Michael Jackson

The first album I ever bought was the Jackson 5's greatest hits. I remain a huge fan of old Motown material, and the early Jackson 5 records were a significant part of that. As for Michael solo, I liked "Off the Wall" and "Thriller", then almost entirely lost interest. It's probably not cool for a rock musician like myself to admit to this, but good is good, and whatever you thought of him or his music, Michael Jackson was obviously an incredibly talented guy with enormous impact on the music world.

And then he became the poster child for celebrity weirdness. When history looks back at our culture from this time, I'm sure the excesses of top-earning musicians will be one of the quirks that leaves future people wondering how the heck some of this stuff ever happened. The obvious question is why somebody didn't say something to these people before they went too far over the top, and the equally obvious answer is that nobody wanted to get shoved off the gravy train while there was so much money being made. I think we're going to see fewer musicians like this now that money in the music industry is being distributed more broadly.

At the end of the day, I feel really bad for these people who have everything and yet have nothing. I have to wonder why more of them don't reach a point where they realize that what they have isn't making them happy and bring those amazing material resources to bear in ways that might actually help them. George Harrison, for example, seemed to reach a point where he understood the limits of material success and started looking for something more. Michael Jackson's religious beliefs ultimately didn't seem to be helpful to him. Maybe it's just not in the nature of some people to look further, even when they're unhappy, while others just haven't found the belief set that works for them in time to save them.

If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Maybe a Friend Will Kill Him For You

I was thinking about the "Ghost of Bands Past" entry and realizing how my unenthusiastic ex-bandmate may have done me a large (if accidental) favor. That particular band looms large in my history. It was an odd circumstance, being a very inexperienced musician in a very good band. I couldn't have accomplished everything I did later without that experience, and yet I couldn't have accomplished what I did later if that band had remained together because I wouldn't have had as much opportunity to improve individually. I've always suspected that at least part of the reason for my musical retirement was that once I'd put together a band of my own that I thought was in that same league, it felt as though I'd come full circle and proven myself. There was no need to go any further, and the few things I did after that felt like a coda.

In the big picture, it doesn't matter which was the best band I was ever in, or if that last band was as good as the first. The only band that matters at any given time is the one I'm in right now, and there was never really any point in comparing them. It was a trap I'd created for myself, and now I'm free of it, but can't take 100% credit for that. It's true enough that I'd gotten at least partially past the need to impress an audience (or even have an audience at all) on my own, but it took this last gathering to show me the degree to which I was still caught up in that past.

And now enough of all that. Where are the right musicians to play with (and especially somebody to sing with) now that I'm in the mood again?

Yes: Yes Acoustic

I've often said that one of the most interesting things about acoustic music played solo (or with a small group) is that it reveals what the performer truly brings to the table. You can cover up a multitude of musical sins in an electric band, but there's simply no place to hide in an acoustic situation. Aerosmith completely changed my opinion of them for the better with a solid performance on MTV's Unplugged series. And so I was really looking forward to seeing what some of the world's finest rock instrumentalists could do in that context.

Surprisingly, I was a bit disappointed. There's no doubt that these guys can play, and yet the music as a whole lost a lot more impact than I'd expected. The piano and drums fare best, and the bass by far the worst, as I'd expected due to the properties of the instruments. The bass sound seemed to be throwing Chris Squire off his game, as he really looked like he didn't want to be there, while Rick Wakeman (the pianist) seemed to be having the time of his life.

The songs themselves didn't seem to hold up, which I hadn't expected. Some of my Yes favorites seemed just average played this way. My best guess would be that the bass guitar is prominent in a lot of Yes music, and since the bass lost a lot of power, so did the overall effect. I suppose this is why we haven't seen Yes play acoustically before, and probably won't be seeing it again any time soon. I'd be curious as to what it would sound like with electric bass guitar and acoustic everything else, but then they couldn't honestly call it Yes Acoustic.

I could only recommend this one to a hardcore fan, though I would point out to that fan that Rick Wakeman's commentary on the rehearsal extra is not to be missed if you're interested enough to rent it in the first place.

Ghost of Bands Past

I went to a reunion today of the first band I was ever in, formed about thirty years ago. I'd been looking forward to it for some time, but was trying to keep my expectations low for several reasons. The band lasted for four years, with three of us as members the entire time, plus our drummer. The original drummer was with us for the first three years, then a second drummer lasted only three months, then our third drummer stayed until the end. Long story short, none of the drummers would have been able or likely to attend, and a couple of people associated strongly with the band (but not members) declined to come, so the reunion really consisted of the core three band members, plus our original sound man, plus wives and kids.

At one time we were the very best of friends. We spent a lot of time together, made some good music, and had a loyal and reasonably large following. At one point toward the end, we played the same place for three weekends (Friday and Saturday nights) out of four and packed the place every night except the last. Even that last night was relatively full. Combinations of two of the three of us even went on to play in other bands together after that. I realized that we might not always be in a band together, or even be close friends, but I thought we'd always be at least on good terms and see each other once in a while. However, things change, of course. We all got married, and two of the three of us had children. We all ended up with good jobs that occupy a substantial chunk of our time. Even that didn't have to prevent us from getting together if we really wanted to, but in the end, some of us just didn't want to get together as much as others.

This has more impact on me now than it might otherwise have had, since I'm getting back into playing music. The last time we got together was at a mutual friend's wedding five years ago, and there wasn't really any opportunity to play music together at that time. I'm not sure how long ago the time before that was, but we met at one guy's home, went through some old photos and had a few (well, more than a few) beers and actually did play some music. It was quite rough, as I hadn't played at all for at least a few years at that point, and one of the others hadn't played much in at least five years, but we had a fantastic time of it, to the point where we continued on long enough to irritate some of the wives.

I was more than ready to go this time, and the guy hosting had also said he was more than willing to play. However, the third member, the most talented of us all, turned out to also be the least willing. When we'd last played, he was still at least playing for his own pleasure, if not for audiences. He doesn't even do that any more. He still plays just a little bit of piano now and then, but leaves it for his kids to play most of the time, and hasn't played guitar or done any singing at all in nearly twenty years. I was hoping that he could be persuaded to play at least two or three songs for old times' sake, but was prepared to be disappointed, and as it turns out, I was.

I'd brought my acoustic bass guitar and electric five string bass and left them out in the car, reasoning that I wanted them within reach if there was an opportunity to play but not wanting to force the issue if nobody was interested. I could tell that our host wanted to play, as he brought his acoustic guitar out to play along with the kids while they played the video game Rock Band. However, I'm sure he didn't want to push the issue with our reticent third member. We even played some tapes of the old band, and while they weren't our finest work, I thought they might prime the pump. If anything, I thought it might encourage us to show that we could, in fact, do a whole lot better than that. But it was not to be. He made it pretty clear that he was done with it, and even seemed a bit embarrassed by it all, even down to the old in-jokes that are inevitably part of a tight-knit group like that.

I'd hoped to rekindle the personal chemistry between the three of us (if not the music itself) for just one day, but it couldn't be more obvious to me that that time is well and truly over. We're different people now, and the reasons for that don't really matter. Change is inevitable, and I didn't really expect to be able to make it as it once was. I just thought there might still be some spark left that would be worth enjoying for a few hours (I thought that was the point in a reunion), but it's clear that that spark is entirely gone.

I have mixed feelings about this. It's incredibly sad to see that chemistry, once so vital, reduced to nothing. And yet it's liberating. I didn't want to get back into music just to play the old songs again. Once upon a time it would've been my fondest wish to play those particular songs with those particular people again, but things have changed, and it's time to well and truly move on. I might still be able to enjoy getting together with the one old friend at some point, though his schedule makes that difficult, but the ghost of the original band was laid to rest today for me.

Heaven and Hell

I recently finished "Heaven and Hell" by Don Felder, who had been a member of the Eagles for most of the band's existence. This is very much the insider's look I wanted to see. You can't take any single band member's version of events as the gospel truth, but you can get a reasonably good idea of how things were.

Every band has its personal dynamic. It's not always a very functional dynamic, and in my experience it is frequently very dysfunctional, which of course makes entertaining reading. According to Don Felder's view, Don Henley and Glenn Frey tended to side together in most things, and eventually had functionally full control over everything the band did in every way. I've been on both sides of that dynamic in various bands, and it is absolutely no fun to be consistently on the short end of that particular stick. If you happen to be one of the people in control, the smart move is to make some reasonable concessions to the others to keep them happy, or they don't tend to stay in that situation. I know I usually didn't. But when there's enough money involved, most people will hang around at least for a while. That's when things get contentious, and that's exactly what happened.

This is exactly the kind of rock biography I like to see. It doesn't gloss over when the main subject is behaving badly. I don't need to know a lot of dirt about famous people, but I do want to see what sort of human beings they are, warts and all, and how those people get along (or don't), and it shows that. I also like to know how musicians' most well known work was created, and in this case there was enough of that to keep me interested. In this case, Don Felder wrote the music for the Eagles' most famous single song, "Hotel California", and he provides some details about other songs as well.

One of the amazing things about many of these rock biographies is how unhappy most of these creative people are when they are producing their most successful work. It's a strange thing to see people who outwardly have everything in terms of money and creative success, and in the process make themselves and most of the people around them utterly miserable. I don't know if that misery is necessarily a requirement of producing great creative work, but if it is, I doubt that I'd be willing to pay that price if I had the choice.

Spring Cleaning

Well, summer cleaning technically, I suppose. My wife and I took a couple of days off for a long weekend with no other plans than to do some long overdue cleaning. The strange thing about our approach is that we'll work into the night, sometimes as late as 3 AM, then sleep in until 11 AM or so, and do it all over again. It does tend to make things tough come Monday morning, since we usually have a hard time getting to sleep at a reasonable hour on Sunday night.

I'm not sure why we do this. It just seems to be our natural rhythm, as it happens almost every time we have more than a day or two off from work. We might go entirely nocturnal if we didn't have to work.

Progress has been good. By the end of the weekend, at the very least, our spare room will be a lot more organized than it was, and I may even be able to use it for more privacy when I meditate. We don't do this kind of major cleaning often, but we're very productive when we do.