Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Nominations - 2013 by Ricki C.

I have a host of problems with the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame (hereinafter referred to as R&RHOF).  Some of these have been previously dealt with in this blog, but let's restate them here in a nutshell: 

1) Rock & roll music was once a free, living, anarchic Wild Thing.  (The Troggs - who hit with "Wild Thing" in 1966 - are not in the R&RHOF, by the way.)  Once an art-form/force of nature such as rock & roll starts getting codified and rigidized into establishing a Hall Of Fame, that art-form/force of nature is OVER.

2) Sports should have Halls Of Fame because the contributions of its members can be quantified in some definitive manner: home runs hit, touchdowns scored, baskets or goals made, championships won, contributions made to the players' teams, etc.  By its very nature, rock & roll is not quantifiable: i.e. if we were going to go simply on one quantified measurement - say, record sales - then Michael Jackson and The Eagles would have been the first acts inducted into the R&RHOF and thank God, Allah, Buddha, Jehovah, L. Ron Hubbard (fill in your own chosen deity), they were not.

3) To extend the question of quantifiability: who can REALLY say who is important to rock & roll music, and HOW important they are?  Sure, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, The Beatles, Bruce Springtseen and David Bowie (to list the first five off the top of my head) are important to rock & roll, but are they any MORE important than One or Two-Hit Wonders like The Left Banke?  Would 1960's rock & roll have been as wonderful as it was if "Walk Away Renee" or "Pretty Ballerina" had never existed?  How about The Syndicate Of Sound's "Little Girl" or "Psychotic Reaction" by Count Five?  And what about 60's bands that have never even been NOMINATED to the R&RHOF even though they had a fuckload of hits: The Beau Brummels, The Standells, Paul Revere & The Raiders, Herman's Hermits, Manfred Mann?  Pertinent question: Why are The Hollies and The Small Faces - both talented but essentially hit-making hackmeister British Invasion bands - in the R&RHOF, but Gerry & The Pacemakers and The Searchers are not?  My Answer - Because The Hollies contained Graham Nash (later of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) and The Small Faces morphed into The Faces which contained Rod Stewart & Ron Wood, a future Rolling Stone.  And let's face facts, folks: Jann Wenner loves him some Rich Hippies and Big Names.

Which brings us to the current crop of nominees.......

1) Deep Purple / Yes - Deep Purple?  Seriously?  I liked Deep Purple.  I liked them when I was in high school in the 1960's and they were goosing mediocre Joe South and Neil Diamond tunes ("Hush," "Kentucky Woman") into Heavy Rock Hits.  I liked them for being a reliable mid-level Heavy English band. I liked them less later when organist Jon Lord came up with Concerto For Group & Orchestra and moved them into Ponderous Orchestrated Symphonic-Rock (?) Territory, a genre later perfected by Yes.  (And let's face facts: if it wasn't for Yes we would not have been subjected to their hopelessly inferior American copies - Styx, Marillion, Pegasus, Journey, and, the most-dreaded of all, Kansas.)  Are either Deep Purple or Yes more important to rock & roll than fellow Englishmen Mott The Hoople?  I think not.  (And Mott's Ian Hunter wrote "Cleveland Rocks" for chrissakes, but still can't get a nomination to the Rock Hall on the shores of Lake Erie.)

2) Kiss - Kiss?  Kiss?  I really have to laugh at this one.  I hate to run afoul of my good friends Colin Gawel & Joe Oestreich of Watershed here, but I think even they would agree that it's lamentable that The MC5 and The New York Dolls (without whom, let's face facts, Kiss would not exist) have never been considered for the R&RHOF, but Kiss gets nominated.  I suppose I should be heartened that the Rock Hall has relaxed its rather genteel May-I-Pour-You-A-Cup-Of-Tea-Darling? Standards to include a hard-rock band like Kiss in the nominations, but why choose a mediocre, overblown Spectacle-Over-Music hard-rock band when you could consider the melodically-inventive, most perfectly-balanced combination of power & pop hard-rock band EVER - Cheap Trick?  (Oh yeah, now I remember, because Kiss are from New York City and Cheap Trick are from the Midwest.)   

3) Linda Ronstadt - This nomination is just sad for a number of reasons, most of them completely unrelated to music.  Ronstadt's fellow California Soft Rock Compatriots - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Eagles, Jackson Browne - have been in the R&RHOF for years, if not DECADES, but Ronstadt has never gotten a nomination until this year, when it was revealed she has Parkinson's Disease.  Condescending?  Yeah.  Sexist?  Yeah.  Ronstadt was a reliable hit-maker all through the 1970's and a fairly good interpreter of singer-songwriter material  (I'm sure Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon and even Elvis Costello appreciated the publishing royalties that lined their pockets from Ronstadt covers of their songs), but she can't get a Rock Hall nomination until she contracts Parkinson's?  Sad.

4) Chic / LL Cool J / N.W.A. - Okay, I have no problem with these three acts being considered for a Rap Hall Of Fame or Soul/R&B Hall Of Fame, but the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame?  Please.  And before anybody levels a Racism Charge, allow me make my point.  There are many black artists who belong in the R&RHOF: Chuck Berry (without whom rock & roll might not even exist, and certainly wouldn't be as much fun as it is), Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Sly & The Family Stone, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Prince, etc.  If we're going to nominate Chic, LL Cool J or N.W.A., where are the nominations for Love, The Chambers Brothers, Bad Brains or Living Color, all of whom are more vital black contributors to the legacy of rock & roll?

5) The Paul Butterfield Blues Band / Peter Gabriel / Hall & Oates / The Meters / Cat Stevens / Link Wray - ZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.  Why bother?

6) The Zombies - These guys certainly deserve to be in the R&RHOF, but I would hate to think they were only nominated this year because of Pop Culture Zombie Mania - The Walking Dead, World War Z, etc.

7) Nirvana / The Replacements - As a rocker, I suppose these were the two nominations that made the most sense.  But it's going to be sad to me when Nirvana makes it into the Rock Hall on their first try and The Replacements don't.  It's probably not entirely fair but I kinda blame Nirvana - and specifically Kurt Cobain - for the current Dire Straits Of Rock & Roll.  (note; Mark Knopfler's band is not in the R&RHOF either.)  First Cobain knocked Hair Metal (which, though I certainly wasn't a fan, was at least FUN in a rock & roll sense) off the charts, radio, and MTV, thus ushering in The Age Of Alternative.  He then went on to CONTINUOUSLY bellyache (literally, he had an ulcer) about Fame, His Fans, The Pressures of Rock Stardom, etc.  That is not a Good Message to send to aspiring rock stars.  And when The Biggest Rock Star In The World blows his brains out in a Seattle garage, the lesson to young boys & girls with guitars is that Genius Is Pain and you should just roll around and wallow in your grief rather than use rock & roll to escape that darkness.  And that's not Rock & Roll.

The Replacements are rock & roll.  And that's exactly why I'm betting they don't get into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame in 2013.  We'll see.  - Ricki C. / Oct. 25th, 2013

Footage of Colin Playing a Willie Phoenix Song at Apollo's in 1990!

Biggie recently posted this on the Watershed Facebook page and I thought it was worthy of a permanent home here at Pencilstorm. How on earth somebody taped this or how it was found I have no idea. My hair should have been a dead giveaway I used a fake I.D. to get the gig. - Colin

One common thread in the Columbus music community has always been its generosity. Watershed has benefited early and often from the kindness of our home-town musical brothers & sisters; from Happy Chichester giving Herb his first drum lesson to Sue & Marcy from Scrawl lending their vocal talents to recording sessions. 

One of the first and most generous bounties bestowed to Watershed came from Willie Phoenix. Willie’s mentoring of the band is covered in great detail by Joe’s book Hitless Wonder. Sadly, Watershed has not shared the stage with Willie very much in the recent past (Willie once warned us to avoid being on bills with superior talent) but this Friday, November 1st, Colin Gawel and The Lonely Bones are going into the ring and taking their lumps from the mighty Willie Phoenix (Blues Hippy & The Soul Underground). It is an early show, starting at 6:30 sharp at the Rumba Café.

In preparation for this monumental event please enjoy an erstwhile Colin Gawel covering one of his favorite Willie songs back in 1990.

Lou Reed 1942 - 2013 by Ricki C.

(This piece appeared originally in Ricki's blog, Growing Old With Rock & Roll .)

I'm sure by now almost everybody who reads Pencilstorm or Growing Old With Rock & Roll knows that Lou Reed died yesterday, Sunday Oct. 27th. I'm also sure anybody who has ever seen me play knows that there was no bigger influence on my music and songwriting than Lou Reed. My five favorite rock & roll performers of all time are - in chronological order - Pete Townshend, Lou Reed, Bruce Springsteen, Ian Hunter and Elliott Murphy.

I fully realize Bob Dylan is not on that list. Lou Reed was my Bob Dylan.

I was introduced to the music of The Velvet Underground by my best friend ever - Dave Blackburn - when he and I first met at Bishop Ready High School in 1968. (There's a song about it, kinda, in blog entry If All My Heroes Are Losers, Sept. 26th, 2012.) I have to admit I didn't get The Velvet Underground in '68 or '69 when Dave was first trying to indoctrinate me. (Dave was at that show at Valley Dale Ballroom here in Columbus, Ohio, that came out on one of the "Banana Album" box-set reissues. I didn't go because I found the Velvets "too noisy." I would think I stayed home that night with my Lovin' Spoonful and Paul Revere & The Raiders records.)

By 1973, however, when I came back from trying to start a band in Boston with Dave and moved into my first apartment, Reed's Transformer album and a German import best-of Velvet Underground double-record set (that I got for two bucks at an Ohio State University campus used-record store) became my touchstones, my muses and my Masters course in rock & roll songwriting. (see blog entry The Apartment, March 9th, 2012.)

If you had told me in 1973 that Lou Reed would still be alive in 2013, I'd have just laughed, dismissed you, and walked away. If you had told me Iggy Pop, Keith Richards and Bob Dylan would still be alive in 2013 - let alone still playing music - I'd have called you a fuckin' idiot to your face. (And Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis? Fuggetaboutit.)

And maybe that's kinda the entire point of this whole Growing Old With Rock & Roll Concept. I cannot reconcile which side of "It's better to burn out than to fade away." I believe in. I realize how awful a thing it is to say in the wake of Lou Reed's passing, but a large part of me wishes Pete Townshend HAD died before he got old, just so I wouldn't have to dislike him and all that he stands for more with each passing year. I was sad in 1978 when Keith Moon died, but Keith wasn't meant to get fat and wasted and useless as he had already started to do even 35 years ago. We're not all supposed to get old and have long careers in rock & roll. 

Bruce Springsteen is. Ian Hunter is. Elliott Murphy is. Alejandro Escovedo is. Maybe Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Richard Thompson, Steve Earle and Dave Alvin are, but I haven't bought a record by any of those five artists in years. And David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash certainly shouldn't still be out there. 

And does it make me sad that Lou Reed's last recorded work is that debacle duet record with Metallica from a coupla years ago? You'd best believe it makes me sad. 

But I digress.......

I think before I lose control of this blog and start down too many rabbit holes, I'm just going to turn it over to Elliott Murphy. The following are the liner notes to 1969 - Velvet Underground Live, released by Mercury records in 1973 to capitalize on Lou Reed's post-"Walk On The Wild Side" popularity. It's my favorite piece of rock journalism/poetry ever, and it says more about rock & roll and loss than I ever could, in a hundred years. 

Ian Hunter & the Rant Band in Kent, Ohio, and the Greying Of Live Rock & Roll by Ricki C.

(An alternate - somewhat longer - version of this entry appeared previously 

in  Ricki's blog, Growing Old With Rock & Roll.)    

My lovely wife Debbie and I made a road trip Saturday Oct. 5th to see Ian Hunter & the Rant Band at Kent Stage, a truly great venue in Kent, Ohio.  Kent's rather unfortunate claim to fame is that it houses Kent State University, where on May 4th, 1970, four Kent State University students were shot to death and nine wounded by a detachment of National Guardsmen.  I was a senior in high school on that day and harbor my own 1960's-derived conspiracy-theory thoughts on the subject - i.e. that then-President Richard M. Nixon called up then-Governor James Rhodes and said, "Let's put an end to this Vietnam War campus-protest nonsense. Kill some solidly Midwest students.  No one will really take it all that seriously if it's New York City or California, we need to make a statement and an example in Middle America."  (I offer as evidence of my theory that two black students were killed and 12 were wounded by police gunfire on May 15th, 1970, just eleven days later at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi.  Nobody seems to remember that incident and Neil Young never wrote any songs about those kids.)

However, Governmental Murder For Hire is not our topic today. Today's topic is Ian Hunter & The Rant Band live.

My live rock & roll encounter previous to this Ian Hunter show was a Rolling Stones tribute band at the Columbus, Ohio, Hollywood Casino.  (click here to see pencilstorm entry Sept.27th)   It's becoming increasingly problematic to me that, at 61 years old, I find myself attending only shows that connect back to my 20's in the 1970's, my heyday of rock & roll.  I don't necessarily want to be one of those people who won't go see young, up-and-coming bands, but I am.

After an enjoyable opening set by Amy Rigby & Wreckless Eric (who, by the way, sounds EXACTLY like he did back in 1978 on the Stiffs Live record) the mighty Rant Band took the stage and slammed into "What For" from the new When I'm President album, not-so-subtly announcing that this was not going to be an Oldies Show, that new Hunter material was going to be featured.  Ian ambled onto the stage, making a great entrance in a long-sleeve white shirt & black jeans, looking incredibly fit, trim & vital, belying his 74 years on the planet.  The second song of the set was "Once Bitten Twice Shy," serving equal notice that Ian wasn't going to ignore The Hits in the show.

And therein might lie my problem with The Greying Of Live Rock & Roll: audience resistance to New Material in lieu of Crowd Favorites.  I may not be giving the audience at Kent Stage enough credit, but it seemed to me that a rather large majority of the crowd were there for a Nostalgia Night.  They wanted to hear Mott The Hoople material like "All The Way From Memphis," "Golden Age Of Rock & Roll," and, of course, "All The Young Dudes" and Ian solo hits "Just Another Night" (just about the only Radio Hit that didn't get played) and "Cleveland Rocks."  (Kent is, after all, a stone's throw from the hometown of the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame.)

I really have to wonder how many audience members in attendance at this show have bought - or are even aware of the existence of - Ian's four brilliant 21st-century releases: Rant, Shrunken Heads, Man Overboard and the aforementioned When I'm President.  (More on that in my Growing Old With Rock & Roll August 2nd, 2013 blog entry Ian Hunter (w/ Mick Ronson) "Once Bitten Twice Shy." And all the Bonus Video Friday blogs in August featured Hunter and/or Mott The Hoople.)  Also, disturbingly, there were precious few young people at the show - fifty & up seemed to be the order of the day.  My wife Debbie, many years my junior, might have been one of the youngest people in attendance.

So the Rant band plowed through a truly rocking set, mixing in newer tunes like "Black Tears," "Shrunken Heads" and "Just The Way You Look Tonight" with the Crowd Favorites mentioned above, before smashing to a close with the new album's "Ta Shunka Witco (Crazy Horse)" - delivered with a venom wholly in keeping with the song's message of America's betrayal of her indigenous people - and "Life."  I think Ian has penned "Life" as a ongoing dedicated set-ender, to replace the now 40-year old "All The Way From Memphis," or the 39-year old "Saturday Gigs," the songs that have concluded Hunter shows the last few times I've seen him, further reinforcing that this is not an Oldies Show, that this is a band that can look fearlessly into the future and "Laugh, because it's only life."  - Ricki C. / Oct. 7th, 2013

IAN HUNTER & THE RANT BAND / LIVE 2013

I'm Watching a Rolling Stones Tribute Band at the Hollywood Casino at 7:30 pm on a Thursday Evening, How Much More West Side Can I Get? by Ricki C.

Growing up rock & roll on the West Side of Columbus, Ohio, in the 1960’s & 70’s carries with it certain responsibilities: I have to hate Mumford & Sons, The National and Atoms For Peace because they are pussies, and are therefore NOT rock & roll; I have to keep Q-FM 96 as one of the pre-sets on my car radio – even though I’m utterly appalled by the complete lack of imagination and sheer mindlessness of the stations’ playlist – because they might play “Never Been Any Reason” by Head East; and because I watch NFL football on Sundays I am required to bemoan the fact that Bruno Mars is the halftime entertainment at this season’s Super Bowl because, well, he’s fucking Bruno Mars, for Chrissakes.

But I digress………

Growing up rock & roll on the West Side of Columbus, Ohio, in the 1960’s & 70’s means that I’m not supposed to be smart enough or that I’m supposed to be too drugged-out to remember that The Hollywood Casino is built on the site of the old General Motors plant, once the largest employer of non-college-educated folks on the West Side.  The fact that Columbus city leaders have chosen that as the site of the our little gambling palace is genuinely ironic, given that the casino almost certainly sucks a certain percentage of the unemployment compensation and retirement funds of the workers whose jobs were shipped overseas back during the “Republican Revolution” of the Ronald Reagan administration, jobs never to be had again on the West Side of Columbus, Ohio.  Talk about adding insult to injury.

But I digress………

My friend Rob and I met up on the North Side for our little Rolling Stones casino jaunt.  Rob and I go way back.  We met in 1976 when Rob became my boss at the West Side Service Merchandise location where I worked.  We bonded over the fact that Rob knew who The MC5 were and liked them.  That carried weight on the West Side in 1976.  Rob and I saw a lot of great rock & roll together over the years – Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band, Blue Oyster Cult in their heyday, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band – and also a lot of truly questionable rock shows - Steppenwolf in 1978, at least eight years past their prime and the debacle that was Kiss in 1976.  More than that, though, we saw a lot of great local Columbus bands: The Godz, Black Leather Touch, The Muff Brothers (later The Muffs) in the brief period when they were truly great before they became Money, and most of all Romantic Noise, Willie Phoenix’s best band EVER.  Rob is one of the few people on the planet to whom I don’t have to explain to how great Willie once was.

But I digress………

Satisfaction – the Stones tribute band in question – I thought was actually pretty good.  The lead singer bore more than a passing resemblance to Mick Jagger, was rail-thin, stayed in character the entire time, doing all of the between-song patter in an English accent (that was certainly better than Dick Van Dyke’s in Mary Poppins) and the Keith Richards character didn’t embarrass himself.  (He shoulda kept his mirrored shades on the whole show, though, the eyes always give away your age.)  I think the bass player was sporting a wig, but pulled off a credible Bill Wyman.  (I miss Bill Wyman, there are FIVE Rolling Stones.)  The drummer had Charlie Watts’ signature lick of pulling off the high-hat on the fourth beat of every measure down to a science, and the Ron Wood character was serviceable.

Unfortunately, I had just seen The Rolling Stones documentary Gimme Shelter on the big screen the week before at Colin and Brian Phillips’ Reelin’ & Rockin’ Movie series at the Gateway Film Center and the disparities in music and culture between 1969 and 2013 were glaringly, painfully obvious.  The audience (“crowd” might be too strong a word for the hundred or so souls gathered at the casino) was really the main problem.  The people who were once bright-eyed, stoned-fabulous fans of the Stones were now 60-year olds in embarrassing denim shorts and old, too-small Stones tour t-shirts, sporting either long, stringy grey hair under baseball caps, or no hair at all.  And there were definitely more walkers and canes in evidence than there were Harleys.

No naked fat chicks tried to clamber onstage like at Altamont but there was a requisite number of drunken, frowzy, bleached-blonde divorcees dancing down front in front of fake Mick.  But I am not making fun of my West Side sistren & brethren here, you must believe me.  To paraphrase: “What can a poor Stones fan do / ‘Cept to go to the casino on a Thursday night?”  Where else are 50 and 60 year olds supposed to go for a rock & roll good time, a twerking Miley Cyrus show?  Please.

So all in all it was a pretty depressing night.  Driving home I caught “Cecilia” by Simon & Garfunkel on the Newark oldies station, and was instantly transported back to January 1970, making out with Linda Finneran in her parents’ warm West Side living room, listening to her Bridge Over Troubled Waters  album.  Growing up in the 1960's & 70's, I don’t want rock & roll to be all about memories, but unfortunately right now it is. – Ricki C. / September 27th, 2013

Ricki C has forgotten more about Rock n Roll than you ever knew. Learn more about him and our other Pencilstorm contributors by clicking here. 

Lydia Loveless @ Independents' Day Festival. Don't Miss This.

The last time I saw Lydia Loveless perform I turned to the stranger next to me and exclaimed,"Her voice is just as good as Lucinda Williams. It really is". Which is on par with saying, "that guy has as much charisma as Elvis", or "that bass player spits blood as well as Gene Simmons". Point being, she is great and you have the chance to see her for FREE at the always fabulous Independents' Day festival Saturday September 21st in Downtown Columbus.  

 Lydia will be heading back to tour Europe (again) this fall to get the planet pumped for her new release on Bloodshot Records set to drop in 2014.

To learn more about Lydia visit her website here or just pick up a copy of the latest Alive.  She is on the cover. Bam.

To learn more about Independents' Day and the complete line which features many great bands including: the New Bomb Turks, Nick Tolford, Karate Coyote, The Whiles, The Washington Beach Bums, The Girls and more click here.