#750: Readin' and writin'

Hey there. Sorry I haven't posted much lately. I don't have direct access to the Net at all times anymore, plus I've been busy.
The horror novel I was working on was put on hold a week ago, when I suddenly got an idea out of the blue that might allow me to finish that Rock Group Novel I've been trying to write for years, plus get some of my other lifelong musical obsessions out in some kind of useable form.... Plus, it's a nicer, brighter place than where I was heading in the horror novel. So I'm working on that instead. I'll keep you posted.
Meanwhile, I was reading lots of horror as homework for the novel I was working on -- most of it was pretty forgettable. One big disappointment: Alan Goldsher's silly zombie mash-up novel, PAUL IS UNDEAD -- the previously untold story of The Beatles as zombies, leaders of The British Zombie Invasion. I thought it had real comedy possibilities -- but the cover painting, showing the Fab Four shambling across Abbey Road as parts fall off of them -- promises much more than the book delivers.
I got maybe 100 pages into it before I gave up. It's basically a one-joke book. Everybody either becomes a zombie or gets eaten up by zombies. Goldsher, a session bassist, clearly did his homework, and knows LOTS of trivia about The Beatles -- you'd have to be a big fan just to "get" the book's title. But beyond the one central zombie joke repeated over and over, there's not much here.
I liked the idea of John Lennon and George Harrison living on practically forever as zombies, but ... I just wish Goldsher had done more with his basic idea. Plus, Goldsher's Lennon sounds nothing like John Lennon -- too bad I'd just finished re-reading Lennon's famous 1970 ROLLING STONE interview.
If you want the real untold comedy story of The Beatles, track down Mark Shipper's PAPERBACK WRITER -- that's where you'll learn about the '50s-style MOR "crooner" album Paul released BEFORE joining the Fab Four, among other shockers.
As for PAUL IS UNDEAD, I haven't been so disappointed with a book since Terry Bisson's THE PICK-UP ARTIST. Still, the illustrations are cute....
Other reading: Mostly short stories, novels still have to be pretty great to keep my interest all the way through. Stephen King's "The Road Virus Heads North" was above-average; Kelly Link's "The Specialist's Hat" was odd and creepy, with lots of spooky atmosphere; M. John Harrison's "The Great God Pan" was pretty low-key, with the real terror implied but never directly shown -- just what were his characters DOING with those mysterious mind-experiments back in the '60s? I've read lots of other shorts, but nothing real stunning or memorable.
When not reading or writing, got some travel time in with the girlfriend a couple weeks back -- visited historic Port Townsend and Port Angeles, 50+ miles up the coast from us. Port Townsend was especially cool, with its old downtown on the flats down by the water, and with the old sailing-era "captain's houses" on the bluff overlooking downtown -- all of it immortalized in Jack Cady's novel THE OFF SEASON, which I also wasn't able to get more than 100 pages into.... Was so distracted watching a deer wander through somebody's front yard that I almost got hit by a truck. ...Pretty cool neighborhood, though. Also interesting how I keep wanting to spell it Port "Townshend" -- ah, yes, Port Townshend, founded by famous British explorer and rock guitarist Pete Townshend about 150 years ago....
Port Angeles was a little less historic, but pretty country with the gorgeous Olympic Mountains seemingly looming up over downtown.... Nice drive there and back, my only complaint was there was nowhere to pull over and look out at the water stretching 50 miles north to Canada....
Got bored at work again and took a big bag of CD's back in last week, music from which helped get me through a couple of bad nights before the Memorial Day Weekend. Still listening to the same old stuff, but it sure beats the radio....
Well, this is just a quick update. I have high hopes for the new music book -- a kind of rock and roll meditation, that will hopefully sum-up what music has meant to me over the past 45 years. God knows how it's all gonna fit together, or if, or whether it's all gonna make sense. I don't even care much. At least I'm writing something....
Cheers! More soon....

#749: I remember....

A billion years ago back in the '70s, one of the British music-weekly tabloids (MELODY MAKER or NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS, can't remember which) used to have a weekly column called "I Remember," in which their writers/critics or prominent members of the pop scene would write briefly about usually-overlooked music or overlooked performers who left a mark on their lives.

I only caught a couple of these, but in a way I've been mimicking them ever since....

I remember....

* The 16th-Century wind-up-toy-band sound of Gryphon, with their recorders, flutes and krumhorns tootling away until you just couldn't take it no more. As the folk-classical-rock band went through the early to mid '70s they slowly added more electric instruments and more muscle, so that by the time of their last album, 1977's TREASON, they sort of sounded like a kinder, gentler Jethro Tull. Their best work is 1974's all-instrumental RED QUEEN TO GRYPHON THREE, with long, upbeat, spritely, energetic renaissance-dance-style numbers, and one long three-part haunter called "Lament." Nobody else sounded like them. Never boring.

* The bubbling keyboards of Dave Sinclair, playing on his Davoli synthesizer and other keybs on Caravan's first half-dozen albums. Displayed best on 1973's FOR GIRLS WHO GROW PLUMP IN THE NIGHT, where every fizzy, giddy keyboard fill keeps the upbeat, bouncy, optimistic music rolling on. Best on "Memory Lain/Hugh/Headloss," "The Dog, the Dog, He's at it Again," "A Hunting We Shall Go...," and dozens of other pieces on other Caravan LP's -- "Place of My Own," "Nine Feet Underground," "Virgin on the Ridiculous," "For Richard," "And I Wish I Were Stoned," "The Dabsong Conshirtoe," etc. No other keyboard-player sounds like him -- not Rick Wakeman, not Keith Emerson....

* The pastel, fairy-tale-like songs of middle-period Genesis, as found on A TRICK OF THE TAIL, WIND AND WUTHERING and AND THEN THERE WERE THREE. These aren't rock songs, more like fables -- full of ghostly guitars and keyboards and sweet choir-boy vocals. Easy to see why they didn't make much money at this -- they needed to up the funk and commercial factors. But in their approach and instrumental attack, the gentle impact of these songs sounds like no one else. And some of the love songs are gorgeous ("Afterglow," "Your Own Special Way," "Undertow"). And let's not forget funny ("Robbery, Assault and Battery," "Down and Out"). WIND and THREE got knocked in some quarters, but the good stuff was so good, even some of the outtakes are amazing ("Inside and Out," "Vancouver"). Looking back, these songs sound naive and starry-eyed, which might be why I still love them.

* Elton John's guitarist Davey Johnstone, Elton's "secret weapon" through a string of early '70s albums. Though at his best, Elton often had great songs, great band backing-vocals, great production, over the years I've come more and more to hear the guitar. Johnstone's little fills and adds are always a delight to hear, and always keep the music charging forward, especially on stuff like "Love Lies Bleeding" and "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting." Perfect music for cranking up LOUD and screaming out the window to as you drive around. And I'll bet you can name a ton more if you think about it....

* Queen. Like they need any help from me. Jeez, Freddy Mercury was a musical genius. And Brian May -- what a guitarist. And the songwriting! Forget all the stuff you've heard WAY too many times, the stuff that wore out for you by 1982. How 'bout the amazing space-age folksong "'39," or the creepy "Prophet's Song," or that great heavy-metal ballad "It's Late." And the VOCALS! Even their "later" stuff is pretty great -- try the dramatic "The Show Must Go On" or "I'm Going Slightly Mad."

* Renaissance's "Rajah Khan." Yeah, they were prissy and stuck-up and too convinced about their own unique talent. They were also pretty great. And this long, loud, swirling, Middle-Eastern-style psychedelic freakout off of their 1972 album PROLOGUE is the craziest, wildest, greatest thing they ever did. They should have turned it up like this WAY more often. Whoever stand-in electric guitarist Rob Hendry was, they sure missed him after he left.

* '70s Paul McCartney. Yeah, I know. I owe my old buddy Jeff Mann on this one. As with Elton, Jeff inflicted early-'70s Paul McCartney and Wings on me during late-night drives around the Boise area. And as with Elton, I wasn't always sure of what I was hearing. Some of this stuff I've been tracking down for years. I know I heard bits and pieces off of Sir Paul's RAM and MCCARTNEY, and possibly some stuff off of later albums that were even MORE critically-slammed. It all sounded pretty good to me -- at least with all the filler taken out. The thing that's stayed with me longest is something called "Dear Boy." But "Monkberry Moon Delight" and "Smile Away" have their own trashy charm....

To be continued....