Christmas Music Video Of the Week

"Ring Out, Solstice Bells" by Jethro Tull  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Music Video Of the Week - October 25, 2024

"Bungle In the Jungle" by Jethro Tull  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Music Video Of the Week - February 11, 2022

"Skating Away On the Thin Ice of the New Day" by Jethro Tull  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Music Video Of the Week - March 19, 2021

"Aqualung" by Jethro Tull  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

'21 Is Going To Be a Good Year?

Okay, boys and girls, here are the nominees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Class of 2021!

 

Some of the names on this list, such as Foo Fighters, Chaka Khan, Carole King, the New York Dolls, Rage Against the Machine, Todd Rundgren, Tina Turner and the Go-Go's (the female Beatles) make sense.  Others, like Devo and Iron Maiden, are more questionable.  And there are names like Jay-Z and Dionne Warwick, which scream, "We'll nominate anyone to avoid inducting Jethro Tull."

Jay-Z is an obviously cringe-worthy nod to political correctness, because pop critics have waxed rhapsodic about what a Great and Significant Artist he is; that's as may be, he's still a hip-hop performer, and hip-hop isn't rock.  It isn't even music. (Any comments left here offering an excoriating dissent will be deleted.)  Dionne Warwick?  Hey, I love the woman.  She's one of my people.  (By that, I mean that she's from Essex County, New Jersey.)  But she's a crooner.  And you could bet that when Aretha Franklin did a Bacharach-David song Dionne Warwick had already done, Aretha did it better.  I could go on.  But I won't.  I believe I've made my point.     

Some of the nominees for this year have expressed indifference to the whole damn thing.  Todd Rundgren doesn't care if he's inducted or not, saying that his fans matter more to him than a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.  Which makes sense when you consider that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has actually honored Madonna but will not even nominate Joe Cocker.  And why hasn't the Hall still nominated Warren Zevon, for Pete's sake?

My Rock and Roll Hall of Fame T-shirt is getting faded and frayed.  Maybe I should dump it, and maybe it's a sign I should stop caring about the Hall itself, as well.  They're not going to nominate any artistes whom I feel should be nominated anytime soon, like Jethro Tull, and even though there are artistes nominated this year whose nominations I agree with, I suppose the folks who run the Hall really won't mind if I sit this one out. 

Music Video Of the Week - January 31, 2020

"The Witch's Promise" by Jethro Tull  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.)

Jethro Tull - Thick as a Brick (1972)

Art rock, we are told, presented a threat to rock and roll for its disconnection from the rhythm-and-blues roots of rock, its pretentious themes and lyrics, its over-complex musicianship, and its unbearable whiteness of being.  Such music, we are further told, deserved a shellacking from the punk movement and died a richly deserved death at the hands of a snyth-pop/hip-hop sound that emerged  from new generations of less white and less male recording artists in the early eighties and hasn't let go of the charts since.  But what about a parody of art rock being art itself?     

Jethro Tull's leader Ian Anderson conceived "Thick as a Brick" in response to the growing plethora of long-winded albums coming from British rockers in the early seventies and interpretations of the band's own Aqualung as having been a concept album rather than a collection of songs that simply belong together.  I am referring to this album's title in quotation marks rather than in italics for a reason; it's in fact a single song spread out over two sides.  Anderson presents "Thick as a Brick" as a poem, set to Tull's music, that was written by a fictional eight-year-old lad named Gerald Bostock.  The mock newspaper that served as the record's sleeve has a story explaining that "Thick as a Brick" won first prize in a poetry contest - a prize that was rescinded by the contest judges after a reading of the poem on BBC Television because of its "extremely unwholesome attitude towards life, his God and Country."  The article goes on to say that a shocked British public has concluded that poor Gerald is believed to be mentally disturbed and seriously needs help.  Other stories in the paper, which folds out when the sleeve is opened, cover rather absurd, silly, parochial issues that local newspapers in Britain always seem to be concerned with.  Anderson was not only parodying the pomposity of art rock, he was also poking fun at staid British society in general.

But how can one possibly satirize art rock when, as I noted in my review of Yes's 1973 anti-masterpiece Tales From Topographic Oceans, the most pompous art rock satirizes itself?  Very brilliantly, at least here.  Anderson presents the schoolboy Bostock's poem - referencing scatology, the Boy Scout Handbook, and comic-book virtues - with some of Tull's most challenging music.  Jarring, heavy chord changes supported by Martin Barre's electric guitar flow out of some of Anderson's loveliest acoustic arrangements of guitar and piano and lead into some ethereal orchestration arranged by David Palmer.  Adding some extra punch to keep the music interesting are keyboardist John Evan with some majestic organ passages, and new drummer Barriemore Barlow is equally impressive with his pointed assaults.  The lyrics ultimately seem to make little sense, but anyone who tries to find meaning in them to explain poor Gerald misses the joke.  Anderson is playing with our heads the same way Monty Python's Flying Circus - an inspiration for "Thick As a Brick" - played with the stuffiness of British cultural values.  The title itself - a term for stupidity - is a clue to the joke.

American rock critics - in 1972 waiting for a new kind of rock to come from the street to save us from such art-school haughtiness - slammed "Thick as a Brick" for being so, well, dense, but if they thought Anderson was being serious, then the biggest joke of all was on them.  You yourself may wonder if Anderson only called "Thick as a Brick" an art-rock parody to hide the fact that he let the success of Aqualung go to his head and wanted to make something even grander, but the fact that Anderson has never taken himself too seriously means that he got the last laugh here.

Gerald Bostock would be proud.    

For a Thousand O'Malley-Haters

Despite having helped the Democrats win back states with his Win Back Your State PAC, despite being the biggest cheerleader for the Democratic Party and against Donald Trump, and despite having earned a second chance to run for President in 2020 because of the simple fact that no one gave him much of a first chance in 2016, Martin O'Malley remains a joke among Washington pundits obsessed with "diversity" (racial and ethnic, rather than philosophical, differences) and under the sway of Betomania (more about that later), and he's still seen as someone to make fun of simply for thinking about another presidential run in 2020. 

We'll show them.  We'll show them all.  And if I may do so, and I will, I'd like to propose another song for O'Malley to use at a campaign event - namely, his 2020 campaign victory party.

If - no, when - he is elected President of the United States on November 3, 2020, O'Malley should play Jethro Tull's "For a Thousand Mothers" as the introductory music to his victory speech at his Election Night party.  The song, which closes Tull's second album, was written by Tull leader Ian Anderson as a rejoinder to all of his relatives - including his own parents - who said he'd never make it as a rock musician.

"Steve," you're saying, "that is so lame!  You might as well have O'Malley play one of his favorite Irish folk songs on his guitar!"  No, I'd rather save that for the inauguration.

"For a Thousand Mothers" is the perfect song to play in response to the pundits, the party elders, and the haters and naysayers who all laughed when O'Malley said he "just might" run for President again in 2020 or who laughed when he ran for President in 2016.  It's nasty, it's powerful, and it rocks - and as it comes from a heavy progressive British folk-rock band from the sixties and seventies, the sort of band that critics and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame board members like to dismiss outright. It's perfect as a response to all the people who have dismissed O'Malley.  And it's indeed politically incorrect - because, when you get right down to it, here I am talking up another classic-rock song from some pasty-faced British white guys for O'Malley to use in his campaign.  Noted pundit and hip-hop fan Ari Melber might have a problem with this. Screw Ari Melber.

What sweet revenge it will be against those who say Martin O'Malley will never win the Presidency after he's won it, saying he'll never become the most powerful man in the world after he's gained that power.  It'll be they who are wrong, and for them, here's a song:

By the way, you might remember that Jethro Tull had a guitar player named Martin!  (Martin Barre.)

I can't wait to get back at the lot of those thousands of mothers - I ain't talking about parents with two X chromosomes! - who say O'Malley can't win the White House!  Happy new year. 

"The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" - Fifty Years

It was on this day in 1968 that the Rolling Stones filmed their television special "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus," an extravaganza of some of the best performers in sixties rock (and Yoko Ono) that would not be aired for twenty-eight years.

The Stones, like the Beatles, had not toured since 1966, and concluded as the Beatles had done that for as long as they were unable or unwilling to return to the concert stage, television was the most immediate vehicle on which to perform.  Mick Jagger came up with the idea of combining rock and roll performances with circus acts in tandem with Pete Townshend of the Who and Ronnie Lane of the Small Faces, whose respective bands were both to be part of the special.  (The Small Faces ultimately bowed out.)

Up to this point, rock and roll specials had had mixed results.  A year earlier, the Beatles had bombed with their Magical Mystery Tour film on the BBC, which led NBC in the United States to cancel its American airing, whereas Elvis Presley had just made a miraculous comeback with his Christmas special in America (relax, I'll get to that), which, in an ironic twist, aired on NBC.  The Stones' show, directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, was superior to the Beatles' movie and was also on par with Elvis' TV special in terms of excitement and energy.  Alas, a good deal of that energy did not come from the Stones themselves.

The TV-special film that finally got out is in fact an edited, one-hour document of the evening's best performances.  Jethro Tull begins the festivities with "Song For Jeffrey," from their debut album, and though Ian Anderson's vocal is the only live element of an otherwise mimed performance - they were the only band in "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" that did not play live - Anderson's idiosyncratic stage persona makes their appearance memorable.  (The guitarist here is future Black Sabbath member Tony Iommi, a stand-in for Mick Abrahams, who had quit Tull and would be permanently replaced by Martin Barre.)  Then the Who (below) perform an explosive rendition of their mini-opera "A Quick One While He's Away" to an enthusiastic studio audience.

Marianne Faithfull, who performs Barry Mann and Gerry Goffin's "Something Better" to music on a backing tape, rises to the occasion with a heartfelt delivery, while a performance of "Ain't That a Lot of Love" from bluesman Taj Mahal (the only American on the bill) just plain rocks.  But not as much as a performance from the one-off supergroup John Lennon had assembled, the Dirty Mac (below), which was comprised of Lennon and Eric Clapton on guitars, Mitch Mitchell of the Jimi Hendrix Experience on drums, and the Stones' Keith Richards on bass.  Their rendition of Lennon's Beatles song "Yer Blues" is a blistering, crunchy rock performance, and their jam with Israeli violinist Ivry Gitlis is good.  Well, it could have been great, actually, if not for Yoko Ono crashing it and vocalizing all over the place.  In between all this are special circus acts, with the odd clown (including Stones bassist Bill Wyman in a clown suit) popping up here and there.

The Rolling Stones close the show with a massive set of songs from their latest LP release, Beggars Banquet, as well as "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and an early and pointed version of "You Can't Always Get What You Want," culminating with a fiery take on "Sympathy For the Devil."  (They say good night with a take on "Salt Of the Earth.")  But the set was deemed inferior to what had come before, with the Who's appearance remaining the best performance of the night.  The long delay in getting the show set up between acts - filming took fifteen hours into the following morning - had sapped the energy of the Stones, and the pathetic performance of a thoroughly stoned Brian Jones didn't help matters any.  When the Stones saw the result of their efforts, they shelved the whole project rather than risk disappointing their fans as much as the Beatles had with Magical Mystery Tour.  They didn't want to be seen being outdone by the Who on their own special.

Lindsay-Hogg returned to the project in the early nineties, but it wasn't until footage thought to be lost was discovered by director Michael Gochanour and producer Robin Klein, who were able to complete the film.  Shown at the 1996 New York Film Festival in October of that year, "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" was aired in America on the cable music channel VH-1.

Watching it years after it was made, "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" holds up rather well, capturing the essence and the headiness of late-sixties rock culture, at a time when the music was dominated by the British but still deeply rooted in black American blues.  (The circus acts featured have their charms too, and a little intrigue - top model Donyale Luna, who was in competition with Naomi Sims at the time for laying claim to being the first top black fashion model, served as the fire eater's assistant.)  As Rolling Stone writer David Dalton wrote in the film's opening titles, "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" was from a time when it seemed that rock and roll would "inherit the earth."  In 1996, with most of the film's participants having become less relevant and rock itself having begun its long, steady post-grunge decline (still in progress in 2018, with VH-1 having since gone hip-hop), the spirit and the commitment the Rolling Stones and their guests had to the music came through (and they still do).

And yes, the Rolling Stones may have been sub-par compared to the Who or John Lennon, but, good grief, it's still the Stones as we know them - which, as Dave Marsh wrote, is no small thing.  Their set shows a band ready to get back on the road and prove themselves as the great live performers they knew they could be.  The Stones in fact were beginning their ascent to their peak of live performance, with their best and most exciting shows yet to come.  For all of their war-weariness, the Stones look determined to pick up where they left off after drug busts and studio isolation forced them off the concert stage and after their poorly received album Their Satanic Majesties Request cast doubt in their abilities.  Remember, the Stones made this film to support Beggars Banquet; they were more ready to rock than they realized. Janet Maslin of the New York Times summed up their fighting spirit by praising the "sleek young Stones in all their insolent glory presiding over this uneven but ripely nostalgic show."  But their fighting spirit would sadly exact a price - their decision to fire group founder Brian Jones, who would drown in his own swimming pool seven months later.

If the Stones are to be faulted for anything, perhaps it's for trying too hard. Ian Anderson offered this interesting observation years later: "I was there, and they were pretty good when they were rehearsing.  But they just did too much, and I think Mick Jagger sang himself out. When it came to the crunch, the Who just came in and did a few songs, did what they normally do and - crash, bang - the Stones, who had been rehearsing and working at it for ages, felt perhaps a little overshadowed by the energy of the Who."  But all of that work still seems noble when looking back from today, when so much pop music is not so much played as it is manufactured. "The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus" represents an incredible period of music, live performance, and attitude that will likely never be replicated.

Music Video Of the Week - February 9, 2018

"Skating Away On the Thin Ice of the New Day" by Jethro Tull  (Go to the link in the upper-right-hand corner.) 

Just What I Needed

The Rock and Roll Fall of Fame inductees for 2018 were just announced, and they are a mixed grill at first glance, but they make sense after you look closer.  The inductees are Bon Jovi, the Cars, Dire Straits, the Moody Blues, Nina Simone and Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

So you have three bona fide classic rock bands, a band that debuted in the MTV era, and two female influences on rock and roll - Nina Simone for her sultry soul and Sister Rosetta for her folk-gospel guitar playing.  And, in case you haven't noticed, the inductees are all either white men or black women - a perfect summation about how the sisters influenced those of us who aren't exactly brothers.

Which is why I wasn't very happy when I heard about complaints about Nina Simone being included because she wasn't rock and roll. Uh, dudes, could I see you in my office?  Nina Simone sang the blues, the music that gave rock and roll its meaning, and she influenced every white male rocker with open minds and open ears - including the Beatles.  "Michelle" would have been a straight and uninteresting ballad if John Lennon hadn't convinced Paul McCartney to emphasize a different syllable in the song's English-language lyrics after hearing Nina Simone do something similar in her recording of "I Put a Spell On You."  Here I am trying to stick up for rock and roll, and you're not doing me any favors by spewing out the sort of racism and misogyny that makes me feel bad for Omarosa Manigault-Newman.

But, in discussing the merits of the inductees, I'm getting ahead of myself.  Suffice it to say that I'm glad the Cars are in, though I'm not sure about the Moody Blues.  But the induction ceremony is in April, so I'll expand on the class of 2018 at that point.

A lot of folks are bound to be ticked off by who wasn't chosen; nominees got voted down include Rage Against the Machine, the Eurythmics, Radiohead, Judas Priest, Kate Bush, Depeche Mode, the J. Geils Band, the MC5, The Meters, Rufus, Link Wray and the Zombies.   There's bound to be rage against Rage Against the Machine's failure to get in, people are probably yelling "Judas Priest!" over the snub against Judas Priest ( the band took its name from Bob Dylan's song "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest," although it's also a wholesome curse used in old Hollywood movies in place of "Jesus Christ").  But of course, I have to, as always, note who wasn't even nominated - Jethro Tull, the seventies British band critics love to hate, and Family, the greatest band you've never heard.  Especially Family.  Rock acts have to have released their debut records no sooner than twenty-five years before to qualify for induction, and Family released their first record fifty years ago this past September - "Scene Through the Eye of a Lens."   I will also note that July 2018 marks the fiftieth anniversary of their debut LP, Music In a Doll's House, the greatest debut album of 1968 that isn't the Band's Music From Big Pink.  Twenty eighteen would have been the perfect time to correct this long-overdue snub of the greatest band to come out of Leicestershire, but since American record buyers couldn't be bothered with Family back in 1968, the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame can't be bothered with them today either.

But here's a modicum of hope for fans of any non-American rock act who didn't have the good fortune to achieve commercial success in the U.S.  Billboard magazine reports that the 2018 class was voted on by over nine hundred artists, historians and record-business members who "weighed factors including musical influence on other artists, and length and depth of career and body of work," as well as "innovation and superiority in style and technique."  Look, Family influenced other artists - Freddie Mercury, I understand, was a fan, as is Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen.  Length and depth of body of work?  Seven albums in five years.  Good enough for me.  Innovation?  Superior style?  Listen to A Song For Me and Fearless and you'll see that Family had both in their favor.  And the fact that not just Americans but people from other countries are now voting in these Rock Hall induction elections means that British acts we Yanks aren't that familiar with should be able to get a shot.  The Soft Machine?  Kevin Ayers?  Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel?  Lindisfarne?  Pulp?  Why not?

But Tull?  If they can't get in now despite their huge American fan base, they never will.  But Family might one day get in . . . in their own time.     

Jethro Tull - War Child (1974)

After the LP-length songs that were Thick As a Brick and A Passion Play, Jethro Tull's War Child, which returned the band to a ten-song program, must have come as a relief to Tull fans puzzled by Ian Anderson's earlier prog parodies. War Child is a sound album musically, with an eclectic mix of styles from folk and classical to straight rock, and the band, anchored by Martin Barre's biting guitar riffs and John Evan's solid keyboards, plays well, but Anderson's musings on the frailty and the comical behavior of humanity are quite random and only occasionally effective.  Throughout a good deal of War Child, you can figure out what Anderson's lyrics are about without knowing what they mean.  Or vice versa.

This isn't entirely Anderson's fault; the songs on War Child were conceived to accompany a black-comedy movie about a teenager in the afterlife who encounters God, St. Peter, and the devil, all of whom are incarnated as businessmen, but the movie was never produced.  Indeed, many of the songs seem to project a carnival of life's transactions and deals and the consequences that follow, and in the most absurd way.  But a good deal of Anderson's lyrics seem to be abstruse for their own sake; the title track invites the child of war to experience moments of pleasure and chaos, but we don't even know who's addressing the album's anti-hero.  "Back-Door Angels" is a rather dense explanation of religion that leaves the listener a bit perplexed, and "Two Fingers" is a haphazardly arranged explanation of death that reveals Anderson's weakness for awkward and somewhat vulgar metaphors.

Focus has never been a strong point for Anderson as a songwriter, and some of what he offers up is balderdash, but when he zeroes in on an interesting topic and disciplines himself - as he does in contemplating the corrosive effect of imperialism in "Queen and Country," a rather ponderous but still sharp rocker with Barre's guitar taking center stage, or in looking at the indignities of modern life in "Sealion" (which blends rock with circus-music riffs) -  he's brilliant.  It's just that his brilliance can't carry the entirety of War Child. When Anderson answers his critics for calling him boring and lame with a boring and lame (and thankfully brief) number like "Only Solitaire," you wonder why executive producer Terry Ellis wasn't there to save Anderson from himself.

Having said all that, though, this album is still essential for two excellent songs.  "Skating Away on the Thin Ice of the New Day," a beautiful, acoustically based track punctuated by lovely accordion passages and Jeffrey Hammond's pulsing bass lines, is a hopeful song for anyone who faces the future with uncertainty; I think of the troubles of American speed skater Dan Jansen, who fell in several Olympic races before finally winning a gold medal on his last try, every time I hear it.  And "Bungle In the Jungle," with its depiction of social Darwinism as a tropical wilderness and anchored by David Palmer's ironically stirring string arrangements, is perhaps the greatest example of Anderson's keen wit.  For the true Jethro Tull fan,  Anderson's unique perspective and quintessentially eccentric (read British) humor are the reasons to listen to him even when he doesn't seem to make sense.  War Child, imperfect and dense though it can be, follows the logic of "Skating Away on the Thin Ice of the New Day;" it puts the listener on a stage contemplating what Anderson sees from his seat in the auditorium.

Music Video Of the Week - October 28, 2011

"The Witch's Promise" by Jethro Tull (Go to the link in the upper right hand corner.)

Music Video Of the Week - September 2, 2011

"Teacher" by Jethro Tull (Go to the link in the upper right hand corner.)