#524: Open letters....

1st, a big shout-out 2 the folks at http://www.kindakinks.net/, who stumbled over that off-the-cuff review of the Kinks' VILLAGE GREEN PRESERVATION SOCIETY in my last post, latched a link on2 it, & sent me ... nearly 200 visitors over the past few days, making that "Laundry-doin'" post suddenly the 2nd-most-viewed post EVER here at the Back-Up Plan.
I'm not used 2 this kinda response. As of this update (5 Feb 12, 2 am), apparently about 225 folks have looked at that post. That's wonderful, of course -- but it would B great if some1 would comment, if only 2 tell me that VILLAGE GREEN has been a great Lost Classic album since late 1968 & where the hell have I been?
Who can ever predict how this InterWeb thingy works....?

Ever wanted 2 tell your boss what you REALLY think of him? Maybe write a resignation letter he'll NEVER forget?
Keith Altham's THE PR STRIKES BACK (2001) is a series of open letters from renowned press-flack Altham 2 summa the many music superstars he's handled publicity 4 over his 30+ years as a PR & music journalist.
It's pretty funny. Altham uses the letters 2 poke fun, remember old times, & maybe settle some old scores & frustrations. Included R letters 2 & reminiscences about Mick Jagger, Pete Townshend, Rod Stewart (whose last name is mis-spelled on the back of the book), Sting, Jimi Hendrix, Van Morrison, Brian Wilson, Ozzy Osbourne, Keith Emerson, Ray Davies, Marc Bolan & a coupla dozen more.
The letter 2 Jagger is pretty brutal. The letter 2 Rod the Mod includes Ronnie Wood's description of The Tartan-Clad One's famous stinginess: "Tighter than two coats of paint."
Altham's directness is often brutally funny. Not all the letters R criticisms -- the letter 2 Sting calls him misunderstood. The letter 2 Brian Wilson sez no1 in rock has suffered more 4 his art. The closing letter 2 Pete Townshend takes a tone of near-adoration -- despite Pete's ugly temper & the fact that Altham was fired 4 times from doing publicity 4 The Who.
Altham calls Manfred Mann "arrogance personified." The letter 2 Joan Armatrading makes it clear that "Me, Myself, I" really was her theme song. The letter 2 Van Morrison is about what you'd Xpect. & Altham nails Squeeze when he sez they had "plenty of talent but absolutely no charisma."
A letter 2 Justin Hayward calls him "the steel spine that glued The Moody Blues together."
Some of the most moving letters R 2 stars who R no longer with us -- Hendrix, Bolan, Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane, etc., or 2 those who disappeared when they couldn't cope with fame -- Brian Wilson, Scott Walker, etc.
It's a lite, breezy, fast read, & very enjoyable. If you're a Brit fan, you should eat this book up.
Only a few complaints: The farther you get in2 the book, the more typos there R & the more words R dropped thru bad proofreading.
Also, this is the 1st 300-page book in YEARS that I've bn able 2 read in just a coupla days -- that's cos you only get about 200 pgs of letters. Every artist included gets a full-page photo, & the section-heads (the artists' names) each take up a full pg. There's a lotta wasted pgs here.
All that said, I'd B happy 2 devour another volume-full. Got anymore, KA?

Have also bn trying 2 get thru Don & Jeff Breithaupt's PRECIOUS AND FEW: POP MUSIC IN THE EARLY '70s (1996), a good companion 2 go with Rhino's old HAVE A NICE DAY series of '70s hits repackages.
I should love this book, it's the period I 1st started listening 2 the radio, & I know almost all the music that's discussed. But I'm finding it a tough read.
Not the Breithaupts' fault. They know their stuff, & the book is intended as a lite, breezy, silly read, nothing 2 deep. They look at 100s of pop singles released from 1970-75 in 30 short chapters, & they mention dozens of other almost-hits in passing. & tho they love the period, most of the book's played 4 laffs -- the kinda comedy that comes from looking back with warm-hearted nostalgia.
It's mildly amusing. I wish it was funnier. & it's meant 2 B a quick read, not Deep And Meaningful Rock Criticism. 1 of their points is that the early '70s is kinda hard 2 take seriously. Musically, at least.
No real complaints, but I got farther in 1 afternoon with Altham's book than I did in a week of trying 2 read the Breithaupts'. This might just B my taste; if you agree the early '70s Rn't worth taking 2 seriously, you might like this.
Oh, & the Breithaupts apparently missed Climax's follow-up 2 "Precious and Few" -- a nice little number called "Life and Breath," which failed 2 make the Top 40 in the US. & they missed Edward Bear's follow-up 2 the Top 3 hit "Last Song" -- the much-better "Close Your Eyes."
But Xtra points 2 them 4 mentioning ALL the singles by Five Man Electrical Band....

Thin but good-hearted Prog history

4 now, Paul Stump's THE MUSIC'S ALL THAT MATTERS: A HISTORY OF PROGRESSIVE ROCK (1997) is the best book on Prog Rock I've read -- at least til I finish writing MINE! (20 yrs in the writing, so far.... Don't hold yr breath....)
The book is a touch thin in terms of the # of acts it covers, it has a definite U.K.-only bias (which Stump admits up front), & there is a lot of time spent on artists that I think R only of side-intrest 2 Prog fans (Mike Oldfield, Anthony Phillips).
BUT: Stump has his facts straight, his heart Cms 2 B in The Right Place, he actually NJOYS a lot of this stuff, & he's definitely not snooty or stuck-up.
He's also not Dfensive. In the only other Prog Rock history I've bn able 2 get my hands on -- Jerry Lucky's hideous THE PROGRESSIVE ROCK FILES -- Lucky spends WAY 2 much time trying 2 Dfend Prog from mainstream-rock critics & other attackers, trying 2 protect Prog from the many bricks thrown at it over the yrs.
Stump saves time by just assuming up-front that most rock critics CAN'T HEAR. His approach is much closer 2 my own: This is neat, diffrent, beautiful, involving, sometimes gripping, & sometimes it even Rocks -- U should check it out.
HOWEVER: There R ALL KINDS of acts Stump leaves out of his book 4 reasons unknown, & it's cer10ly not Bcos of his "definition" of prog. I thot Lucky's definition was pretty narrow -- Stump's is pretty wide-open, he just tends 2 ignore artists who he apparently doesn't like or who he thinks R 2 "mainstream."
W/ Stump's obvious English bias admitted up-front, U will look in vain 4 NE mention of American prog-rockers in this book -- there Rn't NE. No Kansas, Happy the Man, Dixie Dregs, Todd Rundgren's Utopia, Spirit, Synergy, early Journey, Grace Slick's DREAMS, Love, Steve Tibbetts, Glass Moon, Group 87, Providence, NE1.
Some European acts R briefly mentioned -- there's a little space given 2 Magma. But no Can. Tangerine Dream is mentioned, but no Kraftwerk, Nektar, Amon Duul II, Faust, Neu!, SFF, Cluster, Grobschnitt -- there is no discussion of Krautrock.
Stump is pretty strong on core Prog-rockers & the Canterbury school (not all of whom he likes) -- but even in the core list of Prog acts there R some omissions that bother me. Stump dismisses the Moody Blues & Caravan more than 1nce (after admitting that DAYS OF FUTURE PASSED is an obvious signpost 4 the unofficial "birth" of Prog), Camel is ignored, Barclay James Harvest R treated like hacks (I can almost agree w/ this at times), & Gryphon R dropped just as they got Really Good. Others R mentioned in a quick paragraph or 2 & never heard-of again (Gentle Giant, Gong).
There's a long list of at-least-borderline-Prog acts Stump leaves out -- Roxy Music, Be-Bop Deluxe, The Strawbs, Renaissance, Illusion, Alan Parsons Project, Al Stewart, Clannad, Enya (2 close 2 New Age?), ELO (especially TIME & their early stuff), Supertramp, Saga (Canadian, but Rush gets a brief mention), Argent, Sally Oldfield, Vangelis, FM (Canadian), Wigwam (Finland), Kevin Ayers, Amazing Blondel, Jade Warrior, Rare Bird, Manfred Mann's Earth Band, 801, Phil Manzanera, McDonald & Giles, PFM (Italian), Loreena McKennitt (2 close 2 New Age?), Jon & Vangelis, Jean-Michel Jarre/Space Art (French), Jukka Tolonen (Finland), Pekka Pohjola (Finland), Popol Vuh, Pierre Moerlen's Gong (2 close 2 Jazz?), England, Fruup, Druid, Fireballet, Starcastle.... (I'm sure there R bunches more, I'm doing this list from my collection & memory....)
Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush R briefly discussed, then Bush gets dropped Bcos she's apparently "2 mainstream" -- if she wasn't a progger, then what was she?
(Intrestingly, Stump's book after this 1 was on Roxy Music, & tho some of it was very good & very Dtailed, his snotty tone kept me from doing more than just skimming most of it.)
Stump is very good on the obvious core Proggers: Pink Floyd, Genesis, Yes, ELP, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Soft Machine (I coulda used more on these guys, but there's quite a bit). He's also pretty solid on 2nd-line Canterbury acts: Hatfield & the North, National Health, Matching Mole, Egg, Robert Wyatt's solo career, etc.
There is rather 2 much info on Mike Oldfield, long past the point where NE1 would care -- tho the in-depth look at his early yrs is intresting. There's 2 much on Anthony Phillips' solo career. There's 2 much on The Enid, who R virtually unknown outside of Britain. There isn't enuf on Hawkwind, of whom Stump quotes some1 else saying they "weren't really Space Rock" (not Heavy Metal, either....). There's about the right amount of space on Van der Graaf Generator -- I gotta track down summa their stuff.
I assume from his attitude that Stump just dropped-out the folks whose music he didn't like. The book still Nds-up 356 pgs long, + there's a bibliography & a (severely) selective discography that doesn't even fill 4 pgs -- he coulda gone a lot further, but mayB he chose not 2 4 "taste" reasons, assuming everything else is unworthy of yr attn. But I don't buy that....
Stump is open 2 both the wonder & gorgeousness as well as the silliness & pretension of Prog, & finds Good Stuff in all of it. Rick Wakeman's overly-inflated solo career & Deep Purple's early fling w/ a symphony orchestra R targets 4 some humor -- he's also open 2 ELP's rowdier, sillier side. & tho there's almost 2 much about Yes (& Genesis, & I'm never quite sure if he actually LIKES them or not), Stump oddly picks Jon Anderson's solo album OLIAS OF SUNHILLOW as possibly the most complex prog album ever recorded. Stump may also B 1 of the few Prog fans who really hates Pink Floyd's THE WALL.
This all may come down 2 who yr faves R -- Stump has his own faves as I do mine. I was hoping 4 more, but I'm not disappointed really, & I cer10ly wouldn't mind Cing an update of this book. But I think it's unfair 2 dismiss an artist's Ntire life's work as worthless, as Stump Cms 2 B doing here w/ Caravan, Camel, Moody Blues, BJH, & possibly others.
Couple minor complaints about the book itself: Tho this is a pretty fast, EZ read, it isn't perfectly proofread: Many of Stump's sentences Cm 2 go on 2 long (I'm 1 2 talk?!) or some punctuation has bn dropped. Sometimes I had 2 go back 2 or 3x 2 try 2 piece-together what he was trying 2 get across. Lucky's PROGRESSIVE ROCK FILES was self-composed & virtually self-published & perhaps coulda bn 4given its 9 MILLION typographical errors (tho somebody who can read English shoulda proofread it), but this sloppiness is pretty hard 2 Blieve coming from an English publisher (Quartet) that has also published memoirs by Lillian Hellman, among others.
Stump does at least Cm 2 have all of his facts down correctly, as far as I can tell.
Oh, & a new theory: Stump blames "the death of Prog" not mainly on bad, cynical, weak, commercialized music or record-company pressure 2 sell more -- he blames it mainly on Britain's vicious tax laws that started in the late-'70s, 4cing many of the highest earners in rock in2 tax exile, & tightening the $$$flow 4 those lower down the chain.
So, not as complete as I'd hoped, but not disappointing, & very strong in areas where I'd hoped 2 learn more. I'm let down by the lack of U.S. acts not discussed, & bummed that there's no space 4 summa my faves, but I'd still look at an update. & I'll B looking 4 more of Stump's work in this area.
I might even keep it.

More Issues....

Julie Burchill & Tony Parsons' THE BOY LOOKED AT JOHNNY (1978) is a brief (79 pgs of tiny type), angry, frustrated, acid-filled portrait of the early days of Punk Rock.
Subtitled "The Obituary of Rock and Roll," at the time it was taken as a blast against the Boring Old Farts that Punk supposedly was going 2 replace. (Pete Townshend accuses Burchill & Parsons of "gross callousness" on the back-cover. These R the folks Pete wrote "Jools and Jim" about, right?)
I think instead it Xpresses Burchill & Parsons' anger & disgust at how quickly Punk Went Bad. The Old Guard gets nowhere near the # of putdowns & insults that the punk-rockers do in this book.
Jools & Tony were the 2 "young gunslingers" hired by the British music tabloid NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS 2 get a handle on Punk when it 1st started rumbling around '76. Tho the team had a front-row seat 4 what musta bn an Xciting time, what comes thru clearer than NEthing in this book is how disappointed they were when the Punks turned out 2 B normal people w/ the same weaknesses & faults as the BOF's they'd hoped 2 succeed.
Jools & Jim's writing is full of hype & invective. They hardly like NE1, tho they had hopes 4 the Sex Pistols. They R cynical & sarcastic about virtually all Punk & New Wave acts, especially those who start-out rated highly & then fade (Patti Smith's HORSES was "the best debut album of all time," then she turned in2 a "silly old biddy;" Blondie's 1st album was "the only album ever released on which every song could/should have been a hit single").
The team felt the Pistols "breathed life into the music scene," then Cm relieved that the only other revolutionary thing the Pistols could do was break-up B4 they Mbarrassed themselves NE further. From there on, pretty-much every1 else gets insulted:
Burchill & Parsons call the Clash's aggressive stance a put-on. They don't like the Ramones, either. Television is Dscribed as "pathetic." Blondie's work after their 1st album is considered worthless. The Jam, the Damned, the Stranglers, Siouxsie and the Banshees, New York Dolls, Richard Hell, Johnny Thunders' Heartbreakers -- all of Punk's early stars get zinged here.
Talking Heads sorta get a pass, tho when talking about their debut album '77, the duo sez leader David Byrne is "too much a songwriter who feels he has to sing his baby safely through the album." Johnathan Richman of the Modern Lovers is Dscribed as a songwriter who tried 2 bring "a healthy outlook on life" in2 rock, then later Dscended in2 craziness & brain-damage.
There R a few people Jools & Jim liked: The Tom Robinson Band ("everyone else is just wanking into the wind"), Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex (who apparently retired from music after she started Seeing Things; her vivid lyrics R quoted at length, more than NE other songwriter's in the book); Joan Jett is chosen best American rocker; there R a few other minor words of praise scattered here & there.
I was hoping the hype & brashness of Jools & Jim's writing might B refreshing -- but they couldn't keep up the cleansing outrage. & their chapter on "Drugs" is really worthless -- they Nd up recommending amphetamines, "the one drug that makes you sit up and ask questions, rather than lie down and lap up answers."
30 yrs after the fact I doubt that it makes much diffrence, but if U're intrested in the birth & rise of Punk Rock, I recommend Jon Savage's ENGLAND'S DREAMING, which is WAY more solid on the background of Punk, way more balanced on summa the same events covered here, & way clearer as a series of character sketches about folks like Poly Styrene & Siouxsie Sioux. Savage also saves the hype & intensity 4 the passages where they work best -- at the Pistols' last show in San Francisco, or following the Dcline & death of Sid Vicious. Some of the writing is so good it's frightening. It's worth tracking down.
THIS wasn't, really. Send me a coupla bucks 4 postage & it's yrs....

James Blish's THE ISSUE AT HAND & MORE ISSUES AT HAND (1964, 1970) R 2 collections featuring some nearly-60-yr-old science-fiction criticism. I read these a few yrs back & was almost bored w/ Blish's sometimes dry, almost scholarly approach. But my ear 4 criticism has improved since then.
Tho Blish -- who really was a scholar of the works of poet Ezra Pound & novelists James Joyce & James Branch Cabell -- does occasionally sound like an English teacher, when he gets cranky he's something 2 Bhold. Speaking 2 writers who felt insulted by his criticism but apparently missed his points, Blish wrote: "My job is to WRITE the columns. I shouldn't have to READ them to you as well."
As in his peer Damon Knight's IN SEARCH OF WONDER (previously reviewed here earlier this mo), Blish goes after lots of Really Bad writing, tho he has different targets than Knight. He even chops-up some of his own stories. Some of the older criticism centers on issues of SF magazines published way back in the early-2-mid 1950s. Unless U're really a big fan of old SF, U can probly let this stuff go. I liked it, but I like cheap laffs, & I Njoy bad writing Bing pointed out 4 the crap it is.
Blish also looks at mid-'50s thru mid-'60s novels by SF superstar Robert A. Heinlein (Xcellent long review of STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND, good look at STARSHIP TROOPERS, also nails who the REAL hero is in MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS).
Blish also takes a long look at Algis Budrys' ROGUE MOON, acclaimed as an SF classic, & finds an amazing amount of symbolism in it. I don't doubt that the symbolism's there, but when I read the book, I was stunned at how pulpy & clunky & old-fashioned it was, especially 4 Budrys, who was no dummy. (Might B time 2 read it again....)
The best part of either book 4 me was a long speech Blish gave in 1970 about SF's then-current "New Wave." Tho some of it he liked (especially Brian Aldiss's psychedelic "acid-head-war" stories collected as BAREFOOT IN THE HEAD), some of my fave SF writers get bashed -- Roger Zelazny, Samuel R. Delany, J.G. Ballard, Michael Moorcock.... Others get kudos: Harlan Ellison as an editor (4 DANGEROUS VISIONS), Judith Merrill as a best-of-the-year anthologist.... Blish has big fun picking at Zelazny's novel CREATURES OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS, 1 of my all-time faves, which I admit has a slow Bginning & a weak Nding, but that doesn't keep the middle from Bing a helluva lotta fun. Blish gets hung-up on whether it's logical, rational, the fact that none of it ever gets Xplained....
Blish died from lung cancer in 1975. He gained some fame late in life 4 turning STAR TREK TV scripts in2 rather good short-stories collected in a series of books that sold better than NE of his SF novels (1 of which, A CASE OF CONSCIENCE, won SF's Hugo Award 4 Best Novel). 4 me, Blish's best book is a scary little # called BLACK EASTER, tho I think its direct sequel THE DAY AFTER JUDGEMENT is a flat failure.
But Bhind everything Blish wrote is that dry, scholarly intelligence -- & sometimes as U read U can almost hear him laffing....