I'd Love to Turn You On #249: Yes - The Yes Album (1971)

The Yes Album is a very hard one for me to start reviewing because there are so many things I can talk about with it. This album has not only been something I’ve been listening to since I first started playing guitar and bass; it’s not just an album that has started conversations with people who would become some of my best friends; it’s not just a weird album cover that you can stare at forever and still not understand it. This album is all that and more than I ever thought it could be. I don’t remember the first time I listened to this - it got lost in the brains of 14 year-old me - but I haven’t forgotten a note of it, and I still try to sing along to it even though I know I will never get close to Jon Anderson’s voice.

Starting an album with “Yours Is No Disgrace” seems so obvious - the opening hits trick you into thinking you know what’s coming on this album. Rarely do you hear all the instruments so crazily defined in the mix, with them all acting as one giant, speeding bus that they call a chord progression; but once you’re in for the ride they don’t let go because this song is just shy of ten minutes long and barely feels like it. It moves so freely that you don’t even feel exhausted by the end of it. The next song feels like it’s the complete opposite of what you’d hear on a classic prog rock album - solo acoustic guitar, courtesy of Steve Howe, with “The Clap.” It’s a piece that is just about three minutes of straight fire coming out of Steve’s fingers, a blend of classical, jazz, and traditional blues guitar styles all put in the stew of a kinda rock song - an odd choice for the second song on an album but it’s a very nice comedown from the extravagance that is “Yours Is No Disgrace.” “Starship Trooper” is really where this album takes off - that little bass part that kicks in when this song hits means as much to me as any two seconds of music ever has. Everything they were doing on the first track is executed perfectly here - the various melodies of the vocals, guitar, and bass all get stuck in your head as separate parts but you can’t have one without the others. It helps that the lyrics are inspired by the 1959 book of the same name, which was also the basis for the amazing movie of the same name (I’m still mad they never used the song in the movie). For as tight a band as Yes is, this song sometimes feels like it’s about to fall apart, but right when that moment comes they tighten up and become a much more cohesive unit, one that went on to take on the world.

Flipping the record over and dropping the needle on “I’ve Seen All Good People” is always going to be a therapeutic moment for me. It’s very clearly the first time I heard a musical Easter egg - the background choir singing “All we are saying, is give peace a chance” - that I haven’t been able to unhear since. My dad brought me up on The Beatles and Lennon, so I already knew that phrase and melodic line, but even just the simple line “Send an instant karma to me” was something I didn’t know you could do in music; it was so revelatory, and subconsciously made me interested in knowing what the bands I liked listened to. References like that make the music so much more personal, especially when some of the extreme metal bands I listen to now will have long extended solos and for a moment - blink and you’ll miss it - you’ll hear these bands do Yes riffs, ripped straight from this album, in their crazy distorted madness. It’s a moment that makes you feel connected to the band on a personal level and oddly makes some of these people more approachable, both in skill and personality. 

Outside of the music, this album has been a beacon in my life; it’s an album that my dad always said was one of his favorites ever, by one of his favorite bands ever. He took me to see what remained of Yes in 2012, far from the prime of this band, and most diehard fans wouldn’t want to see this version, but it was still so magical. This is the album that I had the cover of hanging next to my bed throughout middle school and high school - not a poster, the actual sleeve of the album with record still in it. It’s an album that I've been lucky enough to not only be able to share with the people I love, but use as jumping off points for things that some of my best friends and I first talked about, still talk about, and will always talk about.

- Max Kaufman

I'd Love to Turn You On #243 - Serge Gainsbourg - Histoire De Melody Nelson (1971)

  Melody Nelson lived fourteen autumns and fifteen summers when she was struck by the front end of a Silver Ghost. The driver, who we can only assume is some extension of the artist in question, was met with confusion and inexplicable lust. Melody survives the incident, but not without being subjected to the narrator’s bizarre, Nabokavian tendencies. Gainsbourg, with the help of partner Jean-Claude Vannier and guest musicians Alan Parker and Dave Richmond among others, spends just under 28 minutes unfolding a musical narrative to which there are many dark, euphoric, and ambiguous sides.

 Histoire De Melody Nelson is a landmark record looked upon by countless musicians as a sonic reference point, and by critics as a benchmark in the field of concept albums. It is perhaps the most influential French rock album ever released and has been covered, and to some extent copied countless times in the 48 years since its release. Beck, who notably paid homage to the album’s title track on his 2003 breakup bummer, Sea Change, called the album “one of the greatest marriages of rock band and orchestra” he’d ever heard. Upon listening, it’s not difficult to understand why. The record opens with a plodding, quiet bassline over jagged guitar riffs that are soon met with the sinister vocal delivery of Serge Gainsbourg relaying in spoken word the story of hitting Melody on her bicycle as he (or the narrator) haplessly drives his Rolls Royce. The darkness of it all becomes quickly euphoric as a swelling orchestra builds over the track’s otherwise brooding atmosphere. Highlighted by production that’s as rich as it is spacious, each musician is given their chance to shine here, but no one instrument distracts from or overshadows its counterparts. The tracks that follow act as vignettes, conveying the narrator’s increasing affinity for the album’s title character.

While the bookend tracks take most of the glory, the sheer musicianship flourishes throughout, without the end product feeling like homework or something that takes itself too seriously. The album’s studio playfulness leads to wonderful, slightly less musical moments. On the track “En Melody,” bursts of maniacal laughter break out over a ferocious drum beat as Gainsbourg relates the story of a plane crash that ultimately takes the life of young Melody. Violinist Jean-Luc Ponty adds a set of strings to the mix as tensions rise toward the fatal crash. The laughter coming from the voice of the titular character, played here by Gainsbourg’s then-wife Jane Birkin, was achieved by Birkin being tickled in the recording booth during the session. Her cackles add a layer of palpable anxiousness as Melody’s short story comes to a bloody, abrupt end.

Below the surface, Melody Nelson is a tremendously complicated exploration of masculinity and its dark, inherent sexuality viewed through the lens of tragedy - though Gainsbourg doesn’t really to seem to offer answers to this complexity here. Melody Nelson, like the strange relationship that unfolds through the album’s story, is another question mark in the life of the story’s recounter. Gainsbourg makes a point to state from the beginning that the story’s central characters are involved in this accident through naivety; in terms of childlike innocence via the story’s victim and by contrast, age and recklessness via its narrator. In the middle somewhere lie love and lust: two timeless themes that have been endlessly tackled by musician after musician. Perhaps Gainsbourg understood this to be heavily trod thematic ground and saw an opportunity to disclose a side of these feelings not often explored, and its provocativeness is nothing more than that. Or maybe the story is somewhat autobiographical and we’re getting a real look into the sinister, paranoid world of the musician in question. Ultimately that truth wouldn’t serve or enhance anyone’s understanding of the album, and its moral ambiguity factors heavily into the atmosphere of it all. The underlying story plays more of a supporting role to Gainsbourg and his band than it does actually try to say something about its subjects and their interactions.

The record’s cinematic nature was, at the time of release, unparalleled by anything else in its genre. While Melody Nelson isn’t exactly a rock opera in comparison to something like The Who’s Tommy, it does a brilliant job of creating a mood to match its subject and creates fertile ground for linear storytelling.

- Blake Britton (Initials B.B.)

I’d Love To Turn You On At The Movies #229 - The Emigrants / The New Land (1971/1972, dir. Jan Troell)

When these two 3-hour Swedish films opened in Denver in the early 1970’s I would have been about 14. I honestly can’t believe my parents thought it was a good idea to take me to six hours of subtitled historical drama, but it is even more surprising that I sat through it, and remembered it fondly. I was thrilled to see that Criterion released them together in one package, and, that after three decades I would be able to revisit this experience. I spent the better part of my day off with Swedish farmer Karl Oskar (Max Von Sydow) and his bride Kristina (Liv Ullman) as they try to succeed in their native Sweden, but failing that, emigrate to mid-1800’s America and help settle Minnesota.

The first movie The Emigrants finds Karl Oskar toiling on his Father’s farm working like a dog, barely making ends meet, and finding it almost impossible to feed his new and growing family. At the same time, his brother Robert and other relatives are finding the Swedish environment of conservativism and religious piety oppressive. They start talking and reading about North America and the promise of freedom and success in the United States. Braving the emotional and financial consequences, a group of them decide to leave their home and make the voyage to America. That’s a neat little synopsis of the first three hours, but it does nothing to convey the overwhelming beauty and power of this great movie. Filmed with loving attention to detail, director Jan Troell puts the dirt under your fingernails, makes you smell the bread baking, and puts the thought in your mind and belly that this will be the last bread of the winter because the harvest is bad. Troell’s movie is in a class by itself. It’s hard to think of another movie that so vividly takes the audience into the lives of simple people so effectively. There is little romanticizing of their plight, everything is shown with a matter-of-fact clarity which conveys both the pain and drudgery of their existence, but also offers a fleeting, bittersweet glimpse at a not so distant past free of technological intrusion and environmental annihilation. The scenes and one’s emotions fly from backbreaking toil to exhilarating natural beauty with the fluency of life itself. The cinematic achievement is profound. Like so few movies (Boyhood is one of the only others that comes to mind), The Emigrants and its sequel The New Land actually capture the huge artistic ambition of showing a life lived.

The lengths of these movies might seem gratuitous, but as they unfold, it becomes clear that this is the only way to portray such overwhelming scale. The sequence showing the boat journey from Sweden to New York is forty minutes of harrowing aquatic nightmare, and when it ends you feel a physical relief as the actors set foot on solid ground. Likewise, the final scenes of The Emigrants show Karl Oskar trekking through unsettled Minnesota looking for the perfect spot to settle. Without any dialogue, it is actually possible to lose yourself in the fantasy of discovering America. It is one of so many beautiful and emotional moments. If you love this country, and believe its inherent greatness is connected to its natural beauty and those who first settled it, this is a rare experience.

 Many social issues are also tackled in these movies. Especially in The New Land, timely themes of immigration, racism, sexuality, class warfare, dirty business and Native American rights are shown, again with the seemingly spontaneous intrusion of true life. Perhaps because everything is from the Swedish perspective, rather than the jingoism we often see in modern Hollywood, it is possible to reflect upon these issues from multiple perspectives. The story climaxes with twin tragedies. First, younger brother Robert heads west to participate in the gold rush. He is exposed to greed, disease, theft, and death, before returning to the disapproval of his own family. It is the Horatio Alger myth in reverse. Then comes the controversial telling of a massacre (part of the Dakota Wars) of many of the settlers by the Native Americans who originally inhabited the land the Swedes were settling. A series of horrifying scenes of violence, retribution and execution bring in to focus one of the more unsettling aspects of the founding of our country and the treatment of its first citizens. Again, it is the non-Hollywood perspective that lends these scenes such veracity and makes them so hard to ignore or forget.

The Emigrants and The New Land are incredibly important films to see at this particular moment in America’s history. The ambitions of these films are as big as America’s endless horizons, yet they focus on the small details of humanity we all share. The endless vistas of this new country tamed by the tiny voice yearning for home.

- Paul Epstein

I'd Love to Turn You On #205 - Sly & The Family Stone - There’s A Riot Goin’ On

There are certain records that for a variety of reasons fall into the category of inexplicable. Something in the writing or the recording process makes it live outside the rules by which we normally judge albums. What are some examples? Can’s Tago Mago, Brian Eno’s mid-70’s vocal albums, Bob Dylan’s Time Out Of Mind, Spiritualized’s Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space, D’Angelo’s Black Messiah to name a few (although admittedly these albums are few and far between, which is ultimately why they are inexplicable). The king daddy of this type of record though is Sly & The Family Stone’s 1971 masterpiece There’s A Riot Goin’ On.

From the very first notes, we realize we are in an alternate universe. Thick, warm, analogue (this is an album to listen to on vinyl if you can get it) notes burble out like velvet, pouring from your speakers, as Sly straddles the universes of soul and rock, essentially inventing funk as we listen (we’ll let James Brown and George Clinton in there too). The songs all seem like clouds passing in front of Sly’s window that he is trying to grab, but they dissipate just as he gets his arms around them. The hits on this album – “Family Affair,” “You Caught Me Smilin’,” and “Runnin’ Away” – clock in at about 3 minutes each, yet each one feels like an epochal leap forward in the evolution of conscious soul. That’s part of the inexplicable nature of this album - time seems to come unglued; there is no sense of normal song length and structure, even though most of the actual songs (save two) are short. By all accounts the recording process was chaos, with Sly, rolling in dough and high as a kite, inviting friends (like Miles Davis, Bobby Womack and Billy Preston) to his rented home studio for days-long sessions that seemingly were producing nothing but enormous studio bills. Credits were not kept, tapes were erased, Sly himself overdubbed other people’s parts. However, Sly was indeed sly and as one of the most experienced and talented producers of the 1960’s, he took this molten insanity and turned it into a cohesive work of startling originality. There are no credits on the album, just a bunch of photos that capture the era, and this just adds to the inexplicability of the album.

Every single song on this album is worth inspection, so let’s look at each one:

“Luv N’ Haight” – a wink-wink to the counterculture - it was issued as a single, and it sets the stage beautifully for this album. Disembodied vocals and keyboard jabs punctuate the roiling bass line. Like many of the songs on the album, it lacks traditional song structure, but rather takes a pounding beat and turns it into a statement.

          

“Just Like A Baby” - a bit more conventional structure, but still way out. A ballad with a classic slow funk burn. It highlights Sly’s incredible sense of restraint and subtlety. He doesn’t let the languid beat out of his sight for one second. And he resists every temptation to rev the song up into something other than what it is: perfection.

           

“Poet” - Sly was using a primitive drum machine on some tracks, and it is remarkably effective in combination with the airy sense of the songs and his spare keyboard parts. Again he shows amazing restraint in keeping a lid on this track. It feels like it could explode at any second, but instead it keeps an amazing shuffle groove going under the self-referential lyrics.

           

“Family Affair” - One of Sly’s greatest hits, it touches on issues of race and love and relationships in a poetic and beautiful way. The backing track boils along like a coffee percolator, with Sly giving a great vocal and his sister Rose providing amazing counterpoint vocals. A true classic.

“Africa Talks To You ‘The Asphalt Jungle’” - Side one closes with this almost 9-minute titanic shot of funk. All the parts lock together like some crazy psychedelic jigsaw puzzle, amazing bass playing up front competes with Sly’s woozy vocals as guitar scratches and tasty keyboard fills lurk around every corner. Like a Miles Davis cut, this sounds like it was extracted from some other endless jam, and in its own context succeeds magnificently as mountain of rock-solid funk. Once again, the theme of this album is restraint. For someone taking mountains of drugs, Sly had an incredibly cohesive vision for what this album was going to sound like. And as such, it stands as an album like no other he made. It isn’t a collection of songs - it is a sound statement.

“Brave & Strong” - Side two starts upbeat with a lurching bass line playing hide and seek with punchy horns and a typically indescribable Sly vocal. More than any singer I can think of Sly influenced a new generation of singers. He, like James Brown, reveled in his own unique ethnic brilliance. He wasn’t trying to fit in mainstream society, he was pointing to a place of pride in who you actually were.

“(You Caught Me) Smilin’” – The most irresistible track on the album, it also jumps like an actual hit single. Slap bass, one of his best “up” lyrics, horns that seem to come from the heavens like heralding angels, and classic Sly keyboard work. When I want to turn somebody onto this artist, this is one of the first songs I play them.

“Time” - Another slow, one might even say torturous, ballad. This song again shows off Sly’s vocal mastery above a simple drum machine beat and subtly placed keyboards, proving that less is more.

“Spaced Cowboy” - The most fun track on the album, and possibly in his entire catalogue, this song contains one of the most hilariously deranged vocals (including the great “soul-yodel”) placed squarely over a driving funk beat. An absolute must for mix tapes.

“Runnin’ Away” – irresistible, guitar-driven little ditty that is deceptive in its simplicity. It is actually an incredibly clever bit of writing that might not have sounded out of place on a Fifth Dimension album. Prescient lyrics that seem more relevant today than ever.

“Thank You For Talkin’ To Me Africa” - A monster! This is the demo version of Sly’s earlier hit “Thank You For Lettin’ Me Be Mice Elf Agin.” It is over seven minutes of pounding, perfect funk. Poppin’ bass, funky clavinet, a loping beat and Sly giving his best half-lidded hipster vocals. It is a foundation piece of all funk.

The overall effect of this album is like getting in a time machine and ending up in 1970 Los Angeles, wandering down a street at dusk, soul music blares from a window here, the thud of a truck there, raw emotional feelings of race, sex, drugs, politics seems to bubble up from the pavement. You drop to one knee, stick your ear to the ground and the inexplicable sound you hear is There’s A Riot Goin’ On.

-         Paul Epstein

I'd Love to Turn You On #179 - Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen - Lost In The Ozone

After the multi-colored explosion of counter-culture and youth exaltation that took place in mid to late 1960’s America, there was a desire for something maybe a little less experimental, maybe a little less world-changing and maybe a little more…fun. In the world of popular music there was a small but meaningful group of bands who were (re)discovering the joy and heritage of American roots music. Groups like Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, N.R.B.Q., Asleep at the Wheel and The New Riders of the Purple Sage were discovering the past and finding that it was a blast to play this kind of music. Audiences were equally desperate for something that required less thinking and more dancing. In thrall of classic outfits like Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys, Louis Jordan and His Tympani Five, Tex Ritter, and The Johnny Otis Revue, these bands were finding that they were not the first musicians to jump in a bus and travel across the land bringing high times to the people. One of the most legendary and hard partying of these bands was Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen. Starting in Michigan and landing in the Bay Area, they released their first album Lost In The Ozone in 1971. Like the aforementioned American big bands and revues, The Airmen brought a joyous repertoire of originals and classic Americana to the stage and gave the hippies a much-needed emotional break.

There is nothing fancy, tricky, artsy or fartsy about The Airmen’s music. It is basically revved-up country and western with a bit of R&B thrown in. The Commander himself (George Frayne IV) was a trained painter and sculptor whose love of boogie-woogie piano led him to leave the academic path (he has doubled a college professor) and hit the road with a crack eight-piece big band to give the people what they want. And boy could they deliver! The album kicks off with a clear statement of purpose, “Back To Tennessee,” “Wine Do Yer Stuff” and “Seeds And Stems (Again)” tell us with no uncertainty that these boys want to get back to the country and start the Par-Tay! And that is exactly what they do. They do not let up. The hallmarks of this great band were the Commander’s pumping boogie-woogie, Billy C. Farlow’s authentic vocal stylings, Bill Kirchin’s world-class guitar picking and the addition of non-traditional rock instruments like pedal-steel guitar, fiddle and the occasional horns. The original material makes the dichotomy of country/hippie life clear, and then the raucous cover versions that round out the album bridge that gulf in fine form.

About halfway through, starting with title cut “Lost In The Ozone,” the album kicks into high gear. Any young person who had made it through the late 60’s and into the politically charged atmosphere of the early 70’s could relate to the feelings suggested by this song’s title and sentiment. “Midnight Shift” and “20 Flight Rock” offer a clear reference back to early rock and roll, but the Charlie Ryan classic “Hot Rod Lincoln” provided The Airmen with their biggest and longest lasting hit and neatly crystallizes their aesthetic. It rocks in a way the fan of rock and roll can appreciate, but it is an absolute retro blast. Originally a hit in 1951, it reflects the moment in our history when popular American music was turning from regionalism to the monolith known as rock and roll. Within a few years, everything would change for good.

The album ends with an uproarious live version of “Beat Me Daddy Eight To The Bar,” one of the greatest songs about the joy of making and listening to music. A big band hit going back to 1941, it was a wonderful reminder to contemporary audiences of the fundamental importance music can play in lifting our spirits from the mundane or cruel realities of day to day life. With Vietnam about to crest and Watergate on the near horizon that wasn’t the worst thing.

“When He Jams It’s A Ball, He’s The Daddy Of Them All!

The Rhythm He Play Puts Those Cats In A Trance, Nobody There Bothers To Dance.

When They Jam With A Bass And Guitar, They Holler: Oh Beat Me Daddy Eight To The Bar!”

-         Paul Epstein