Sure, she can sing, but as much as Simon likes to refer to the show as a ldquo;singing competition rdquo;, it rsquo;s hardly that cut and dried. Video killed the radio star over 25 years ago, and from a visual standpoint, Melinda was..
. well, mundane. No matter how she belted out the vocals, she was never able to project a visual presence.
Had she thrown her shoulders back a bit and ditched that ldquo;I rsquo;m not worthy rdquo; facial expression, she might have had a chance. But I doubt it. i AI /i is all about the youth factor, and at 29, she was, sadly, too old for the 18-24 demographic.
br / br / It rsquo;s that demographic, coupled with my sneaking suspicion that the voting audience is largely female, that made it obvious to me that Melinda would be leaving. Chicks dig Blake. His beatbox style resonates with teenyboppers.
He has that bad boy aura, but he rsquo;s a guy they could take home to mom. The problem is, a lsquo;hood lsquo;tude quickly wears thin without something to back it up. Suburban white boys rarely have it.
On the other hand, Sir Mix-A-Lot has given Blake his blessing. And when a one hit wonder from the early nineties endorses you, that has to be a good sign, right? br / br / Not necessarily.
Seventeen-year-old Jordin has a certain post-adolescent gawkiness that rsquo;s endearing to the audience, and especially endearing to that teenage voting block I mentioned earlier. Plus, she can actually sing. Despite Simon rsquo;s occasional admonitions that she rsquo;s choosing songs ldquo;too old rdquo; for her age, the fact remains she pulls them off by virtue of her phrasings and the sheer power of her voice.
More importantly, she knows how to emanate a presence. Add to that equation the fact that she rsquo;s young enough to be molded into whatever persona the labels desire at any given whim, and she has to be the odds on favorite. br / br / That said, it rsquo;s still anybody rsquo;s guess.
No matter how it goes down, nobody really loses on i American Idol /i mdash; except perhaps the viewers who thought they held the future course of pop culture in their hands by virtue of their vote. It will all be forgotten by the time next season rolls around. Ask Taylor Hicks.
br / br / The truth is, i American Idol /i has always been a sleight of hand con game. Melinda, Jordin, and Blake will all have their moment in the sun. So will the almost-rans.
They rsquo;ll all have a nice little run on VH1 (aka the i American Idols /i Rejects channel), but they rsquo;ll add nothing of substance to the fabric of pop culture. br / br / It doesn rsquo;t matter. We rsquo;ll be back next season for another round of bread and circuses.
So will Simon, Randy, and Paula, all looking even more disinterested than they did this season. And once more, the viewing audience will choose yet another American Idol. br / br / God help us all.
br / br / /p div id="authorbio" Ray Ellis is a freelance writer who has been dissecting pop culture and its effect on how we view ourselves for over twenty years, ruffling feathers and dragging unsuspecting pedestrians along for the ride whenever possible. /div br style="clear: both;"/
br / br / Already the first boutiques were opening in what had been their previously unfashionable downtown neighbourhood. When the sandblasting started and the gentrification began one knew it was only a matter of time before it would become a scene . br / br / Band names like The Battered Wives, Nazi Dog And The Vile Tones, Suburban Crime, and Throbbing Members were soon only a memory as the weekend punks from the suburbs made their way into the city core to buy their black leather jackets, studded collars, and combat boots.
Enclaves of hold outs hung on, moving to where rents were cheaper and the neighbourhood less reputable but it was only holding off the inevitable: the first wave of Punk Rock in Toronto was over and done. br / br / Punk had its origins in the streets of London England in the mid 1970s where unemployment among the working class youth was rampant and hopes for the future were minimal. Rock music had become moribund and bloated, losing track of the rebellious nature that had made it so vital in the late fifties early sixties.
br / img src="http://blogs.epicindia.com/leapinthedark/Sex%20Pistols.
jpg" alt="Sex Pistols.jpg" hspace="3" vspace="3" width="275" height="183" align="left" / br / The times were ripe for something new, something that spoke to the anger and hopeless frustration. The times were ripe for i Never Mind The Bollocks Here s The Sex Pistols /i .
For about three years they were like an asteroid entering earth s atmosphere; gradually burning out and breaking apart from the speed of their flight and the weight of the resistance against them. br / br / The first line up for the Sex Pistols was Glen Matlock on bass, Paul Cook on drums, Steve Jones on guitar, and Johnny (Lydon) Rotten vocals, lyrics, and attitude. a href="http://www.
eaglerockent.com" Eagle Rock Entertainment /a has reissued the DVD i Classic Albums: Never Mind The Bollocks Here s The Sex Pistols /i that tells the story of how the album came into existence. i Bollocks /i was the only full-length studio album that the Pistols produced and, judging by what we hear on the DVD, it s a miracle that they even got one recorded.
br / br / Paul and Steve had been part of a band and they had brought Glen in on bass but it was Malcolm McLaren, the man who saw himself as their Svengali but was more Barnum and Bailey then anything else, who brought John Lydon into the band. It also becomes clear that while McLaren may not have fired Glen Matlock as the band s bassist, he seemed to have managed to sow discord between John and Glen that was sufficient to have Glen replaced by Sid Vicious. McLaren thought Vicious looked the part more than Glen, and so he was given the nod in spite of not being able to play his instrument.
br / br / This goes a long way in explaining why the only bass on i Never Mind The Bollocks /i was provided by Matlock, even though he was no longer in the group when it was finally released. As far as I could tell from what the engineers were saying when they talked about recording the album, Glen s bass was heard on Anarchy In The U.K.
and the infamous God Save The Queen . Everything else was done by Steve Jones. br / br / One of the more fascinating aspect of the DVD are the conversations with the four remaining members of the band and to see them today.
Obviously, Glen is the one with least pleasant memories, but even he can t help but get excited when talking about the music and the band. Paul Cook the former drummer has the least to say and it falls to Steve and Johnny to tell the story from the band s point of view. br / br / As I ve long suspected, the one who really comes out looking like the villain of the whole piece was Malcolm MacLaren.
The Pistols appear to have had a career in spite of him, not because of him. He seems to have seen them as a toy he could play with and a means of creating a stir and being flamboyant. The music and what Johnny was trying to do creatively appear to have been of no consequence to him.
br / br / His comments about the trial when a shop owner in Manchester was charged with obscenity for displaying the word Bollocks , as compared to Johnny s, are very revealing. The English novelist and lawyer John Mortimer defended the band and the shopkeeper and had the charges dismissed on the grounds of freedom of expression. MacLaren was horribly disappointed; he said it would have been so much better to have one of them hauled off to jail because of it.
br / br / Johnny, on the other hand thought that Mortimer s defense had been brilliant and it was an important matter of freedom of speech and expression. At that point in the interview he got the old familiar evil glint in his eye and turned to the camera and said, so fuck you and laughed. He hasn t changed a bit.
br / br / One of the other interesting things about this DVD is it debunks the theory the band was inept musically. While it was true Vicious couldn rsquo;t play his bass when he joined the band (and who knows if he ever learnt how) the rest of the band was better than competent by the time they got into the studio. While Paul and Steve admit they were no great shakes when they first started, when the band was given proper rehearsal facilities by MacLaren, they began to gel.
br / br / Both the producer and the recording engineer say, Chris Spedding was probably one of the most surprised people in England when it was passed around that he played all the guitar on i Never Mind The Bollocks /i . They laughed and said you know you think we might have noticed him if were here. Steve did all the guitar work.
The guitar sound on the album was produced by having Steve overdub his guitar with subtle differences each time to give it the depth to make it sound like a guitar army. br / br / It s a common technique but it also requires a great deal of technical skill on the part of the guitar player, and a willingness to be patient, as he had to be able to play the same part over and over again without changing a note or a beat. Couple that with Steve also laying down the bass as previously mentioned and you realize he knew his way around his guitar, thank you very much.
br / br / Steve describes Johnny sitting huddled in the corner of the studio with paper and pen writing out song lyrics while around him everybody else was doing their thing. Johnny talks about how he liked to play with language and stretch words through pronunciation to make them work together: hence anar K ist and Anti Christ. br / br / Bill Price who engineered the record and Chris Thomas the producer both say the same thing about Johnny s ability as a singer.
Listen to how well each word is articulated, even when he sounds as if he s torturing his throat you can hear every last syllable that he is singing. br / br / i Classic Albums: Never Mind The Bollocks Here s The Sex Pistols /i is a revealing look at the story of the band and the story behind the making of the disc. Listening to the tracks played on the DVD, I was struck once again by their power and passion.
br / br / I remember being in London, England in the summer of 1981. Shops in Portobello market were still covered in plywood from the race riots that had been rocking the city two weeks earlier. At the end of my stay I took a train out through Brixton, where the poor are housed and confined.
Looking out at row upon row of brick town houses crammed up against each other, I could well imagine how those streets gave birth to bands like the Pistols. br / br / Compared to the riots of the previous weeks there was nothing nihilistic about the Pistols. The act of creating music is not that of a person with no faith or hope for the future, no matter what people say.
br / /p div id="authorbio" img src="http://static.flickr.com/49/114463085_224d431d08_s.
jpg" style="float:left;margin:5px;border:1px solid gray"/ Richard Marcus is a long-haired Canadian iconoclast who writes reviews and opines on the world as he sees it at a href="http://blogs.epicindia.com/leapinthedark" Leap In The Dark /a and a href="http://epicindia.
com" Epic India /a . Sun, 20 May 2007 15:08:09 EDT
The DVD includes live footage from a whole slew of shows and also some interviews by the band members themselves. The total running time is a little over an hour. /p p The New Hampshire natives call themselves the Queers not because of a sexual orientation but more to poke fun at a ritzy snobby community that they resided in at the time of the band's conception in 1982.
They also wanted to give themselves a band name that people would remember. Their sound is street punk mixed with pop punk. To me they are a wilder Ramones type band that loves to sing about girls, drugs, and just having fun.
They played out from 1982 to 1984 and then reformed in the 1990's with a new line up and have pretty much been playing out since then. /p p Starting with a classic punk rock beginning, the DVD starts with the Queers playing at what looks to be small club or even VFW hall when all of the sudden lead signer Joe King (a.k.
a. Joe Queer) starts yelling at a kid in the crowd "Stop F*cking with the roadie!" Apparently the kid had something smart to say back to Joe Queer and he called to have the kid removed from the scene.
All of the fans start laughing and point at the kid as he gets ejected from the show -- classic. /p p The video "Don't Back Down" was awesome to watch. It was like watching a Beach Boys video on acid.
The video may never have made it to good ol' MTV, but I loved every bit of it. So what if they were not really surfing -- the video was humorous, and the girls were cute, and that works for me. /p p Jamming through such tunes as "This Place Sucks," "Tamara Is A Punk," and "Punk Rock Girls," the i The Queers Are Here /i DVD shows a lot of their classic performances through the eyes of a fan thanks to low quality camcorders.
The sound is off at times, but that is to be expected, especially when it is self recording and not something done by a professional company. The video recording was from US shows as well as overseas shows proving how popular this street punk band really is. /p p The interviews were interesting at times and seemed to be spur of the moment.
Sometimes the band would talk about their history. Other times the band would talk about personal band experiences, such as a fourteen year old girl whose mother would drop her off at their shows and basically trust her daughter with the band. The girl would joke with the Queers to write a song about her and eventually they did.
Of course you have to have a punk rock moment, so Joe Queer states that she's got to be at least eighteen years old now and is probably smoking hot. /p p Although the footage was more of a shaky home movie grade at times, the DVD was a lot of fun to watch because it reminded me of cramming into small clubs with tons of other punk rockers and having the time of my life. I got a kick out of watching the crowd get into the music, warm up, and just let go.
As soon as the Queers would start up a song, you could see the energy rise and then out of no where a circle pit would start with kids dancing all around with not a care in the world. Fans arrived each night to see The Queers, a punk rock legend, play out some songs for them. Seeing the kids flail their arms in the air and sing along in approval proved how good life can be.
/p div id="authorbio" Diesel hails from the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio. Living the American dream by feeding off of Guinness and Chipolte, this former punk rock super hero has finally slowed down a little and accepted the fact that he is a better listener of music than a performer..
. /div br style="clear: both;"/
/p p Ranges of styles are always on display from thrash, to black, to death, and all manner in between. I can only imagine what a great time it is to actually be there. Regardless of the language barriers, we all know the language of metal!
I have never heard of many of these bands, a few others I have heard of, and others I have been a fan of for awhile. The collection of bands serves as a good reminder that while I like a lot of bands, there are always more waiting around the corner to be introduced to my ear holes. /p p img hspace="5" src="http://img.
photobucket.com/albums/v290/draven99/music/Metalmania_2006_m.gif" align="right" / The show opened with black metal band Vesania.
They were represented by a single song, "Marduke's Mazemerising," an interesting excursion into the black with a touch of progressive and a flair for the dramatic. They were onstage wearing face paint, standing still, and creating a pretty imposing image. The performance was very good.
I loved the liberal use of keyboards and the jackhammer of the double bass. I had no idea what he was saying, but the growled vocals had a nicely evil feel. /p p Next up was Hieronymus Bosh with a pair of songs - "The Apogee" and "Blind Widow Stare.
" This band out of Russia had a good sound and a style of progressive death, complete with growled vocals. It is those vocals that are the weakest part of their sound; they just didn't stand out for me. On the other hand, the music was pretty was intense and very technical.
The performance was interesting. I wouldn't mind hearing more of them. /p p The third act to appear suffered from slightly muted audio.
It sounded a little flat. I am sure this wasn't due to their performance. They were pretty cool and took a different direction than the first two bands.
They are called Hunter, and their submission is called "Plytki Dolek." They are a Polish metal band whose name was inspired by the Def Leppard song "Die Hard the Hunter." Their performance was good despite the diminished audio.
It had more of a mainstream sound, although it was more unique than that sounds. They incorporated violin into the music which added another layer of interest. I definitely wish they had more than one song to show off what they could do.
/p p Following Hunter was the black metal of 1349, a black metal band out of Norway. They are named for the year that the black plague came to the homeland. They were onstage, a mass of swinging hair, growled vocals, jackhammer fast drums, and a raw blackness.
The three-song set was definitely charismatic, if not terribly technical. The band was raw and they played to that strength onstage. The set concluded with the downright evil sounds of "Satanic Propaganda.
" /p p Acid Drinkers took the stage next, bringing their Polish thrash metal to the stage in front of a home crowd. I first heard of the band not long ago, thinking they had a great band name. Their set of three was filled with head banging riffs, driving drums, and an interesting take on the thrash style.
The band has been around for twenty years, and longevity has not dulled their in-your-face attack. I had no idea what they were singing during the likes of "Life Hurts More Than Death" or "Human Bazooka," but it didn't matter. The riffs were catchy, infectious, and easy to get into.
/p p Now we get to a band that I am a little more familiar with, and I have liked everything I have heard from them thus far: Nevermore. This is a band that blends thrash, death, progressive, and power metal into their distinctive heavy sound. I saw them in 2005 on Gigantour and was very impressed with their live performance.
Their contribution here does not disappoint. I only wish they had more than three songs here (or came back to my town, or released a live DVD)! Warrel Dane sounds great, and the rest of the band is on point as they play "Final Product," "The Heart Collector," and "Enemies of Reality.
" /p p Nevermore was followed by another band that I have been a fan of for a while now, Moonspell, hailing from Portugal. I had the opportunity to see them this past Fall in a very small club where they were very impressive. Moonspell is big, bombastic, and incredibly dramatic.
With the layers of guitars and keyboards, they have a full wall of sound backing Fernando Ribiero's deep vocals. Their set consisted of "Wolfshade," "Opium," and "Awake!" /p p As we near our headliner, we get a trio of songs from Anathema.
This band from Britain offered a rather different experience than its predecessors, eschewing much of the dark theatrics and thrash tendencies to deliver a more atmospheric/progressive performance, complete with a string section. Sure, they rocked, but it was a definite change of pace. I got a bit of a heavy Radiohead vibe from them.
All told, this was very good and helped to demonstrate the variety of styles on display at the festival. /p p The final band to appear on the disk is Therion, hailing from Sweden. They really surprised me.
They are a band that I had heard of but not heard, so I did not know what to expect. I did not expect the symphonic metal that greeted my ears when they started. Quite frankly, I was very impressed with what I heard.
It was big, epic, complex, and had a unique flavor that I really liked. Their set included "Seven Secrets of the Sphinx," "Asgard," and "Siren of the Woods." /p p In addition to the 22-track DVD, there is also a 12-track CD featuring the bands that played the festival's side stage.
The disk kicks off with Belphegor's "Seyn Todt en Shwartz," a galloping black metal track that failed to interest me. It is followed by Shadows Land's "The Energy of Masses." This cut features a bit of a Nine Inch Nails electronic vibe before cutting into an epic black track that I found myself very much enjoying.
Track three is a brief song from Antigama called "The View." It is comprised of a cacophony of swirling guitars. /p p Totem kicks off the second quarter of the album with an epic song called "Thrash the South," which reminded me of Slayer crossed with Sepultura.
Corruption's "99% of Evil" was next with more of an old school thrash sound. "Mercyful Hate" by the No-Mads was next. It was cut from a straight up speed/thrash cloth and was not groundbreaking, but it was easy to bang your head to.
/p p The first half of the album down, the second half starts with Archeon's "Prayer," a strong progressive track that brought in a more technical sound than the previous side stage bands. Centinex followed with "Victorious Flag Rising." Can't say that I cared for it, but it sounded good loud.
Closing out three quarters is SuidAkrA with "The IXth Legion," a strong cut from a band with an oddly capitalized title. It was medieval metal that brought Jag Panzer to mind. /p p Heading down the home stretch, we have Misanthrope's "The Stud Farm of Amazones," an interesting death/black style song with a curious title.
Beseech brings us one closer to the end with "Innerlane." This was a good metal track with nice guitars and big dramatic vocals, reminiscent of Darzamat. Closing out the CD of second stage acts is The Old Dead Tree with their song "Out of Breath," a death metal song that has more straight metal leanings.
Good song with an interesting structure. /p p strong Audio/Video. /strong Neither are extraordinary, but they all do the job well.
The 5.1 audio is a bit of a mixed bag depending on the band. It is not consistent all the way through.
The video is consistently mediocre. Still, there is a lot of material hear, and it is in a nice package. /p ul li Like previous Metalmania entries they include desktop images of the cover art, the current logo, and a history of the festival.
/li li If you go to the song selection page, you will be able to get video interviews with each of the main stage bands as well as text information about the bands for both main and side stage acts. This is a very nice bonus to include. /li /ul /p p strong Bottomline.
/strong Once again we are given a nice DVD/CD set of metal, most of which many of us are likely unfamiliar with. It is a great way to get introduced to some great music and different styles. They also make me want to brave the language barrier and travel to Poland to attend the event in person.
/p p When Lou Reed s i Transformer /i was first released back in the early seventies, a lot of mainstream audiences must have wondered where this guy had sprung up from. After all, the Velvet Underground weren t a household name, and the one solo album he had released prior to i Transformer /i had pretty much vanished without a trace. br / br / It was shortly after his first solo effort had tanked that Lou was contacted by David Bowie and Mick Ronson, who had been playing guitar with Bowie, about being interested in producing his next solo project.
Bowie at the time was enjoying extensive popularity in England as the leader of the glam rock movement, and for him to want to produce a seemingly unknown Yank must have seemed strange. br / br / In a href="http://www.eaglerockent.
com" Eagle Rock Entertainment s /a re-issue of i Transformer /i , Bowie laughs as he remembers being very nervous about approaching this unknown American. Bowie had been a big fan of the Velvet Underground and thought the stuff that Lou Reed and the rest of them had been doing was brilliant. br / br / img style="border: 1px solid gray; margin: 10px; float: left" src="http://blogs.
epicindia.com/leapinthedark/Lou%20Reed%20Transformer%20photo.jpg" alt="Lou Reed Transformer photo.
jpg" hspace="3" vspace="3" width="220" height="275" / Lou on the other hand remembers being equally nervous, because of Bowie s extreme popularity. He made a really funny comment about the differences in the public s perception of the two men. Bowie would perform with Lou to help him promote i Transformer /i and Lou said, People would throw, you know, like room keys and stuff to Bowie, me they they d throw joints and needles to.
br / br / As with other DVDs in the i Classic Album /i series, this one focuses on the creation of the record under discussion. Lou Reed s i Transformer /i happens to contain some of his most well known songs, including Satellite Of Love , Perfect Day , New York Telephone Conversation , and of course Walk On The Wild Side. br / /p p While none of the songs are really that technically complex with any fancy studio tricks for people to be amazed by, there were still some interesting moments that were brought to light by listening to the masters in the studio.
Of those, the one that will probably interest people the most is the description of how the bass line in Walk On The Wild Side was put together. br / br / What has to be one of the more famous bass lines in pop music is actually a cheat; if you ve ever heard a live version of Wild Side and something has sounded a little off, it s because you can t reproduce the bass live. It s two separate basses being played with one being overdubbed on top of the other while being recorded at a different speed.
The opening line was done on the stand-up acoustic bass, while the second line was an electric. br / br / Listen to the studio version of the song again, paying attention to the bass line. There will be moments in the song where it becomes a fuller, richer sound and then will switch back again.
The irony is that what has become one of the most recognised bass lines in pop music was the result of a session player using an old trick. It wasn t any great composition or developed through any sort of writing process. br / br / According to Mick Ronson and Lou himself, Reed had very little to do with the session musicians.
He d come in and play them the chords of the song to teach it to them, or to give them an idea of the melody and that would be the only involvement he d have in creating the music for each number. br / br / I personally found the most interesting part of this disc was the amount of time that was spent with Lou Reed. He s always seemed like such a fascinating man judging by the lyrics he d written and the subject matter that he was willing to explore ndash; not the stuff of your typical pop song.
In some ways it always felt like he was an extension of people like Allen Ginsburg and William S. Burroughs. br / br / He would write about people that most of society preferred to pretend didn t exist ndash; gays, cross dressers, drug addicts, and other outcasts and miscreants.
His lyrics were never judgemental, if they weren t sympathetic; they were at least not negative in portraying their attempts to have a life surrounded by a majority that hates them. br / br / Everybody in Walk On The Wild Side exists, or existed, as the case maybe. They were all people who had been involved with Andy Warhol s Factory; a facility for creative expression in whatever form that would take, and a drop-in centre for New York s burgeoning underground artistic scene.
br / br / Reed never says in any of these interviews on the disc whether he had liked Warhol or not, but one thing you do get is that he had a lot of respect for Andy and had no problem acknowledging the debt he bore him for helping foster the career of the Velvet Underground. I think that Warhol s reputation suffered from the excesses of those around him at the Factory more than anything else and that he did have a unique ability to help people focus their artistic energies to make the most of their talent. br / br / Aside from his observations on and about the people around Andy Warhol and the Factory, Lou of course talked about his songs and his creative process.
To me he sounded far more like a poet than a songwriter. One of the people, an editor type from i Rolling Stone /i magazine, talked about this fact in terms of his lyrics and music. br / br / He said that unlike most pop music where the lyrics don t work without music because they are so integrated, Lou s words can and do stand alone.
That is very similar to other poetic types like Patti Smith and Leonard Cohen, who have set their poetry to music, the only difference being that Lou never set his writing down on paper as poetry. br / br / Perhaps it is because of that relationship between Lou Reed and his material that no matter how hard the documentary tried to bring its attention back to the actual business of recording i Transformer, /i the focus kept on returning to Lou. In some ways what i Classic Albums: Lou Reed - Transformer /i does is make you realize really how unimportant the music is in terms of the words Reed creates.
br / br / The lyrics to the songs on i Transformer /i would have probably existed in one form or another even if the album had never been created. That the music does exist is a bonus for the rest of us as it increases our enjoyment of his words. i Classic Albums: Lou Reed - Transformer /i is a great reminder of the singularly unique talent that is Lou Reed.
/p div id="authorbio" img src="http://static.flickr.com/49/114463085_224d431d08_s.
jpg" style="float:left;margin:5px;border:1px solid gray"/ Richard Marcus is a long-haired Canadian iconoclast who writes reviews and opines on the world as he sees it at a href="http://blogs.epicindia.com/leapinthedark" Leap In The Dark /a and a href="http://epicindia.
com" Epic India /a .
/p p The first album I ever bought was i Sgt. Pepper s Lonely Hearts Club Band /i and it will always retain a special place in my heart. I got in 1969 in exchange for a Christmas present that hadn t worked or something like that at a post holiday sale and held onto the disc for more then thirty years.
Since that time there have been other albums that have taken on various different types of significance for me, and like everyone else, they were evaluated according to my own special criteria. /p p We all have our own means of judging why we think a piece of music or an album is important. That s why when I first heard about a href="http://www.
eaglerockent.com" Eagle Rock Entertainment s /a reissue of the VH1 i Classic Albums /i series of DVDs I was a mite suspicious of what was going to be deemed a Classic by the people at VH1, and whether I was going to agree with any of their selections. /p p I also wondered what the hell are they going to do for an hour on tape -- sit around and interview people talking about how great they had been?
But, after viewing two releases -- i Catch A Fire /i by Bob Marley and The Wailers and i Aja /i by Steely Dan -- I realized that wasn t the case. In fact, they were pretty fascinating documentaries on how an album is assembled, and the history of the groups involved. /p p Over the next week or so I m going to be reviewing four more DVDs from this series starting with what I still think was the best roots rock album ever recorded -- even though the genre didn t even exist in those days: i The Band /i by the Band.
Aside from the confusion about the title of the album and the title of the group it and the album that preceded it ( i Music From Big Pink /i ) those have always been the two albums I automatically associate with The Band. br/ Contained within those two albums are almost every song that you associate with them: The Weight, Up On Cripple Creek, Rag Momma Rag, and of course The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. The last three songs were all from i The Band /i , and it s those songs, plus a couple of others from the album that come in for the closest scrutiny.
/p p What makes this i Classic Albums /i disc so special is the fact that the film makers have sat down with both Levon Helm (the drummer and lead vocalist) and Robbie Robertson (guitar and primary songwriter) and allowed the two men to separately go through the songs and break them down track by track to show what it is they think made the songs so special. /p p To me those are the highlights of the disc. Sure, the history behind the making of the album is interesting enough -- it was recorded in Sammy Davis Jr.
s pool house in Los Angeles -- but to be honest, I really couldn t care less what Bernie Taupin or Eric Clapton thought of the album, or much of what any of the other talking heads had to say. The music doesn t need to be justified by celebrity endorsements and unfortunately that s what moments like these feel like. /p p The only person who was of interest outside of those who had been directly involved with the recording process was Don Was because of his producer s ear for analysing what they had done in the studio.
His input was an interesting augmentation to the information that Robbie, Levon, and the original producer/engineer John Simon provided. /p p Both Rick Danko and Garth Hudson also took part, but I found them to be more of a distraction than anything else. Rick because he was so overweight, and I knew he was due to die a year or so after this had been filmed, and Garth because he just sat at his keyboard and played long complicated pieces of music which, as far a I could tell, had nothing to do with the songs under discussion.
/p p But all that was more than compensated for by the input and eagerness that both Robbie and Levon brought to the table. It s unfortunate that they don t seem to have been able to settle what ever their differences had been, because I m sure it would have been great to hear them together. However, there were advantages to them being separate as it gave them each an opportunity to focus on the parts of the music they thought important.
/p p One of things I d always loved about the Band s songs was their ability to harmonize. None of them had what anyone could call a beautiful voice by any stretch of the imagination, but they all had character and passion. Somehow or other when they would come together on a chorus the sounds would mesh beautifully.
br/ Levon lets us in on the secret of how that worked for the Band. When it came to the choruses they would divide the parts up by who could hit what note. Usually that meant that Richard Manuel was the one who ended up singing the high harmony because he was the only one who could hit the notes.
It didn t matter that he also sang lead vocals on a lot of the songs. For the chorus, somebody else would take over the lead vocal line and he would shoot up for the high harmony, and then he would be right back into singing lead again when the verse started back in. On quite a number of their songs there was no pause between the verse and the chorus but they were so seamless in their performance you could barely notice the switch to or the switch back.
/p p Even when Levon sat at the mixing board playing back the old masters one vocal track at a time, once he started weaving them together, I was no longer able to tell where the switch took place. These types of details are what makes these i Classic Album /i discs so fascinating. Both Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm are intelligent and fun, so not only can they tell you all sorts of details about the music; they are enjoying every minute of talking about it and that make you enjoy it all the more.
/p p The first time we see Robbie sitting behind the console he looks and acts like a kid whose just been given an amazing present and doesn t quite know what part to play with first. Here s a guy whose written scores for movies, recorded and produced a number of his own projects, yet this music that he recorded almost thirty years earlier still excites him so much that he doesn t seem to know what he wants to talk about first. That tells me a lot right there about how good this music really is.
/p p I have two quibbles with the DVD from a technical standpoint. One is the sound quality. Maybe they couldn t do anything about this, but I m curious as to why there was no other option for sound aside from straight stereo?
Perhaps it was my system, but on occasion there was quite a bit of bass distortion -- as if too much sound was being forced through too little space. The other thing was the packaging is limited to a single sheet with a list of the songs they talk about from the album and a blurb on the back cover. I would think that albums that are considered Classics would merit a little more attention than that.
/p p But those are just minor points. What this disc wants to do, and succeeds as far as I m concerned, is to convince the viewer that i The Band /i by The Band merits the sobriquet Classic in terms of popular music. If you are a fan of The Band you ll want to see this disc for the pleasure of gaining a deeper appreciation of their talent.
If you were unfamiliar with their work until now than i Classic Albums, The Band /i makes a great introduction to one of the great bands and the great albums of the last forty years. /p div id="authorbio" img src="http://static.flickr.
com/49/114463085_224d431d08_s.jpg" style="float:left;margin:5px;border:1px solid gray"/ Richard Marcus is a long-haired Canadian iconoclast who writes reviews and opines on the world as he sees it at a href="http://blogs.epicindia.
com/leapinthedark" Leap In The Dark /a and a href="http://epicindia.com" Epic India /a .
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