Virtual Fools

Though most people know me as a “film guy”—somebody who seems more interested in movies and movie history than just about anything else—I’ve sometimes thought of myself as being a “music guy.” But like everything, my deep involvement with music goes in bursts. Most recently, I just have not had the time to have the same level of passion for bands and the live music scene as I did 8 years ago. I also don’t have the disposable income I once did (remember when you were the age at which you have approximately NO essential expenses? I hardly do).

Many of my musical interests have come and gone. If you had asked me 10 years ago whether I would ever stop being interested in Dave Matthews Band, I’d probably have said “NO.” If you had asked around that time about the best jazz musician I’d ever seen, I’d have probably mentioned Victor Wooten. DMB and Wooten are still fine, I’ve just moved on. As a matter of fact, if you had asked me 10 years ago whether or not I’d be interested in early 20^th century composers, or obscure soul jazz and organ records, I’d have probably looked at you funny.

One of my consistently favorite bands—one that I’ve never quite moved beyond, or away from, because of their tendency to constantly re-invent their sound, yet do-so always within the parameters of a base cohesion—is Soulive. Having not kept up with them as much as I would have liked, though never keeping their music out of rotation for long, I recently decided to visit their website. Well, as it turns out, I choose a good day. I managed to “re-discover” them the very day that their new album, Up Here, became available on iTunes and Amazon. What luck!

I should backtrack a bit. Soulive began as an organ trio, a revitalization of a perennial 1960s favorite—Eric Krasno on Guitar, Alan Evans on drums, and Neal Evans on organ/keys/bass—recording a debut EP in 1999 called Get Down. They very quickly took to the road. In early 2000, I was pretty heavily involved in the tape (yes, cassette tape) and CD trading scene. The roots go back to the diligent Grateful Dead fans who made amateur recordings of the band and made dupes for friends and total strangers, always ready to share enlightened tunes with new people. In 2000, I was fairly heavily into Phish, DMB, somewhat into the Dead, had started to get interested in Pink Floyd, and was also sampling some of the other tastes of the then booming—probably more so than now—jamband scene, especially moe. and String Cheese Incident. I was in heaven, having graduated from mundane musical tastes to musical bliss. So much to listen to, so little time. Well, sometime in May 2000, I got my first Soulive bootleg. My sense is that the first recording I had of the band was their 04/13/2000 show from Hartford, CT, though one of my firsts was certainly a little recording from 04/29/00, a show at University of Hartford that sounded poorly attended (re: quiet) but certainly hooked me.

I kept tabs on the band for about a year. They were at once super-tight, crisp, and disciplined in a way beyond most of the music I was into, and at the same time could get loose and improvisational. They always brought the heat, so to speak, and I don’t think I heard a “bad” recording or show from that era. During that year, they released their acclaimed, full-length debut Turn it Out, a recording constantly regarded by a certain set of fans as their core sound. A turning point for me was in late Feb 2001, when I heard a recording of a fantastic double-bill show featuring Project Logic (DJ Logic’s much-missed band) and Soulive. The recordings were of either 02/03/2001 or 02/04/2001. I eventually got both, but started, I think, with the show from the 4^th. Those concerts became my default discs, the place to turn when nothing else sounded appetizing, interesting, or exciting.

I picked up Get Down and Turn it Out in anticipation of my first Soulive concert, which happened to be tacked-on to the toughest ticket of the year, a DMB homecoming show with Neil Young and Soulive as openers. Myself and site co-creator Bobby were in attendance, arriving early to catch the whole thing. Soulive sounded big, but not big enough to fill Scott Stadium, but I still enjoyed the show. My first proper gig with them, though, was at the 9:30 Club on 12/01/01, during their excellent tour with a singer called N’Dambi. Soulive had hit the relative big time by this point, and I was thoroughly enjoying the very tight—though somewhat overproduced—Doin’ Something, their first album for the mighty Blue Note label. I remember the concert pretty well because I had—that day—snagged a winter job with what was then called Waldenbooks, thanks to a friend, a company for whom I would work, in some capacity, for 6 more years. The concert was something of a celebration for this promise of money to come. Anyway, that show was super tight, totally blew me away, and bumped Soulive up to being in my top tier. Another great show I attended from this approximate era (though by this time they had launched their Blue Note follow-up Next) was on 04/28/02, during their “revue” tour which included a full horn section, N’Dambi again, DJ Mister Rourke, and ended with a 30+ minute version of “Tuesday Night’s Squad,” with unofficial 4^th member Sam Kiniger eventually leaving the stage—still playing—spinning in circles. Quite intense.

For the next several years, Soulive were my go-to band. I missed them occasionally, but usually went to great lengths to see them play. My fondest memory of them was seeing them—relatively early in the day—at a one day festival in Waterloo, NJ, August 2003. There was a really heavy line-up for this mini-festival, with SCI headlining, Medeski Martin and Wood, the Disco Biscuits, and Kaki King also there in force. Myself and friend Andy managed to maneuver right to the front for their set, and I unobtrusively held up a small sign, on which I had sprawled “Cash’s Dream,” then-as-now my favorite Soulive composition, recorded way-back on Get Down. Eric Krasno saw it and smiled. I don’t know if he could read it or not, or if I was just damn lucky, but they opened the show with my favorite song! As experienced a concertgoer as I was by that point, it was definitely one of my best live memories.

Soulive kept putting great albums out. Their self-titled “live” disc came out on Blue Note and was their last U.S. release for that label. Their Break Out, released 2005, is a favorite and features Reggie Watts on vocals, who at the time was still associated with Maktub (the band only tours occasionally these days). Their association with the Concord music group—a rich, diverse label that now owns the Prestige jazz catalog—lead them to help re-launch the venerable Stax label in 2007 with No Place Like Soul, another excellent album of instrumentals and vocals.

Up Here is pretty great, something like No Place Like Soul meets Turn it Out, with a deliberately lo-fi sound mixed in. The album represents another turning point for the band. Despite strong albums for Velour (founded in part on the strength of Soulive, and former home of excellent bands like Topaz and Kudu), Blue Note (the most renowned jazz label of recent years, as in the 1960s), and Concord/Stax, their new album is on their own “Royal Family Recordings” label, which will eventually include solo projects by each Soulive member, and takes care of big side projects like Lettuce, a funk-party band which features Neal Evans and Eric Krasno.

Anyway, this may read like an extended advertisement, and in some senses it is—Soulive are a favorite band that I’ve been following for 9 years, and unlike other favorites, they still tour, have not broken up, and are never stagnant. For the original sound, look to Get Down and Turn it Out; for refined, up-beat funk, try their first Blue Note records; for variety, Break Out and No Place Like Soul hit a pretty broad range of genres without ever feeling lost. Finally, think about buying Up Here, a new, forward-thinking album with a sense of history.

Sorry for the impossibly long title to this post. Back in 2005, I was lucky enough to provide some support research and capsule reviews for John Kenneth Muir’s book The Rock & Roll Film Encyclopedia (eventually published in 2007 by Applause Books).  The book is jam-packed with information about rock films and the conventions of the “rock genre.”  I wrote several reviews for the book–though you’ll have to get a copy to find out which ones–but two were left on the cutting room floor.  Below is one of those reviews, which didn’t work for space issues (the other, coming soon, dealt with what could more appropriately be called a “Rap” film, a genre that John decided deserved its own full-length book treatment).

The London Rock & Roll Show (1973)

Film Editor: Thomas Schwalm.  Cinematography: Peter Whitehead et. al.  Produced by: Peter Clifton.  Exec. Produced by: Ron Faulk and Ray Faulk. Directed by: Peter Clifton.  Running Time: 84 min (some prints as short as 24 min)

Peter Clifton’s film of the historic pioneers of rock and roll, shot at Wembley Stadium on August 5th, 1972 and produced for theatrical release the following year.  Both nostalgia and energy hover over the sets by Bo Diddley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bill Haley and the Comets, Little Richard, and headliner Chuck Berry.  The mixture of performance and interview gives a good sense of the paradox confronting most of the musicians: despite a decline in popularity, the demands of the show are to bring a slate of greatest hits to a new generation of rock fans more familiar with The Who and The Rolling Stones (Mick Jagger makes an appearance and puts the age question into perspective).  This mini-festival drew the gamut of British youth sub-cultures, and part of the pleasure in watching the film now is in witnessing the Teddy Boys, Bikers, Rockers, and proto-punks strut their stuff.

Diddley’s bluesy set sports solid renditions of “Road Runner” and “Mona.”  Lewis brings his rollicking showmanship and outspoken personality to the fray, indirectly clashing with Little Richard for the title of the King of Rock (a title later given to Bill Haley by an announcer).  Compared the stage presence of Lewis, Haley’s run-through of “Rock Around the Clock,” though a crowd-pleaser, is trite and hopelessly dated.  Little Richard, in extensive interview sequences, points out the greatest irony of all—for all of his showmanship and passion, his music (and rock music in general) has always been consumed by a mainly White audience.  Richard’s extended set brings bravura to “Tutti Frutti” and “Good Golly, Miss Molly,” amongst others, but his pessimism dampers the celebratory veneer of most of the concert.  Berry closes, combining the performative sense of Little Richard with the mastery of Diddley.

As a movie, The London Rock and Roll Show feels haphazard, though the inclusion of candid interviews makes it a curiosity piece worth searching for.  The mixture of “the old” with the burgeoning possibilities of “the new” attests to the longevity of rock, but in the process gives a truncated shelf-life to some of the tamer aspects of the Golden Age sensibility. Available on DVD.

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Note: One of the lead cameramen on this film was Peter Whitehead, whose film TONITE LET’S ALL MAKE LOVE IN LONDON is one of the best on the British scene of the 1960s.  Whitehead had a knack for capturing the energy of rock.  He was responsible for chronicles of The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, and Pink Floyd.

Bringing this to everybody’s attention, thanks to Cinebeats, one of my new favorite blogs.  If you are a fan of 1960s and 1970s cinema, specifically arty/exploitation stuff, give it a look.

David Bowie’s musical persona is tied up in the way in which he physically performs.  By the time he and Ziggy Stardust found international attention in the mid 1970s, there were very few–if any–other musicians who had so much of their meaning as a start invested in how they looked, acted, dressed, and posed.  While Bowie is widely known for having electrified the screen with his otherworldly role in Nic Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), many people don’t know that he had staked out an acting career long before trying to make his way as a rocker.

A very friendly YouTube channel dedicated to Bowie’s work has been kind enough to share The Image (1967), a psychologically-minded horror short that has long been nearly impossible to see.  Briefly: a man creates a portrait of another man, but as it nears completion, he becomes increasingly disturbed by his work and the storm outside.  The man in the portrait somehow comes to life and stalks the artist.  In desperation, the artist violently lashes out against his creation.

The film feels slightly amateurish at times, but that mostly has to do with the fact that it was Michael Armstrong’s first professional short.  Armstrong had a somewhat obscure career, but he eventually settled into artfully conceived horror (Mark of the Devil) and sexploitation (Eskimo Nell) work.

The Image is worth watching.  It is unsettling and baffling in the best tradition of horror shorts.  Along with other forgotten fare like Peter Sykes’ The Committee (1968) and Barney Platt-Mills’ Private Road (1971), it represents a totally marginalized artifact from that period of British cinema.