Revisiting classic records for the modern audience

 REVISITING CLASSIC RECORDS FOR THE MODERN AUDIENCE

 

Over the past few months, I’ve come across and watched several episodes of a YouTube channel called Vinyl Mondays, presented by one Abigail (Abby) Devoe who’s 25. I don’t subscribe to her channel; it just popped up on my YouTube timelines and most of the discussions I’ve checked out have been posted a year ago.  She’s still going though.

 

In her discussion of Layla and Oher Assorted Love Songs (1970) by Derek & The Dominos, an album she credits with changing her life, Abby, who admits to being 23 then, tells us that some guy gave her a literal truckload of records when she was 19 and I suppose this original motherlode represents the core of her collection though she’s obviously bought more since that momentous day, like multiple copies of Layla.

 

The cache of records mostly, if not exclusively, represent the ‘60s and ‘70s, if the various Vinyl Mondays are an accurate reflection and were therefore released way before Abby was born. I don’t know whether she buys contemporary vinyl releases too; I haven’t seen her discuss anything outside the “classic rock” genre.  I suppose the roots of her channel might lie in her desire to tell us about her record collection and that there are so many that she doesn’t have the capacity to go beyond that collection, given that she can discuss roughly 52 albums a year.

 

It's obviously intriguing that a Gen Z person has taken it on herself to discuss records that have not only been released well before her lifetime but that have also received their fair share of acclaim or criticism in appraisals that have become canon set in stone. There is probably a general tendency to re-appraise records after enough time has passed for critical viewpoints to shift according to contemporary understanding of artistic standards.  Some, once derided records have been re-evaluated as better than originally perceived, possibly masterpieces; for example, Don’t Stand Me Down (1985) by Dexys Midnight Runners, which was panned on release and was a commercial failure.  I can’t think of any record, hailed as a work of genius on first release that’s been downgraded, as such opinions tend to become received wisdom and are hardly challenged but there might be some and, as far as I’m concerned, there should be a wholesale reconsideration of many previously highly rated albums that, on sober reflection, aren’t anywhere as good as the first critics claimed.   

 

A contemporary record that might be a case in point, is The Rollings Stones’ latest studio effort Hackney Diamonds (2024) that sems to have received high praise from critics and fans alike but is, to me, just another pedestrian, turgid Stones album with high productions values where most of the praise is rooted in the fact that a bunch of old guys, who might not be able to do for much longer, wrote and recorded it.  I hardly think it’s going to stand the test of time.

 

Now, I don’t know whether Abby has listened to these records critically ear and with an open approach uncontaminated by received opinion and that she genuinely agrees with how these records have been rated, but it seems to me that her show is a tad pointless and gutless, not to mention ultimately uninteresting, because she seems to perpetuate the standard accepted reception of the records she discusses.

 

Abby is simply, even for a younger audience, repeating what we already know about the classic records she presents with little or no new or original critical insights. She does a lot of research on the subjects of each Vinyl Monday and is a fount of well-known and lesser-known facts and anecdotes, again, very informative for anyone around her age who’s never listened to the records but not so great for someone like me (and I can’t be alone), who knows the records and the histories already.

 

Even after listening to her chat about Layla, I still don’t really know why it changed her life (”there’s life before Layla and life after Layla”) and, except for a few references to lyrics and some microcosmic snippets of songs that enthral her, she doesn’t have much of value to say about the music and the musicians. 

 

Abby doesn’t offer any original insights regarding her records and that might be because she genuinely agrees with the canon and, as I’ve said, perhaps the concept and motivation is to expose her fellow Gen Z citizens to music they might otherwise not have known about but there seems to be hardly any point in regurgitating accepted evaluations of well-worn, classic albums that are integrally woven into the fabric of our popular cultural history. If you want to discuss those records, listen to them with fresh ears and offer a new perspective that doesn’t simply offer obeisance to that vanguard of rock critics from the late ‘60s and ‘70s who reviewed and rated the albums back in the day and whose opinions have not really been challenged since then.

 

I doubt that I’m the target audience and I doubt that I’ll spend much more time on Abby’s views of old records.  More power to her, though. I was also passionate about music and was collecting records when I was 23 but there was no way that I was as articulate as she is about music at that time of my life. YouTube wasn’t available then, neither did the Internet exist, and I only started writing about music, for my own pleasure and to pass the time, when I was 37 and began publishing my thoughts only much later (probably 10 years later) when I started this blog.

 

Alost all of my posts have also been about “classic rock” artists from my record collection but there’s also a bunch of reviews of contemporary release by those artists and by some South African artists. I know just about all the records Abby Devoe has discussed and have my own views of them, not always consistent with the accepted view about, for example, the genius of the Beatles as a group or of the individuals in their solo careers. I also don’t much care for most of the records Bob Dylan, Neil Young and the Rolling Stones have released over the past 45 years, not to mention most of the acts who rose to fame and/or notoriety in the ‘60s and ‘70s and who managed to keep their career going over the decades. I very much subscribe to the belief that most musicians in the popular music field produce their best, most original work in the first 10 years of their careers when they’re young and think outside of the box.  After that they become professional, proficient craftsman or -women and lose the spark that engaged one in the first instance. Records are recorded and released for contractual reasons and not because the artist really has anything interesting to say anymore.

 

So, by all means concentrate on the imperial period of “classic rock” and the artists who reigned supreme then but there’s not much need to bother about their work after 1980. For that period, and onwards, look at and consider newer artists but also have a cut-off date of, say not more than 20 years, and then move on again.

 

The important thing though is always to listen to records with fresh, unbiased ears, uninfluenced by clichéd opinion. For example, Sgt Pepper might have been ground-breaking and enormously innovative in its day but when I listen to it now, and this goes for most Beatles albums, there is too much filler in there for it to be 10/10 a work of genius. There are many highly regarded albums that make me wonder what the fuss was, or is, all about yet I’m probably alone in my valuation. For me, Sgt Pepper is very much an example of “the Emperor’s new clothes” but to date nobody has called out the Beatles on it.  Hackney Diamonds is case of the same thing.

 

If there is one thing I’ve learnt about the study of history, is that it’s takes a long time, often hundreds of years, before one has a proper perspective of any event and that new information regularly appears that forces one to reconsider and re-evaluate one’s view on events. The same should apply to music. Don’t just accept a contemporary view of a record from, say 1870, as gospel.  Don’t just repeat the views of contemporary rock writers.

 

Listen critically and form your own view.

 

YouTube channels like Abby Devoe’s Vinyl Mondays are useful, informative and entertaining to a point, especially for the uninformed. Back in the day I used to have to buy books on the history of rock music, album ratings or biographies of individual artists for information; today, it’s all online and there’s probably a lot more than used to be available in print. Today, Abby Devoe will enlighten you at no cost to you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Rolling Stones reconsidered, again.

 ROLLING STONES RECONSIDERED, AGAIN

 

In mid-2024 the Rolling Stones, with octogenarians Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, the not much younger Ron Wood and supporting musicians, are touring again, in support of Hackney Diamonds (2023). 

 

Many have hailed the latter as some kind of masterpiece; the strongest Stones album in years, well, it’s the first Stones album of original material since A Bigger Bang (2005.)  I don’t care for Hackney Diamonds.  The best I can say about it, is that it sounds sonically immense. Otherwise, the riffing is just rote, the songs are tuneless arrangements and the lyrics are from “professional songwriting craft” and, like basically all Stones songs since the late ‘70s, do not sound if thy come from inspiration or imagination and have no emotional resonance. Hackney Diamonds is no masterpiece and the likelihood is that most of those who acclaim it, do it simply because the guys who made it are so old that it’s likely there won’t be many more, especially if the gaps between studio albums remain as lengthy as they have been over the last 30 years.

 

In the meantime, the Stones remain a huge live draw (better see them now before it’s too late) and seem to be as energetic on stage as ever, despite their advanced years.  Presumably, they do perform a couple of tracks off the latest album but the reality is that the set list hasn’t changed materially over the past 40 years. The audience aren’t there for tunes off albums released since 1980 (although, of course “Start Me Up” is mandatory); they want to hear the classic canon of Stones music, the songs that made the Stones and the songs we automatically think of when we think Rolling Stones, like “The Last Time,” “satisfaction,”  “Jumping Jack Flash,” “Sympathy for the Devil,” “Angie,”  “It’s Only Rock and Roll,” “Miss You”  and any of  the other songs that appear on all the compilations. The Stones have  a vast catalogue and the best of it, the memorable tunes that have become part of the cultural landscape of rock, were released before the end of the ‘70s, “Start Me Up” excepted. 

 

I’ve recently watched a thing on YouTube, which is called a review of the Rollings Stones over the period 1973 (Goats Head Soup) to 1983 (Undercover.). The participants are mostly music journalist talking heads and none of the Stones participate except for some brief clips from Keith Richards.

 

The accepted view is that Sticky Fingers (1971) and Exile on Main Street (1972) are the last really good Stones albums, and the final instalments of the purple patch that started with Beggars Banquet (1968) and that after Exile, the ‘70s weren’t a good decade for Stones albums except for the brief phoenix of Some Girls(1978), though some people in the aforementioned review are very kind to Black and Blue (1976) as a brave, innovative musical change in direction for the band.

 

At some point in the late ‘70s or early ‘80s, a writer for the NME made the point that the Stones hadn’t made a properly, full on good album for years.  Each record might have a few good songs on it but there are no albums with, say, 12 top quality songs anymore. As Barney Hoskyns said in the review show, if you cherry pick the ‘70s albums after Exile you can put together a very good compilation and will have no need to listen to the parent albums again.

 

I think Exile is truly excellent and incomparable but don’t quite have the same feeling about Sticky Fingers.

 

Of the rest, I have a very soft spot for It’s Only Rock and Roll (1974), probably because it was the first Stones album I bought that wasn’t a compilation and definitely because the “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” was my radio song of 1974, with the title track just behind, and ahead of J Geils Band’s  “I Must of Got Lost.”

 

At first, I liked only the fast rock songs on It’s Only Rock and Roll and it took repeated plays and becoming older and marginally more mature before I got into the longer, slower tracks “ ’Till the Next Goodbye,”  “Time Waits for No-One” and “If You Really Want to be my Friend” but once I was hooked on them, some of the faster tracks, like “Dance Little Sister” and “If You Can’t Rock Me” paled.

 

“Angie” off Goats Head Soup was a monster hit and almost the only track of that album I like.  For the rest the record just seems too slow, ballad-y, slick and mature, unlike the apparently rough and ready, organic rock and blues of Exile, which seems to come from inspiration, probably because of lengthy jamming, whereas Goat Head Soup seems more calculated, sophisticated and carefully constructed.

 

With Black and Blue, the change in direction, which some see as brave, irked me because these songs, other than “Memory Motel” and “Fool to Cry” just sounded like lightweight throwaways and from this point on, the songwriting really started to sound contrived and professional rather than inspired.  Of course, the band is hot and proficient but still sounded overproduced.

 

I also bought Some Girls (1978) when it came out and, like It’s Only Rock and Roll, it took some time for me to really appreciate and love the record.   Where “Miss You” is genius and viscerally exciting, each time, “Far Away Eyes” is the weakest link on the record and grates but for the rest, the music sounds tough, urgent and vital and if the lyrics still seem to be the product of hard works rather than inspiration, the combination of music and lyrics appeal a lot more than the lyrics would on their own.  Some Girls  is the last Stones album, other the blues record Blue and Lonesome (2016) that I unequivocally like and still play often.

 

Emotional Rescue (1979) is just so poor, weak and silly.   The Stones want to do disco (title track and “Dance, Pt 1”) and  twee power pop, all of the rest other than “Indian Girl” and “Down in the Hole” (the sole worthwhile rock tune), and released a nothing of an album. By the time you get to the end of side two, you barely remember any of the previous songs and, though the title track and “Down in the Hole” have merit, this is the least essential Stones album to date, and perhaps of all time.   It’s a piss poor farewell to the ‘70s. 

 

I would’ve liked to be fonder of Tattoo You (1981) than I am and I don’t care for Undercover (1983) at all, even if  the title track and “Too Much Blood” (in a remixed, club version) received lots of airplay on South African rock radio.  

 

Tattoo You’s fast songs lacked power and the slow songs suffer from early ‘80s production. Undercover’s peak ‘80s production and rock funk style simply grates.   If Emotional Rescue sounds like a contractual obligation, the following albums don’t do much better, especially if you consider that Tattoo You is essentially a compilation of older, uncompleted tracks and Undiscover sounds like a band trying too hard to be contemporary, in a scene they don’t really resonate with, instead of just being the Rolling Stones.

 

Anyway, Steel Wheels (1989) was the first Stones album I bought after Emotional Rescue because the other ‘80s records didn’t seem worthwhile, and still really don’t, and after that the only studio albums I bought were Voodoo Lounge (1994) (I belonged to a record club at the time), A Bigger Bang (the positive reviews motivated me) and Blue & Lonesome (because it seemed that the Stones had returned to their roots) and only the latter is an album that I value and play regularly.  The other  studio records are simply well-produced works of professional craft on which the band rocks out with, paradoxically, no visceral excitement.  The albums are far too long and nothing stands out.  

 

Hackney Diamonds is just one more of the same; a good record for a bunch of old guys but no more than that. It may be revisionist but the Stones would’ve been better served to return to their looser, jamming, blues inspired late ‘60s and very early ‘70s  approach than to try to remain relevant and contemporary in a musical climate where they’ve had no relevance other than as a nostalgic live act with some truly stupendous classic songs.

 

Neil Young dreams of chrome

 Chrome Dreams (2023) 

 

Neil Young

 

 

Neil Young deemed the tracks on Chrome Dreams unfit for release in the mid-’70s when they were recorded for an album of this name, but any Neil Young fan knows them all anyway, as they are available on various other albums, albeit presumably re-recorded to Young’s standards.

 

Young has an extensive program of archival releases of previously unreleased studio tracks and live shows recorded throughout his career and I suppose it’s manna from heaven for the Young completists who want to hear every recorded track ever, with false starts, outtakes, alternative mixes, whatever.

 

Bob Dylan has a similar expansive programme of bringing  archival material to market.

 

I suppose there is something to be said for gaining new insight into an artist’s creative thoughts and processes and to hear stuff that just wasn’t deemed fit for release, or wouldn’t fit on a record, way back in the past. Sometimes,  an unheard gem pops up and you marvel at the quality of output that would designate this track to the vault because it was deemed surplus to requirements.

 

This version of “Sedan Delivery,” the weakest tune on Rust Never Sleeps,  is more deliberate and in keeping with the mid-‘70s Young sound, and it’s interesting to hear a different take on the song but I could’ve lived without it.

 

On the other hand, “Powderfinger” is one of my favourites off Rust Never Sleeps (along with “Thrasher”) and this introspective, acoustic, almost demo, version of a central rocker off Rust, is lovely but not as tough as “Thrasher”  and not essential other than as an example of a song sketch that came to life with an electric band.

 

The other acoustic based tracks are also no more than pleasant listening. 

 

My thoughts on Neil Young’s releases over the last couple of decades is that he’s just running on reputation and recording and releasing music because he has a need to write and record and  his record company allows him to do so, and not because there is any truly creative spark left in him.  He should be putting out music once every three or four years, not annually.

 

Chrome Dreams is redundant and is superfluous to requirements. The tracks aren’t radically or interestingly different  to the hitherto “official” versions and it’s one of those albus one listens to once out of curiosity and then shelves for ever. 

 

If Neil Young is making any money from this kind of releases, it’s just a cash grab. The product has been in vault for years and you don’t need to incur much material expenses, other than the pressing of records or compact discs, to get the product out to the market place. 

 

 

 

Taj Farrant

 I’d seen various short videos on Taj Farrant, at the time a 9-year-old guitar prodigy from Australia over the last few years. He was a small, dreadlocked, blonde boy with a big, flat-brimmed black hat and some serious guitars and equipment, showing off his astonishing guitar skills. I thought his father was the person behind the camera and was intent on making his son a social media sensation, which seems to be the contemporary route to fame and riches.  Oddly, though, it wasn’t very interesting once one got beyond the initial fascination with the facility with which this kind played guitar.  On the one hand he must have a freakish talent and on the other hand he must practice a lot.

 

Now I’ve come across a video on YouTube of  the older Taj Farrant, and his drum playing sister Jazel, on stage at Th. e Meteor Guitar Gallery, Bentonville, Arizona where he did a three-night stand in March 2023.  Taj is backed by a second guitarist, bassist and drummer and plays two sets of covers of mostly guitar songs by the likes of Gary Moore (the blues Moore), Stevie Ray Vaughan (Farrant is obviously quite partial to these two), Jeff Healey and Jimi Hendrix, but Farrant also does some of his own songs and touts his CD with, presumably, more original songs.

 

Farrant is excitable, chatty and unselfconsciously engaging and he sure can play the guitar well. From this set one doesn’t know whether he writes his own songs or whether his talent is purely and simply the ability to render note perfect copies of the well-known songs he performs, i.e., he is no more than a human jukebox.

 

There is a market for this kind of thing. There are numerous tribute bands plying their trade all over the world and bands who can regurgitate popular hits, whether oldies but goodies or contemporary hits, can always get a gig.  I don’t get it. Most cover bands or artists either do mediocre versions of the classics or they do such note perfect versions that it’s scary. Either way, it’s redundant for me. I’d rather listen to a band, any band, playing their own stuff. If I feel like a bit of, for example, ZZ Top, I’ll spin their records and not seek out a band of bearded individuals who not only try their best to look like Billy, Gibbons, Dusty Hill and Frank Beard but do their best imitations of the speech and  playing of those individuals.  Ersatz can never beat the real thing.

 

Farrant plays a Fender Strat, a Gibson Les Paul and a Gibson Flying V for the band numbers and  also an acoustic guitar for a couple of tunes.

 

The first set ends with a blues rock version or Hendrix’s “Red House,” which irks me, because I prefer the more sensitive, proper blues version of the tune as performed by Hendrix and because Farrant’s version is just so generic.

 

The second set opens with Farrant toting an acoustic guitar and playing Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun” (at least a different take on the tune) and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Simple Man,” where the acoustic take is quite effective though he just doesn’t have Ronnie van Zant’s voice to carry off the song with conviction.

 

From here Farrant switched to an electric guitar and performs his own composition, “Crossroads” (not Robert Johnson’s tune), a reflection on the myth of selling your soul to the Devil in exchange for success.

 

When the band set resumes, Jazel is on drums for one song, and it’s back to the guitar song covers with a Jeff Healy tune, yet a detour to his own rocker, “Hit the Ground,” which is fun but not a work of genius.

 

The second guitarist gets his own feature turn, singing and playing solos, on “Pride and Joy” and he and Farrant do some guitar duelling for good measure. I can’t tell whether either of them is any better than the other.

 

The first set opener was a jazzy Stevie Ray Vaughan instrumental and, fittingly, the second set closer is a rocking Gary Moore instrumental on which Farrant audaciously plays his guitar behind his back, the first and only bit of showmanship of the night.

 

There’s no doubting that Taj Farrant plays a guitar exceedingly well and if it’s your pleasure to attend a gig where the band performs beloved blues rock guitar tunes just about as good as the original artists, nut in your home town, than he’s your guy. Presumably, he now plays mostly cover versions to draw in the crowd, slipping in just enough original numbers to showcase his songwriting without alienating a crowd who came for the cover versions, but in due course, as he tours more and becomes better known, the originals will outnumber the cover versions.

 

Farrant can probably have a good, financially rewarding career playing Gary Moore and Stevie Ray Vaughan songs, for which there will always be an audience, but the real test will be when he focuses on his own material. 

 

Joe Bonamassa was also a child guitar prodigy and has since become a major force in the  blues rock field with his own songs. His muscular, verging on rock, take on guitar blues doesn’t appeal to me, partly because he seems to be more technically fixated than on deep blues emotion. Perhaps it’s because it seems that guitar technique just come easily to him, though I’m sure he practices hard to make it seem easy. Taj Farrant is probably as talented and works as hard and will, all things being equal, go as far in his musical career, and I hope he can do it with this own music.

 

I still don't like Genesis

 

Genesis’s lifespan is divided into two parts: firstly, the high prog years with Peter Gabriel on vocals; and, secondly, the period where the prog part declines and the commercial AOR success with Phil Collins on vocals.  

 

I was exposed to some of that first period by listening to a Saturday late night music show on the English Service of the SABC, which focused on prog rock and similar styles, and heard much more of the music from the second period because Radio 5 played the pop hits to death. They also heavily favoured Collins’ solo hits.

 

The music of the Gabriel years made no impression on me, mostly because it was too genteel, noodly and “intellectual” for me at an age where my  preferred acts were Slade, T Rex, Suzi Quatro, Deep Purple and David Bowie.  I actively disliked the releases of the Collins period because the music still didn’t appeal to me and because I actively loath Phil Collins’ voice and style of singing.

 

 As a rule, I don’t care for prog rock and jazz fusion (both big genre in the ‘70s) at all and the only somewhat prog band I favour, if indeed they fall in that category, is Pink Floyd because the music is more standard rock, with intriguing lyrics, than the stuff of, say, Yes or Genesis.

 

I’ve recently listened to the Genesis albums of the Gabriel era in sequence  and this experience has reinforced my assessment of the music and of my attitude towards it.  It might be the top echelon of composed rock music  intricately arranged and with thoughtful, thought provoking, poetic lyrics, but it’s still music  I’ll never listen to again because there is no visceral excitement or enjoyment to be had, other than the simple intellectual appreciation of the effort. 

 

I’ve also realised that Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins’ voices are rather similar, though the irritation factor on Collins is higher than that of Gabriel.

 

One of UK punk’s tenets was that it came to destroy “dinosaur rock” with endless guitar solos and drum solos, and if early Genesis is powered by keyboards and not so much my guitar, I would imagine that it was as  much a dinosaur as anyone of their peer group.  Punk didn’t succeed in killing prog rock, though it became  considerably less fashionable than it had been in the early to mid-‘70s, mostly because the hardcore prog fans were fanatically loyal and no doubt sneered at punk rock for the technical shortcomings of the punk musicians. It seems, to this day, that there are many people, probably those who  got into prog rock when they were in their teens, who still dote on and champion prog rock, and not only the classic bands but also more contemporary practitioners.  My own tastes run to more basic, simple rock and I don’t think I will ever like prog rock. I suppose one’s musical tastes are formed by the bands or acts you like when you are a teenager and in my case that’s true, not so much for the bands but the style of music and I don’t care for music I must appreciate intellectually rather than with my gut.    Genesis doesn’t make the kind of music that brings a stupid grin to my face and makes me want no get up and dance awkwardly.

The MC5 motors on

 

There is quite a bit of material on the MC5 on YouTube, from documentaries to clips of live performances and some full shows.

 

My favourite MC5 clips are two songs at Tartar Field in 1970, where they perform “Rambling Rose” and “Kick Out the Jams” and a longer set recorded for the German rock music show Beat Club in 1972, presumably during their European tour of that year.

 

The Tartar Field show features a blistering rendition of “Rambling Rose” during which guitarist Wayne Kramer, whose song this is, puts on a real show for what seems to be a small audience, but Rob Tyner en Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith also are no slouches at throwing rock ‘n roll shapes.  The two songs give us a brief glimpse of what the powerful, incendiary force the  MC5 must’ve been on stage in their heyday.

 

The Beat Club performance is filmed in brilliant, high-definition colour against a blue screen probably because of the Beat Club producers’ penchant for psychedelic backgrounds to these kinds of shows. Rob Tyner wears a bright, spangly jacket and Wayne Kramer sports a slightly oversized green spangly jacket. This must be their homage to glam rock.

 

The band does a short “festival” set of their best-known tracks, mostly from Kick Out the Jams, in less high energy fashion than the Tartar Field clip, but still with a lot of power and one is always impressed with how they play. It’s a pity that the band seems to have rarely performed anything off High Time, the final studio album, and therefore repeated the same set lists drawn from the first two records.

 

Currently, Wayne Kramer is the only founding member of the MC5 who still performs, seeing as how Tyner, Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith and Michael Davis have died, and drummer Denis Thompson doesn’t seem to be as active, and Kramer has led various incarnations of the MC5, under that name, or as MC50 or We Are All MC5, with various different musicians.

 

Nowadays, Kramer is a bald, middle class looking guy in stark contrast to the rock ‘n rebel looks of the first coming of the MC5 though his socio-political views remain pretty much the same. He’s had a solo career but presumably never became more popular than the MC5, not commercially successful at the time but increasingly influential amongst musicians and the hip, and now, in line with so many acts from the ‘60’s and ‘70s who’ve realised how much money there was still to be made from playing to their old fanbase, now as old the band members, and the occasional younger, new convert, Kramer can cash in on the huge  name the MC5 has in rock history. The pity is that he  can draw on only  three albums’ worth of music, and perhaps some unreleased tunes, which makes for good times if you’re a fan and want to hear the classic tunes from those classic albums but seems a bit sad to me.

 

The band performing as We Are All MC5 are obviously proficient and can rock as hard as anybody, but none of them are in their early twenties anymore, with none of the brio, arrogance and simple energy the MC5 would’ve had back in the late ‘60s or very early ‘70s and for most part they do sound like an MC5 tribute band, with a contemporary rock sound,  rather than the real thing.

 

The cliché is that so many now famous bands claim that they never thought it could happen, never imagined that they could have a career lasting beyond about 5 years and, like Mick Jagger, didn’t think they would be, or would want to be, in the rock and roll game at the age of 30 or beyond. However, many, many bands have had very long careers, with varying degrees of success and generally a reduction in popular profile and record sales to boot, but are still able to tour, if they want, and to play to audiences all over the world and make a decent living, provided the live set contains all hits and the crowd pleasers. These bands have become brands and own the commercially viable Intellectual Property of their songs, and why shouldn’t they exploit these opportunities?  So what, if Wayne Kramer must play and sing  “Rambling Rose” every night and repeat “Kick Out the Jams,”  “Motor City is Burning,”  “The American Ruse,” “Looking At You” and  “Tonight” at every gig. The paying audiences want to hear those tunes.

 

As I’ve said, the Tartar Field clip is the best MC5 I’ve seen, with the Beat Club show second, but other than that, I’d rather just listen to the records than watch and listen to the more contemporary shows that can’t replicate the freshness and sharpness of those albums.

 

Frumpy

  

Frumpy came to my attention during a period when I watched a series of YouTube videos featuring or showcasing German rock of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, the so-called Krautrock years. Unlike the experimental Can, the ethereal Tangerine Dream, the anarchic Amon Düül II, the brutal jazz-rock of Birth Control, the metronomic electronics of Kraftwerk or the experimentalism of Neu! and Faust, Frumpy seemed to be a pretty enjoyable, straightforward blues rock band with progressive urges, from the video examples,  and I paid them no more attention.

 

Recently, also on YouTube, I came across a Rockpalast (the German WDR television service’s premier live rock show) presentation of a documentary about Frumpy’s lead singer, Inga Rumpf, called My Life is a Boogie.  Not only did I learn that she had quite a career before Frumpy but also well beyond it, but I also learnt that she has a solid grounding in blues and gospel, hence her vocal style.  Frumpy was also a band that obviously aimed at an audience well beyond Germany, with Rumpf singing in English.

 

Frumpy was relatively short-lived in its first incarnation, was more popular in Germany than anywhere else and released three studio albums and a live album.  There are also two compilation albums of that first period.  The band reunited, with only Rumpy, Kravetz and Bohn,  in 1990 and released two studio albums, with a crowd of additional musicians, and a live album with a smaller core band.

 

Of course, the earlier albums are very much of their time and probably somewhat dated but they are quite good, and with some tunes  being quite excellent, and Rumpf elevates any song she touches.  Frumpy may not have had much international success because it was simply selling American style rock to the English language community, which had plenty of similar bands already, but I believe that Frumpy is a cut above most of their contemporaries and should’ve had more success and Inga Rumpf should’ve been an international star.

 

 

 

 

All Will Be Changed (1970)

Tracks: 

1. Life Without Pain             (3:50)
2. Rosalie, Part 1                 (6:00)
3. Otium                                 (4:22)
4. Rosalie, Part 2                 (4:14)
5. Indian Rope Man             (3:19)
6. Morning                             (3:24)
7. Floating, Part 1                (7:39)
8. Baroque                            (7:36)
9. Floating, Part 2                (1:25)

Bonus tracks on reissues:

10. Roadriding                      (4:02)
11. Time Makes Wise          (2:49)

 

The debut album is performed by an instrumental trio of keyboards (mostly electronic organ) (Jean-Jacques Kravetz), bass ) (Karl-Heinz Schott)  and drums (Carsten Bohn), with Inga Rump as lead vocalist.  I guess you’d call it heavy, progressive blues rock with some tunes, such as early hit “Indian Rope Man.”

 

“Rosalie, Pt 1 -  Otium - Rosalie Pt 2” and “Floating, Pt1 -Baroque - Floating, Pt, 2” are two sets of suites with extended instrumental passages, mostly organ, and even a drum solo in the second one. These are obviously the progressive heart of the record which would otherwise be a more orthodox blues rock outing.  The three instrumentalists all have a chance to shine and one doesn’t miss the absence of guitars;  Schott is a very agile, versatile and rhythmically solid yet melodic bassist.

 

Opening track “Life Without Pain” is a rousing, gospel rock track that one can see as a concert highlight, en penultimate track, “Roadriding” features heavy guitar by an uncredited guitarist.

 

“Roadriding” and “Time Makes Wise” are bonus tracks on CD releases.

 

 

Frumpy 2 (1971)

Tracks: 

1. Good Winds                                 (10:02)
2. How The Gipsy Was Born         (10:05)
3. Take Care Of Illusion                  (7:30)
4. Duty                                                           (12:09)

Rainer Baumann comes into the line-up as guitarist.

 

The album has four tracks (presumably two a side of a conventional single LP), of which three clock in at 10 minutes or longer and the shortest track is seven and a half minutes.

 

“How the Gypsy Was Born,” “Take Care of Illusion” and “Duty” seem to have become concert staples.

 

The immediate impression is that the production smooths out some of the edges of the debut, is slightly muddier  and reduces the volume and the power. I suppose this is what one calls becoming more sophisticated.

 

“Good Winds” is more elegiac, psychedelic groove opener than the bravura of “Life Without Pain” from the debut and sets the tone for the extended pieces that follow.

 

“How the Gypsy  Was Born” sounds like an instant classic, with Rumpf’s fragile, brittle, soulful yet powerful vocals front and centre, plenty of hooks and excellent lyrics. Two Baumann solos are overdubbed to create a twin lead guitar effect.  Kravetz is still the dominant, star soloist, though.

 

“Take Care of Illusion” and “Duty” pale a bit by comparison but both are excellent examples of psychedelic, experimental Frumpy, with the latter tune an examination of a possibly characteristic event (parents turning in their deserting son) of Nazi Germany during World War II.

 

 

By the Way (1972)

Tracks: 

1. Goin' To The Country     (3:40)
2. By The Way                      (8:51)
3. Singing Songs                  (7:02)
4. I'm Afraid Big Moon         (6:25)
5. Release                             (8:50)
6. Keep On Going                (5:25)

 

Erwin Kania plays additional keyboards on the record.

 

“Goin’ to the Country” is a lively blues stomper with slide guitar and rollicking piano and it’s as good an up-tempo opener as “Life Without Pain” is on All Will Be Changed,  and by far the shortest track of the 6 on the record.  

 

Both the title track and “Release” are almost 9 minutes long,   and three other tracks are respectively longer than 5, 6 and 7 minutes.

 

The title track is a jazzy-prog, grand philosophical rumination and most connected to the style of the debut album, while “Singing Songs” is about the equally philosophical reflections of a musician on stage, musing about the relationship between performer and audience, and the first of the rousing four final tracks that emphasise the blues and soul roots of the song writing and Rumpf’s vocal style, and are the engaging kind of songs that hooks one in to the band. 

 

There were many progressive hard rock bands, and many German rock bands, of the early to mid-‘70s who ploughed the same instrumental and conceptual furrow as Frumpy, but none of them had the ultimate weapon of Inga Rumpf as vocalist.  

 

 

Frumpy Live (1973)

Tracks:

1. Keep On Going                (12:06)
2. Singing Songs                  (8:54)
3. Backwater Blues              (4:56)
4. Duty                                   (17:35)
5. To My Mother                   (11:34)
6. Release                             (22:00)
7. Take Care Of Illusion      (8:54)
8. Duty                                   (7:33)
9. Floating                             (12:14)

"Duty" and "Floating"  are bonus tracks on later versions of the album, having been previously released in 1970. 

 

Live is a great, rip-roaring mid-‘70s memento of Frumpy’s signature style of psychedelic blues-rock, with plenty tracks to stretch out on and jam, with accomplished musicians on top of their game and fully capable of improvising at length yet  still keeping it interesting and compelling. I suppose it’s a snapshot of the typical underground, progressive rock  band of the time. Rumpf’s soulful, blues inflected vocals are always worth the price of admission on any Frumpy release and she’s in her element here, communicating and connecting with her audience.

 

For some inexplicable reason, “How the Gypsy was Born,” Frumpy’s most identifiable hit, isn’t featured.  

 

xxx

 

I don’t know what the three ‘90s albums sound like but my guess is that they would be considerably different to the ‘70s band, if only for the mass of contributing musicians, and with considerably less charm.  After Frumpy first broke up,  Rumpf went on to front Atlantis, a typical mid- to late ‘70s AOR that sought, unsuccessfully, to find a break in the USA but this band was truly selling ice to Eskimos and the product, however technically proficient the musicianship, has nothing like the power and charm of full-throttle Frumpy.