Rock – Page 11 – Rock Salted

Tom Zé – Tom Zé [1970]

Tom Zé – Tom Zé RGE Discos XRLP 5351 (1970)

Tom Zé’s second album — and the second of three self-titled albums in a row — isn’t always as highly regarded as his first, but it shows him more versatile as a vocalist. There are some funky rock riffs with more bass and guitar, without the heavy organ of his debut. There are more ornate arrangements, with lush strings and horns. The songwriting is, perhaps, less dripping with irony, but the irony and starkly earnest shock humor is still present. There are plenty of excellent compositions here.

In an interview, Zé described this time and album as fraught with personal crisis:

“I was in a kind of crisis because I knew at that time that I didn’t want to do the popular music from my first album again. At the same time I didn’t know what to do and at the same time, João, the guy who freed me from my contract . . . was putting pressure on me to work and do more music. To me, it’s a crisis album and I don’t like to listen to it very often.”

The sorts of crises that he’s referring to weren’t just personal. This was still a turbulent time in Brazil. In his memoir Tropical Truth: A Story of Music & Revolution in Brazil (2002), fellow tropicalista Caetano Veloso described the era this way:

“In 1964, the military took power, motivated by the need to perpetuate those disparities [making Brazil the country with the greatest social and economic disparity in the world] that have proven to be the only way to make the Brazilian economy work (badly, needless to say) and, in the international arena, to defend the free market from the threat of the communist bloc (another American front of the Cold War). Students were either leftist or they would keep their mouths shut. Within the family or among one’s circle of friends, there was no possibility of disagreeing with a socialist ideology. The Right existed only to serve vested or unspeakable interests. Thus, the rallies ‘With God and for Freedom’ organized by the ‘Catholic ladies’ in support of the military coup appeared to us as the cynical, hypocritical gestures of evil people. *** we saw the coup simply as a decision to halt the redress of the horrible social inequities in Brazil and, simultaneously, to sustain North American supremacy in the hemisphere.”

When Veloso and Gilberto Gil were jailed in 1969, Tom Zé took over hosting the TV Tupi show Divino, Maravilhoso for a few episodes.

This album is still about the manifesto of tropicalismo. There is the famous line Dustin Hoffman delivers in the film The Graduate (1967); when asked what he’s doing, he responds, “Drifting.” Zé is drifting a bit here, but in the best possible way. He wonderfully evokes a kind of unsatisfied boredom and uncertainty, matched with curiosity and open-mindedness. There are very poppy tunes, verging on the commercial (“Passageiro,” “Jeitinho dela”). And there are ballads (“O riso e a faco,” “Me dá, me dê, me diz”). But there is more than that too. “Jymmy Rende-se” has a tight groove. The lyrics are playful nonsense, but that kind of sums up the best of what the album as a whole has to offer. Some of the other upbeat numbers (“Guindaste a rigor,” “Escolinha de robô”) are quite good too. And this isn’t all just variations on conventional pop/rock forms — some of this stuff is dissonant and weird too (“Qualquer bobagem”).

This might not be Zé’s most highly regarded album, but it’s still up there with his best. Though it isn’t like he’s ever really made a bad album in a decades-long career.

Sturgill Simpson – A Sailor’s Guide to Earth

Sturgill Simpson – A Sailor’s Guide to Earth Atlantic 551380-2 (2016)

Following the success of his prior album, the excellent Metamodern Sounds in Country Music, Sturgill Simpson returns with a more grandiose effort, A Sailor’s Guide to Earth. His voice still sounds like Waylon Jennings, but the approach of this album ranges from country to southern rock to southern soul to chamber pop. The opening song has kind of spacey, vaguely psychedelic effects, but eventually launches into a full-throated soul song — very reminiscent of Willie Nelson‘s crossover success Shotgun Willie. By the third song, “Keep It Between the Lines,” with a full horn section (The Dap-Kings) and prominent slide guitar, he’s squarely in the progressive southern rock territory of “Spanish Moon” by Little Feat (from Feats Don’t Fail Me Now). Other songs recall later-period “roots rock” recordings by The Band. The closer “Call to Arms” is pretty rockin’ and concludes the album nicely. The lyrics remain a liability. They are mostly pretty clunky throughout, despite best intentions. And Simpson’s voice has a limited range. But the musical ideas here are fun and return to the concept of crossover country music that brings together groups of listeners that won’t normally interact, even if it does so in a retro way (it would have been more radical and daring to combine country music with contemporary hip-hop or smooth R&B than the kind of soul music that was popular four or five decades ago).

Dead Boys – Young Loud and Snotty

Dead Boys – Young Loud and Snotty Sire SR 6038 (1977)

The best songs on Young, Loud and Snotty were ones carried over from the Cleveland cult band Rocket From the Tombs. There is no question that the available recordings by Rocket From the Tombs are far superior, including both the demo and live versions (The Day the Earth Met the Rocket From the Tombs) and the reunion recordings (Rocket Redux). But I once heard Iggy Pop say that sometimes you need a stupid record. For stupid, thick-headed rock and roll, it’s hard to beat the Dead Boys.

David Bowie – Scary Monsters… and Super Creeps

David Bowie – Scary Monsters… and Super Creeps RCA BOW LP 2 / PL 13647 (1980)

In some ways, this is a transitional effort: the close of Bowie’s late 1970s style and the beginning of his forays into 80s pop. The eclectic eccentricities of Lodger are held in check, focused around a more steady pop sensibility. This is still quirky art rock, but it flows together as an album better. Even if it lacks any individual song as good as “Modern Love” from Let’s Dance or “D.J.” from Lodger, there is not a bad tune anywhere. It would take Bowie a long, long time to make an album this good again — and it could be argued he never did.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Are You Experienced

The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Are You Experienced Reprise RS 6261 (1967)

The Jim Hendrix Experience’s debut album is a great one. Released in significantly different forms in the UK and US — get one of the expanded versions from the CD era that include all the UK and US tracks, plus the complete early singles (with both A- and B-sides), resulting in more than what either the US or UK original stand-alone versions offered. There is a strong influence from electric blues traditions, but what makes this album special is how it goes well beyond tradition. In fact, the confident psychedelic edge throughout the album makes clear that Hendrix and his band are committed to the counterculture. This album could really only have been made at the specific time that it was made. It conveys a sense of inevitability, like the counterculture was poised to win and let all the freaks (and everybody else) be themselves, unhindered. Hindsight shows that over the next fifty years the other side claimed almost all the victories, and from that perspective the hippie vision of the Jimi Hendrix Experience seems almost like a quaint relic. But there is nothing frivolous about how the band plays these songs, which have that blues feeling but often a kind of macho swagger, curiously put to use in service of less macho notions, all done in a way that is quite earnest in is own way. This represents the attitude that will almost be necessary if the tables are to turn and the countercultural vision rekindled.

“The Wind Cries Mary” has a dreamy romanticism not unlike Bob Dylan‘s “Mr. Tambourine Man.” “Purple Haze” is the overtly druggy freakout. “Fire” and “Fox[e]y Lady” are kind of libidinal rockers, and some of the better known album tracks (released together as a single later on). Along with “Hey Joe,” these are some of the most recognizable rock songs of the period. They have been played on the radio consistently even decades later. Yet there is more to the album than just a few highlights.

“3rd Stone From the Sun” is a kind of swirling sonic odyssey, which tends to rob the social status quo of its power by invoking cosmic imagery that places human struggles on just one “stone” in an increasingly accessible solar system (this was the “space age” after all, and this song probably qualifies as afro-futurism). The blues stuff like “Red House” (only on the UK version), plus “Manic Depression” and “I Don’t Live Today” convey a sense of struggle, and a lack of naivety, without succumbing to hopelessness or discouragement. The perspective is of acceptance of struggle and hardship as part of achieving something beyond present circumstance.

It is the often thunderous — and sometimes sweetly tender or mystical — guitar riffs that separate this from a lot of psychedelic rock of the day. This doesn’t sound like trifling stuff. It is big, sweeping, decisive, dramatic. It is also worth mentioning that it isn’t just Hendrix that makes this album great. Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell make substantial contributions, be it Mitchell’s penchant for loose, supple, jazzy drumming that adds dynamism or Redding’s steady bass lines that complement without ever detracting from Hendrix’s leads.

I guess you could say I’m Hendrix-normative when it comes to rock guitar. I listened to Hendrix albums extensively as a teenager, and came to accept him as a standard bearer for what it meant to be an excellent rock guitarist. Looking back, it seems reasonable to take that approach. There are other ways of playing guitar, inside or outside the rock idiom, but anyone who can play as well as Hendrix (not the same way, but as well) is indeed a talented player. There is no shortage of opinions claiming Hendrix as literally the best electric guitar player. But there is no reason to object to that!

The White Stripes – White Blood Cells

The White Stripes – White Blood Cells Sympathy For the Record Industry (2001)

Jack and Meg White made the ideal rock duo. As a songwriter, Jack was like the second coming of Alex Chilton. He wrote catchy songs with their complexity left intact. He was confident in some ways and insecure in others. He certainly was honest either way. Being a sensitive guy these days presents him with a whole bunch of new confusions. It doesn’t always seem worth it. Jack seems to want to be the person he is. The tension of maybe wanting commitment with being a cool rock star isn’t sentimental in the slightest. The songs are intended to be a little ragged. That’s just indirect proof of what is accomplished smoothly, silently throughout.

I liked White Blood Cells when I firsts heard it, but didn’t quite get the hype. When I could hardly take it out of my player over the next months I realized how great an album it was. It’s an album where it’s worth reading between the lines. Later White Stripes albums had increasingly more filler, and Jack White’s first few solo albums tried rather too hard and displayed an unlikable political stance. Still, White Blood Cells is where everything came together just right.

The Beach Boys – L.A. (Light Album)

The Beach Boys – L.A. (Light Album) Caribou JZ 35752 (1979)

A small improvement over M.I.U. Album. The best stuff here, like “Good Timin’,” is actually not bad at all, but there is a very real danger that the Boys are going to soft rock you to sleep listening to this one. Plus, there are some serious duds here that can only induce cringes, like “Shortenin’ Bread” and the stab at disco “Here Comes the Night.”

The Beach Boys – Surf’s Up

The Beach Boys – Surf’s Up Brother RS 6453 (1971)

Surf’s Up is an odd little album but one containing some amazing Brian Wilson songs. A dark melancholy pervades the disc. “Surf’s Up,” with lyrics by Van Dyke Parks, is a holdover from the Smile period. It is a thrown together mishmash, like the whole album, but it has the spark of incorruptible genius hovering about its ordinary and vital emotions. “Surf’s Up” is a lost but confident stroll through a dream for good in the world. Parks’ surrealist lyrics (like “Laughs come hard/ in Auld Lang Syne” and “Surf’s Up/ umm-mmm umm-mmm umm-mmm/ aboard a tidal wave/ come about hard and join/ the young and often spring you gave”) help make Brian’s “Surf’s Up” about the best song The Beach Boys ever did. “’Til I Die” is another classic with a slightly more uncertain feeling. Actually, just the Brian Wilson songs that close the album make Surf’s Up essential for fans. Despite one dud rocker song and some questionable keyboard effects, the mellow satisfied quality pervading the album serves as a nice lead-in to the album’s powerful finish. It takes some dedication to appreciate what this album is, but with sometimes-strong contributions from various band members (e.g., “Long Promised Road”) it is worth the effort to find Surf’s Up and go beyond the group’s Sixties material.

Mark Hollis – Mark Hollis

Mark Hollis – Mark Hollis Polydor 537 688-2 (1998)

After the artistic triumphs (and commercial failures) of Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock, Talk Talk disbanded. Many years later singer Mark Hollis released his first, and to date only, solo album, the self-titled Mark Hollis. This picks up exactly where Talk Talk left off, and it almost sounds like a very high fidelity demo for an unrealized Talk Talk album (that isn’t meant as a put down, rather to say these are more stripped down recordings). The songs are moody and nearly ambient. Yet, they are slightly more like distinct songs than on the last Talk Talk albums. More importantly, the performances are simpler, performed in a chamber setting with minimalist arrangements that give the impression of being performed live in the studio. The last two Talk Talk albums instead had (obviously) layered sounds assembled in the studio from bits and pieces of expansive recording sessions. And yet Hollis was quoted as saying, “This material isn’t suited to play live.” The opening “The Colour of Spring” is so sparse that only one or two instruments play at an given time. Hollis sings with his iconic delicate, high voice that almost seems frail and hollow if it didn’t also come across as so resilient and erudite. Five of the songs were co-written by producer Warne Livesey, and Phil Ramacon and Dominic Miler co-wrote other songs. Only one song was written solely by Hollis. There are many nods to mid-century classic jazz and Euro-classical music, albeit merely outlined as impressionistic thumbnail sketches. There is also a pervasive interest in perseverance and purity evinced by the songs. The performances are melancholic, with a cautiously hopeful urban twist on pastoralism; though the music is much more optimistic and tranquil than Laughing Stock. Anyone who fell in love with the late period Talk Talk recordings will definitely want to seek this out. Hollis largely retired from music after this album, so it is likely to be the last of its kind. That is too bad, really, because the world could use more music with this integrity.

Tom Zé – Danç-Êh-Sá (Dança dos Herdeiros do Sacrifício) – O Fim da Canção: Ao Vivo

Tom Zé – Danç-Êh-Sá (Dança dos Herdeiros do Sacrifício) – O Fim da Canção: Ao Vivo Trama (2008)

The album title translates roughly to “Dance-eh-Sa (Dance of the Heirs of Sacrifice) – The End of Song: Live.” The individual songs are tributes to past revolutions, or failed attempts at revolution. Up to his usual tricks, like a modern Socrates, Zé seems to be trying to stimulate thinking about what revolutions mean in the present. Consider what Slavoj Žižek wrote in Trouble in Paradise (p. 143-44):

“permanent political engagement has a limited time-span: after a couple of weeks or, rarely, months, the majority disengages, and the problem is to safeguard the results of the uprising at this moment, when things return to normal. *** The battle has to be won here, in the domain of citizens’ passivity, when things return back to normal the morning after ecstatic revolts; it is (relatively) easy to have a big ecstatic spectacle of sublime unity, but how will ordinary people feel the difference in their daily lives? No wonder conservatives like to see sublime explosions from time to time — they remind people that nothing can really change, that things return to normal the day after.”

Is this not precisely what Zé is cultivating with this music — trying maintain an interest in a revolutionary spirit in a time of (relative) prosperity, with the big spectacle of revolution seemingly a thing of the past?

The songs use many onomatopoeic sounds, like “Atchim” (for sneezing) and “Uai” (for amazement). The effect is a kind of universality. These things don’t mean much of anything in particular. But in that respect they mean the same thing now as they did in the times of the revolutions that Zé pays tribute to. They also prevent this from being dour stuff. The performances are meant to have levity and playful humor.

This live recording is arguably better than the studio counterpart. The drums and guitar are a little harder and further forward in the mix. There are also fewer electronics and hip-hop references. Also, the best songs are sequenced first here. This perhaps is more of a second-tier Tom Zé album, but it’s still a good one.