Americana stomp. Similar to “Poor People,” it’s a tale of the desperate poor making bad decisions, and fearing the future so badly that they dream of killing themselves. The only saving grace to their grim life is the love they share for one another. It’s a well-told tale, and lines such as “I fell in love with Monique/ on a Yanks winning streak/ and we danced to the popping of corks” are brilliantly evocative. This is another favorite of mine.

There isn’t a bad song on the album. The jaunty, interstitial melody heard at the album opening is finally given its due in the country sing-along “Sooner or Later,” with the lovely dobro riff carrying it along. That riff ends the album, as well, then turns into the hidden track, “The Sooner or Later Interlude,” a straight-ahead rocker featuring more great Serge/Dave harmonies. “Fat Boy” is a honky-tonk stomper, and “Demon of White Sadness” is a sadly bouncing number with a nice guitar riff, and lyrics about depression described not as the typical blackness, but as something turned white with medication.

Brother Serge takes lead vocals on another tear-jerker, the miss-you-while-I’m-on-the-road, country-tinged “The Apartment.”

I love the lyrics of this song, the form and structure. I love how few of the lines rhyme (except for some great internal rhymes) – it’s really an essay about missing one’s love. Mundane facts of life on the road – truck stop bananas, pumping gas – are interspersed with little expressions of yearning love: souvenir keychains, drunken phone calls. Vaguely mariachi trumpets provide a wistful backdrop to the song.

“Wistful” is defined by Google as “having or showing a feeling of vague or regretful longing.” Merriam-Webster calls it “yearning or desire tinged with melancholy; musingly sad.” It’s the feeling I associate with mild drunkenness, a sense of being “gently blue.” If you wanted to describe wistfulness in a simple sentence, you might say this: “If you didn’t laugh, you’d cry.” If you wanted to feel it for yourself, you might listen to “If You Didn’t Laugh, You’d Cry.” You’ll be happy you did.

Track Listing:
“The Closer”
“The Hustle”
“City of Dreams”
“Fat Boy”
“Sooner or Later”
“Out of Tune”
“Demon of White Sadness”
“The Dishwasher’s Dreams”
“Poor People”
“Walt Whitman Bridge”
“The Apartment”
“Sooner or Later Interlude (Hidden Track)”

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87th Favorite: Blunderbuss, by Jack White

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Blunderbuss. Jack White.
2012, Third Man. Producer: Jack White
Purchased 2012.

Blunderbuss-PNG

nutsIN A NUTSHELL – Eclectic, multi-genre-spanning debut from The White Stripes’ front man combines odd lyrics, cool guitar and a grab-bag of instruments into a rock and roll stew, with only a few rock songs included. Very impressive musicians and songs. WOULD BE HIGHER IF – it was even more rockin’, with even more guitar.

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I don’t care what people say, Rock and Roll is here to stay!” – Danny and the Juniors, 1958.

danny juniors Has there ever been an art form so obsessed with its longevity as rock music? In 1958 Danny and the Juniors proudly proclaimed in song that Rock and Roll would never die, and since then countless acts – from The Who to Neil Young to AC/DC and Ozzy Osbourne – have repeated the claim.
picasso
Can you imagine this happening in another art form, this obsession with lifespan?

“Señor Picasso – your new masterpiece for 1909, what is its title?”

“I call it, ‘I Don’t Care What People Say, Cubism is Here to Stay.’ And if you don’t think it is, you can kiss my indistinguishable, stylized, angular ass!”

It’s been part of the snarling, adolescent, anti-authoritarian bent of rock and roll since the beginning to tell the listener, “Screw you!! We ain’t goin’ nowhere!” The message sounded like it was directed to every parent, teacher, cop or judge who dared to listen. But in reality it was mostly other teen-agers listening, so instead of the message being about defiance, it was actually about community, an us-against-the-world rallying cry.

It’s understandable why this message was included in 50s rock and roll. Since the days of ragtime piano white kids had always been warned about the dangers of black music – just as they would be all the way through hip hop – but they were listening to it anyway, and now they were making it (!) and getting it played on the radio (!!).

50s danceImagine the shock on Officer Farnsworth’s face as you not only sing a rock and roll song, but sing a rock and roll song ABOUT how you’ll never stop singing rock and roll songs!! True, Officer Farnsworth wasn’t really listening, but all the kids at the Record Hop could just feel the look on his face as they rocked and rolled, and somehow that feeling made the music sound even better.

Rock is dead, they say. Long live rock!!” The Who, 1974.

the who rockBy the early 70s, fifteen years or so into the rock era, a message asserting rock and roll’s longevity probably sounded misplaced to the casual music fan. The Who invoked the nebulous “they,” as purveyors of this strange notion that the most popular music form of the day is “dead.” And maybe Village Voice critics and a few angry teenagers and a moody art student or two were saying it, but to most people it probably sounded like a lark.

57 belairBut once again, this view ignores the intended listener – the rock music fan. Rock and Roll had morphed into “Rock,” and the Rock Music fan in the early 70s probably wasn’t reading The Village Voice and probably wasn’t all that interested in shaking up the music establishment. The rock music fan was drinking beer, smoking “grass” and souping up a ’57 Chevy in his driveway. He (not to be sexist, but the message was directed mostly to males … but that will have to be a different blog post) was tired of hearing bullshit, fruity songs about fathers and sons sung by sensitive assholes strumming acoustic guitars or by cheesy assholes wearing leisure suits and tuxedoes. He just wanted some tunes that kicked some ass, and he wanted to feel secure that just because the world seemed to be going down the toilet, the music he loved wasn’t going to be flushed away any time soon. “Long Live Rock!!” Roger Daltrey screamed, and The Fan pumped his fist right along and felt that old burst of heat and light rising up from his midsection that he’d felt since the first time he heard The Kinks’ “All Day and All of the Night.” Roger and Pete and John and Keith didn’t think rock music was going anywhere, and this made The Fan feel better than ever.

Hey hey. My my. Rock and roll will never die.” – Neil Young, 1979.

By 1979, the sentiment was sounding desperate. neilNeil Young cut two versions of the song, a rocking version called “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)” and an acoustic version called “My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue).” The rocking version – with its references to punk rock – may have ensured some old time rock and roll fans sympathythat everything was in good hands, but the acoustic version, in Young’s distinctive, plaintive voice, is reminiscent of a Sympathy Card, reminding one that even though a loved one is no longer with us, the memories will live on. Certainly a nice thought … but also confirmation that, indeed, rock and roll was dead.

As with the teens in 1958, and the rockin’ dude in 1974, listeners in 1979 were moved by the feelings the songs (particularly “Out of the Blue”) conjured. “Okay – I acknowledge that the music has changed, but the feeling it gives me, that Rock and Roll spirit that I hear, that’s still alive inside me.” It was still a message of longevity, but the message had previously been about the music, and how it was bigger than the listener. Now the message was about the listener, and how the music would always be there for him/her.

Rock and roll ain’t noise pollution. Rock and roll ain’t gonna die.” – AC/DC, 1980.

You can’t kill rock and roll. It’s here to stay.” -Ozzy Osbourne, 1981.

acdc ozzyWithin a few years, both AC/DC and Ozzy Osbourne were reiterating what had been repeated over the past 25 years. But at the time both acts were considered “Heavy Metal,” fringe acts from a genre nowhere to be found in the popular singles of the day (1980, 1981, 1982).

Heavy Metal was/is “identity rock,” like punk or straight-edge, and identity rock makes no apologies in stating that the music is bigger than the listener. Saying that the music was never going to die was what metal listeners wanted to hear, and it raised all the feelings in the listeners that they had come to expect from the music. But considering what the popular music charts looked like at the time, their affirmations felt like the lyrical equivalent of a young soap opera doctor losing his first patient, futilely attempting resuscitation by pounding on the body’s chest.

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They say the heart of rock and roll is still beating.” -Huey Lewis and The News, 1983.

hueyIf AC/DC and Ozzy’s songs were the equivalent of pounding on a dead body’s chest, Huey Lewis’s earnest – yet sadly oxymoronic – effort was the equivalent of dressing the body in a tuxedo and performing a ventriloquism act with it.

“Hey, Rocky, what’s this I hear that you’re dead?”
“Whert? Nee dead? I dern’t know whert yr talking a-doubt. I’n nert dead! I’n alai-zh, shee?” [Stiff arm awkwardly waves.]

It was Weekend at Bernie’s on the radio, but true rock fans weren’t listening to Top 40 radio all that much anyway by 1984 so – gratefully – this desecration of the corpse of rock and roll was perpetrated away from the consideration of most of its fans. (And this isn’t to say Huey and the boys didn’t believe what they were singing – I mean, people do respond to grief in any number of ways, but … anyway … let’s just move on, shall we?)

He’s the one who likes all our pretty songs, and he likes to sing along, and he likes to shoot his guns, but he knows not what it means.” – Nirvana, 1991.

nirvanaBy the early 90s, popular rock acts were no longer preaching an “us-against-the-world” message to listeners – ensuring them that the spirit would live foreverfrat boys – but were instead making fun of them for listening in the first place. The deal was that if you were cool (and for the life of me, I somehow believed I was) you understood the irony that Nirvana was singing a catchy, sing-along song mocking the Frat-boy/Jock types who sang along, and who (probably) still believed that the heart of Rock and Roll was still beating, and who therefore banged their heads along to “Smells Like Teen Spirit” one minute, Winger’s “(She’s Only) Seventeen” the next, and EMF’s “Unbelieveable” the next. The message was still about community, but now it was an exclusive community: not “us-against-the-world” but “some-of-us-(and you know who you are)-against-the-world-(which includes some of you).”

It was an acknowledgement that rock was dead, but that its cobain ghostsmirking spirit was still around, giving the finger. And that those feelings the music brings – the old light and heat from the midsection – feelings a listener could still get from a few bands out there, were different from the sensations that other music brings, or that other people feel. Others might recognize it, sure, but they “know not what it means.”

Party like a rockstar. Totally, dude!” – Shop Boyz, 2007.

shop boyzBy the 2000s, rock and roll was just another form of old-timey music, like jazz or swing or tin pan alley or hymns. The Shop Boyz rapped about rock stars in the same way The Eagles sang about a cowboy, in ‘Desperado,’ as an archetypal metaphor (or simile, in this case) to whom the listener can relate. Rock and roll had become a thing of the past, and even though a rock song, with actual guitars and drums and singing, might appear on the pop charts once in a while, the songs tended to be by acts like Train or Nickelback or Magic!, and they sounded like imitations of the real thing.

I imagine it’s similar to how Chuck Mangione or Kenny G. – when they hit the pop charts in the 70s, 80s and 90s, with what was called “jazz” – must have sounded to fans of jazz from the 40s and 50s.

jazz

Rock and roll was now just a history lesson. And those of us who had felt those old feelings it could bring were left, mostly, with our oldies stations and our old CDs, doing shit like making up lists and spending (wasting?) time reminiscing through blogs about them while new art forms (apparently) expressed those feelings for the next generations.

As a fan of rock music, it’s been difficult to see the genre move out of the public’s daily consciousness. After all, the music always meant so much to so many people and was far more than just something to listen to. Rock music was politics, rock music was art, rock music was identity, rock music was community, rock music was theater, emotion, anarchy, religion. Rock music was life. And as ridiculous as Huey Lewis sounded, I am still trying to keep that heart of rock and roll beating as long as I can.

only rock n roll

I’ve written before about trying to stay up-to-date with the now-sounds of rock, even after its death. white stripesOne of the acts in recent years that caught my ear – that caught millions of listeners’ ears – was The White Stripes, the guitar and drum duo of Jack and Meg White, a divorced couple who pretended to be siblings, and who played blues-based rock in a loud, shambling, raucous style. I bought a bunch of their albums, and was immediately impressed with Jack White’s guitar playing and singing.

The songs were aggressive and clamorous, but sometimes sweet, and almost always catchy as hell.

But too often, the songs sounded to me like demos – unfinished ideas that would’ve been incredible with a little more work. I suppose this “low-fi” aspect was some of their charm, and what attracted many listeners – a sort of immediate, unfiltered sound that was in direct opposition to much of the hyper-produced music popular at the time. But when I listened, I wanted something more. Just as many rock fans seek out early demo versions of their favorite artists’ popular songs, I wished I could find full-instrumentation, produced versions of The White Stripes’ drum-and-guitar-only gems. As the band progressed, they moved toward this direction, but they broke up after 2007’s Icky Thump. I remained a fan, and looked forward to hearing what would come from Jack and Meg.

raconteursJack recorded a few records as part of the supergroup The Raconteurs, and I became a fan of their records immediately. (He also formed The Dead Weather, who sound good, but who I don’t know much about.) And when I heard he’d release a solo album in 2012, I was ready to buy it.

I love Blunderbuss because of its diversity of styles, catchy songs, interesting instrumentation and outstanding performances. White assembled an all-female band to play on most of the tracks, and they are in fine form throughout, particularly the rhythm section of drummer Carla Azar and bassist Bryn Davies. Together, the band moves easily through the blues, rock, pop, americana, etc, handling the songs in such a way that makes them sound … familiar.

female band

I don’t mean familiar in a bad way, as in phony or derivative. I suppose “timeless” describes the sound better, although that word sounds a little pretentious. The album sounds like a record that would have been considered great had it been released any time between 1965 and today. It’s a record that makes me think a lot about my long-dead buddy, Rock Music.

The record is interesting right off the bat, starting with the lead song “Missing Pieces.” A simple six-note electric piano riff is built up to full instrumentation, an introduction that is compelling, but leaves the listener unsure what could be coming next. There’s a lot of space, and as Jack begins jack organsinging the song turns into a slow groove. I’ve always loved Jack’s voice – it has (dare I say?!) a touch of Robert Plant to it. He can both howl and croon. And his guitar playing is always excellent. “Missing Pieces” features a terrific guitar solo, followed by an equally excellent electric piano solo, also played by White. The lyrics of the song speak of the dangers of people who will take too much from you, and contain the cool lines to end the song “And when they tell you that they just can’t live without you/ They ain’t lyin’, they’ll take pieces of you.” The song has a 70’s R&B feel to it, and that’s the first of many genres found here.

White’s lyrics can be very good, but they can be very strange, as well. (Which I don’t mind!) The next song on the album is the straight-ahead rock number “Sixteen Saltines.”

lockerI have no idea what it’s about, and the video doesn’t help with interpreting the lyrics – unless the song is about disturbed youth doing disturbing things. It does sound like it might be set in a school (“She’s got stickers on her locker/ And the boys’ numbers there in magic marker”), but then spiked heels in a lifeboat are mentioned as well. Wikipedia says (without reference) that the song is meant to be reflections by some dying guy eating saltines in a life raft. But – as with many of the songs – despite the strange lyrics, the song is really strong. It has a nice keyboard riff that breaks up the verses, and the guitar is once again excellent, including a dueling guitar solo that White plays with himself that is reminiscent of two-guitar attacks from a variety of older bands, from the Allman Brothers to Judas Priest. It’s raucous fun, especially performed live!

jack guitarWhite’s guitar work is on display throughout the album, and it’s one of the things that keeps me listening again and again. He seems to never play the expected lick, or a cookie-cutter solo. The song “Freedom at 21” – a riff-rock number with modern production, sounding like the 1970s and 2010s at the same time – features a fine example. The solo – at 1:44 – is squawky noise and flash and sounds very cool. (The song also features a video that appears to have been directed by a horny 16 year old boy.)

But the record isn’t all guitar. The song “Weep Themselves to Sleep” is piano driven, orchestragrand and important-sounding, like a Freddy Mercury demo of an Arena Rock monster – the kind of song that one can imagine being played twenty years from now, on some kind of PBS fund-raiser special, by Jack White accompanied by a symphony orchestra, violinists and cellists sawing away mindlessly, thinking of the paycheck they’re earning. But even on a song like this, White throws in a terrific guitar solo that, to me, makes the song interesting. Also interesting, as always, are the lyrics, running together here like a Hubert Selby, Jr., novel and sung-spoken in a style reminiscent of early hip hop.hip hop jack

Another “non-guitar” song – and still another style, as well – is the song “Blunderbuss” – a tale of two sides of a love triangle set to a waltz. White’s band, including pedal steel guitarist Fats Kaplin, are a single unit, dancing together on the 3/4 beat.band 2

And White’s voice – which I’ve always loved for its variety and expressiveness – is terrific here. It sounds great, as well, on the popular duet “Love Interruption,” sung with Ruby Amanfu.

The lyrics describe a desire for a love that can change a life, yet also state a desire to remain unchanged by love – an inner conflict that is the basis of many great songs, not to mention many desperate lives. White also pens songs about external conflicts, as well, as in the harsh and angryHypocritical Kiss.”

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So, we’ve heard guitar rock, arena rock, a waltz, some piano ballads … what about some blues, you ask? How about this version of “I’m Shakin’,” a song by Rudy Toombs. [ref]Toombs also wrote “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer,” covered in the 80s by George Thorogood.[/ref]

How about some McCartney-esque pop/rock songs? White offers “Hip (Eponymous) Poor Boy,” my favorite song on the album (which sounds like it might be a lament about how hard it’s been to be Jack White of The White Stripes?) and “Trash Tongue Talker,” a raucous rave-up with some lyrics about monkeys jumping on the bed. How about a little Western-Swing, sort of Americana-ish-type song? Try “Take Me With You When You Go.”

Listening to Blunderbuss takes a listener to all kinds of musical places. One nifty place is what sounds to me like an 1880s San Francisco saloon. The song “I Guess I Should Go To Sleep” sounds nothing like my long dead friend Rock Music, but it sounds great nonetheless.

And it makes me feel happy and makes me want to have a fun time and sing along really loudly, all feelings I associate with first hearing – or, more accurately, first CARING about – Led Zeppelin or The Beatles. Feelings I associate with Rock Music. But if this song isn’t a rock song, and if rock is dead, anyway … then maybe the spirit IS inside me, and maybe it never was about the music after all. Maybe music felt this way to everyone ever since some Neanderthal banged a rock way back when.

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Blunderbuss shows me that whether rock is dead or not doesn’t really matter. This album could have been a hit at any time over the past 40 years, so who cares what we call it? It still conjures that light and heat inside me.

“Long Live Rock! (Be it dead or alive.)”

TRACK LISTING
Missing Pieces
Sixteen Saltines
Freedom at 21
Love Interruption
Blunderbuss
Hypocritical Kiss
Weep Themselves to Sleep
I’m Shakin
Trash Tongue Talker
Hip (Eponymous) Poor Boy
I Guess I Should Go to Sleep
On and On and On
Take Me With You When You Go

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