'Kick 'em when they're up':* Backlash Lashback: Response to Eagles' Detractors

Long Road out of Eden era

* 'Dirty Laundry', Don Henley

This is really a rejonder to the general press’s reactionary response to the Eagles. Obviously the band don’t need me or anyone else to defend them but that won't stop me.

‘And still all the critics keep saying/Are they still around?/When are they gonna stop?’
(‘The Road’, The Kinks, the rest of the song is also pertinent)

I’m struck when I read the press reviews of the Eagles UK gigs that no one is saying very much. They’re very short and somewhat grudgingly appreciative but the common tenor is that the band have just been going too long. I was originally going to write a review but this rant got too long so I'm going to publish it as a separate blog.

'I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour/But heaven knows I'm miserable now' ('Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now', The Smiths) Miserable and not afraid to sing about it! Plus you can't knock a song with the lyric 'What she asked of me at the end of the day/Caligula would have blushed'

Prior to this tour, I read a really negative piece (worth reading for the cutting ripostes in the comments) in The Guardian (one of my least favourite papers) championing the new over the old and advocating that the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac and the Rolling Stones, if they couldn’t do the decent thing and chuck it all in to let the new bands have a chance, should at least pay a tax to finance the development of such bands. It is possible to like old and new bands. So-called 'old' music does not prevent so-called 'new' music from existing. Much of the new music sounds like either generic rock posturing or is unimaginatively derivative. Friends go crazy for the Scissor Sisters, Arcade Fire and their ilk who ‘are all about fun’ and the current stand seems to be that you can't be any fun unless your songs are a melee of different styles, all rehashed with a sardonic ‘aren't we clever, look what we’ve done?’ knowingness, with a general emphasis in the lyrics on ‘having fun’ as if, if you don't say it every second, you're suddenly miserable and being miserable is a crime. They sound anything but original but are more like a fusion of several styles I never particularly cared for in the first place. The word that always comes to mind is ‘ersatz’.

I think hell's just about to freeze over

‘We set out to become a band for our time. But sometimes if you do a good-enough job, you become a band for all time.’
(Glenn Frey, HOTE documentary)

But why should liking current bands prevent anyone from appreciating older ones? After all, although of its time, truly great music is timeless. It isn't finite. There’s always room for more. If someone is successful, it doesn’t stop someone else being successful. Instead of criticising the Eagles who have created (and we hope will continue to make) so many beautiful songs, how about noticing the fact that much of popular music these days is lyrically drivel and musically limited? Most songs that get to Number One have the same words rearranged plus some often quite objectionable and/or childish rap inserted for the sake of it. I’m not saying it’s all like that but shouldn’t we fight against this endemic deterioration in standards, where there’s a sample of a previous song (sometimes a good one – not so bad – at least it’s bringing it to another generation) and if we’re lucky one original but ever so slight melodic refrain? See my previous blog for more on this, and, in particular, the Black-Eyed Peas.

Anyway, who’s to say what’s new or old? If it’s new to you, does it matter if it was made in the 60s? What’s that got to do with whether it’s worthwhile or not? I’ve just discovered Poco and Gene Clark as well as more recently, Citizen Cope, Christian Kane, Shakey Graves. None of these acts have had the acclaim or success they deserve but I’m sure they don’t blame the Eagles for this.

Morrissey

‘I decree today that life/Is simply taking and not giving/England is mine - it owes me a living’

(‘Still Ill’, The Smiths, a band that seemed totally different to anything that had gone before, replete with passion and pathos, memorable tunes and witty, evocative, thought-provoking lyrics)

I fear this bleating, which is typical of the wishy-washy, bleeding-heart liberals at The Guardian, always ready to jump on the next musical bandwagon but always a couple of years behind the times; they just about grab onto it as it disappears into the sunset and the credits roll, as with Jackie Leven or the Fleet Foxes, or just after an act has become a parody of itself and ever so quick to denigrate something they think is passé, is all part of this ‘the world owes me a living’ attitude. It doesn’t.

It’s not only journalists who indulge in this kind of carping. Robert Plant (of Led Zeppelin) says he knows why the Eagles still tour: ‘It’s not about the money. It’s because they’re bored.’ Always amazes me when somebody has the gall to claim they understand someone else's motivation. Henley (never a shrinking violet) has hit back at this in Rolling Stone but also at the London shows when he said they don’t do it because they’re bored but because it’s the best job on the planet or words to that effect. Sort of reminds me of when Oasis and Blur gloved up in the 90s.

‘You don't want to work, you want to live like a king/But the big, bad world doesn't owe you a thing’ ('Get Over It', Eagles) 

It’s always been difficult for new artists to break through and the talented don’t always thrive while the screechers and flavours of the day (according to the papers) such as Paloma Faith and Ed Sheeran (although I do like ‘I See Fire’) make it. Whether they do or not has nothing to do with whether Fleetwood Mac are touring or not. The two are not mutually exclusive.

The Mac

I hate this labelling. The Eagles songs and harmonies and ideas would still sound fresh and exciting if you were to hear them for the first time today. Same with the Stones. And there’s a reason that ‘The Chain’ is still used as background build-up for all the Formula 1 events on UK TV. It’s as exciting now as it ever was. A couple of years ago I finally discovered the Kinks who became a fairly long-lived musical obsession of mine. Not new but new to me.

So I say ‘live and let live’. Stop bitching and moaning. Good music is good music and it will endure. That’s not a fault, that’s a virtue. I like this comment on The Guardian article from MickGJ: ‘If it wasn't for these old acts there wouldn't be any 30-year old records for them to sound a bit like.’ I’m discovering new and old music all the time.That's how it should be.

The thrill ain't gone

Grant Hart Live: Milton, Sputnik, Burroughs, Amtrak and Apollinaire

William S. Burroughs

Links in song titles as usual.

Last time we saw Grant, he played a blistering show with the Burn Burning at the Monto, Water Rats. It was amazing to hear him with a full band again but tonight he’s solo once more, again promoting The Argument, his musical take on William Burroughs’s truncated version of John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Grant is not afraid of a concept or a broad canvas or a mythical theme. The songs on this album I think of as those ‘details taken from a painting’ postcards you get and I was hoping to hear a good few tonight. I wasn’t disappointed. Haven’t got the album yet and heard that Grant had some to sell but never saw any.

The Miller at London Bridge

The Miller is a pub a stone’s throw from the Shard side of London Bridge, easy for us to get to from South London. Big, rambling and full of nooks and crannies, with the pleasant and efficient bar staff all in Hallowe’en-themed costumes. The gig takes place in an upstairs room with a stage, a couple of tables and a few bar stools. See some familiar faces from previous Grant gigs. Learn that there are two support acts and Grant should be on at 10pm. I usually like to cut to the chase but my sister is less jaded so we go up to listen. Had a brief chat with Grant while they were playing but forgot I had cotton wool in my ears and couldn't hear him properly. Grant, ever the joker, claimed he had come as the infamous, elusive graffiti artist Banksy – no one knows what he looks like. He looks well, still has tons of thick black hair, some pulled back in a ponytail. If he dyes it, he’s doing a great job.

Early days

Bold Things from Ireland start the warm-up. They collect the firewood. Their songs are pleasant enough. They have a lot of tall twenty-something fans who stand right in front of us. Next up are Le Deux Furieuses. (I think it should be Les Deux Furieuses, girls.) They light the taper. They look distinctly art collegey but after a deal of preparation, involving back projection and a carved and lit-up pumpkin, we’re smacked by a sonic onslaught, which would probably have terrified the fans of Bold Things but which is welcomed by die-hard Hüsker fans. I end up quite admiring them and I think they’re surprised by the crowd’s positive reaction.

Grant today

When Grant eventually takes the stage to stoke the flames, he’s a little frustrated by some problems with a borrowed amp and is unimpressed generally as they are unable to turn off a strobe effect that’s giving him vertigo, saying something like it’s great if you enjoy taking it up the ass every night (don’t quote me on that) but, after jokingly offering people their money back (the audience demurs, won't be pulled down by the undertow, buoys Grant up with its enthusiasm), the show goes on. It must be so difficult travelling, using the equipment to hand, organising everything yourself, dependent on the goodwill, courtesy and commonsense of venues and other bands.

I’m not going through the whole setlist; I’ll post it at the end, just mention certain songs. Suffice to say that Grant could play and sing some of these songs perfectly in his sleep and it’s always good to hear them. You know the ones I mean.

'Hey, are you sure you're not taking my picture?'

There’s something about the next three songs that reminds me of the rhythm of the sea – constant but ever-changing, the same but always different, waves crashing against a beach; the way a lyric or refrain is repeated/altered. 

You’re the Reflection of the Moon on the Water

Always a rousing opener: inspired by this comment from a monk about a possible candidate for the next Panchen Lhama, ‘He is the reflection of the moon on the water but he is not the moon’, i.e. something lesser than the real thing, the truth but not the whole truth. The verses are variations on this theme: the insistence and repetition reinforce the point, like the sea rushing headlong to shore, the fourth line of each stanza a diminishing of the first three, like the backwash of the tide.

You’re the reflection of the moon on the water/You’re the reflection of the moon on the water/You’re the reflection of the moon on the water/But you’re not the moon

You are the scent of the sea on the night wind/You are the scent of the sea on the night wind/You are the scent of the sea on the night wind/But you’re not the sea

You are the shadows from the light of a fire/You are the shadows from the light of a fire/You are the shadows from the light of a fire/But you’re not the light

You are the sound of the rain on the dry earth/You are the sound of the rain on the dry earth/You are the sound of the rain on the dry earth/But you’re not the rain

Sputnik 1

Is the Sky the Limit?

Grant dedicates this to Lou Reed (RIP) as ‘another satellite’ song – the song was built around the beeps from Sputnik, Lou Reed’s is of course Satellite of Love. I’ve got to love a song that uses the word ‘apogee’. Another charming, infectious melody; insistent, repetitive – an ocean tide.

Is the sky the limit?/What is the apogee?/

Is the sky the limit/For me?/

I only wish to love you/For you to notice me/

Now I dread how limited I can be

Golden Chain

This is the gentler ebb and flow of a calmer sea. Becalmed.

The earth it hangs on a golden chain/
The earth it hangs on a golden chain

Paradise Lost

The songs he plays from The Argument are liberally interspersed with older material throughout the set and work as standalone tracks as well as to illustrate aspects of the story, as if you simply focused in on a character and his thoughts/intentions. Grant is able to slip between viewpoints and in and out of musical styles.

This quote from Pitchfork sums it up:

But the great thing about The Argument is that, not only does it make a Hüsker Dü reformation seem like an evermore remote possibility, it makes the whole prospect that much more undesirable and unnecessary. 

California Zephyr

Upbeat song about riding the rails. It’s such a romantic thing to do, not ride the rails but name your trains, and so evocatively too. Unfortunately using Amtrak is anything but a romantic experience. Only did it once and there was a twelve-hour delay!

Then a cab to the Bay Bridge Inn/

They check you out while they check you in

Milton by way of Burroughs by way of Hart

Shine, Shine, Shine

That fairground organ on the album track – let’s get on the merry go round. A sparkling Christmas bauble of a song.

We enjoy the life ideal/Running naked through the fields/

There’s no shame/No secrets unrevealed

Remains to Be Seen

Another song rife with connotations and literary allusions and a lilting refrain. It’s ostensibly about the remains of Apollinaire but with Grant, there’s always another level (and I’m not talking defunct British boyband). Here’s a little extract from a chat I had with Grant when this song was new:

I had been reading the life story of Apollinaire, … in the context of like viewing somebody at a funeral or ‘all that’s left’, only an outline … when they circle the body and things like that and I didn’t change anything … on … the studio recording of it because it’s nice that it bear those other meanings as well.

Supposing, too much to assume/Saying nothing but speaking volumes
Silence broken with shattering sounds/Books for no one, where are they bound?

So Far from Heaven

Grant asks the audience to ‘pucker up’ to whistle along and it’s fantastic how many of them can a) whistle b) know the tune c) actually whistle in tune. Grant has been playing this live for ages so I was surprised that it was part of the Paradise Lost project.

What is it you’re seeking?/What would be your prize?

Is it no fair peeking?/If I look past your disguise

Someone requests Letting Me Out but Grant reacts as if he’s called ‘Let Me Out’ and says ‘The door’s over there’.

2541

During this, an over-enthusiastic fan sings along off-key and very loudly (I find the two usually go together at gigs) and Grant notices and has to choose something that the guy doesn’t know next.

Oh well I put down the money/When I picked up the keys/

We had to keep the stove on all night long/So the mice wouldn't freeze

A shy woman asks my sister to pass Grant a note for her. It says ‘Please play All of My Senses’. His response: ‘Boring’. There are some songs Grant must be sick of performing (the die-hard Husker fans inevitably ask for the same ones and occasionally he obliges) but this isn’t one I’ve ever heard him try live.

Another song he never plays, out of respect, because it’s hard to separate the song from its provenance, is Diane but for those who called for it at the Miller, here’s a fantastic version from Sao Paulo. Sends chills through me.

Less suspicious

The Main

A crowd pleaser. This sounds like and works well as a sea shanty (on the 'high' main) while the lyrics also tell a story about drug dependency (mainlining), with a litany of red-light districts – Reeperbahn, Christiane, Pigalle (coincidentally always the location of our hotel whenever we travel) – and references to De Quincey and Christ. As the makers of Every Everything no doubt discovered, Grant is knowledgeable on many subjects but what astonishes me is the way he’s able to crystallise ideas and images into lyric and melody.

There was life on the corner/And death all around/…

Reeperbahn, Christiane, Pigalle, all the same/On the main, the main, remember your name

The song I wanted him to play (I Knew All about You since Then) is a great example of this talent and his Mary Poppins-style approach – a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down. Trenchant put-downs in wordplay encased in a sunny little tune so you’re suck(er)ed in without realising.

Letter from Anne-Marie

This was my belated alternative request because Grant couldn’t play the original one, for very good reasons. This video is from the actual night.

With her family far and in a family way/Well she told me that she missed 'em
It's hard to keep in touch/With just the US postal system

Grant changes the lyrics each time, this time he sings ‘useless social system’. It’s one of the things I love about him – a gig can go in any direction at any time – he keeps it fresh and the night is entirely dependent on his mood and how he interacts with the audience.

Green Eyes

Still shimmeringly pretty even when slowed down and infused with bitterness as in this ‘mid-life crisis version’ from Zurich.

It's a great big world/There's a million other guys

I feel so lucky when I look/In those green eyes

Grant’s voice still has that pure tone, clarion-clear (as in this version of Don’t Want to Know if You Are Lonely; a burst of breathless energy); he still has that facility to fashion a memorable tune, his lyrics still blend the everyday with the erudite and I’m left pondering that eternal question. Bjorn and Benny put it better:

I've often wondered, how did it all start?
Who found out that nothing can capture a heart
Like a melody can?

Have guitar, will travel ...

Mercurial, maverick, articulate, undaunted, Grant Hart may be coming to a town near you – catch him if you can. 

The Argument is available on Domino Records and from Amazon of course.

Setlist from the Miller, London 31 October 2013

You’re the Reflection of the Moon on the Water

Admiral of the Sea came in here somewhere

California Zephyr

Is the Sky the Limit?

(From The Argument)

Shine, Shine, Shine

(From The Argument)

Awake, Arise!

(From The Argument)

Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill

Remains to Be Seen

Never Talking to You Again

The Main

You Are the Victim

So Far from Heaven

(From The Argument)

Letter from Anne-Marie

Golden Chain

(From The Argument)

Pink Turns to Blue

Underneath the Apple Tree

(From The Argument)

Green Eyes

She Floated Away

Dave Davies Breaks My Heart (Again): Satsang 1

So we did it. Went on the Satsang Weekend. It took a huge leap of faith. Like the jump that Robert Redford and Paul Newman make in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Well maybe not as risky as that. It was billed as the opportunity of a lifetime but I’m the sort of person who, when opportunity knocks at the door, crouches down behind the sofa until it goes away again. At one point during the preliminaries, I thought I was joining the FBI or something; the payment method that my bank told me was unsafe and would cost me £30 (luckily the bank proposed an alternative that worked), the security, the ID laminates, the whole clandestine nature of the affair seemed so outlandish but in a way, this somehow only served to make the prospect more intriguing. It was all so Secret Squirrel. Although I did wonder what might be coming next: Fingerprints? Retinal scans? The absolute secrecy, need-to-knowness was possibly a little excessive considering that, if I’d told my friends that I was going to a satsang weekend at Dave Davies’s house, they wouldn’t have said, ‘Oh my God, you know where Dave Davies lives?’, they would have asked ‘Who’s Dave Davies?’ and possibly, ‘What’s satsang?’ I did wonder what sort of people had been invited to Dave and Kate’s before that they felt the need to make us sign a declaration that we would abide by a daunting list of ‘terms and conditions’ and just as it was nerve-wracking for us to put our trust in people we had never met, I kept thinking it can't be easy to invite all these strangers, possibly stalkers, to your house so it was probably even more nerve-wracking for them. Still, it was a little ironic given Dave’s rep as a rule-breaker. When I told my friends I didn’t know where I was going and wasn’t allowed to know, they were sure I would be inducted into a cult and they would have to break me out and then spend a long time deprogramming me. Still, I’d never been in a cult before so was willing to take my chances. After all, you only live once. My worry was that it all seemed like it might be a bit ‘Abandon cynicism, all ye who enter here’, which is a hard thing for me to do. With the added pressure of breathing and meditation, two things I don’t excel at.

So what was it like? Although it wasn’t exactly what we were promised or what we expected, because of Dave, who and how he is, it was so much more. He didn’t only open his house to us; he opened his heart and soul. He’s a sweetheart; totally unguarded, so open that he releases some conduit of emotion in me so that I spend much of the weekend in tears. This is partly because of bad news that I had before I went away but it’s something more. Dave really touches me and affects me somehow so that I feel what he’s feeling, so that each time he cries or his voice breaks, I’m already in tears but I can't know what he’s thinking about. It’s very strange. At one point he talks about being in love – I think he must imagine I’m in the middle of or at the end of a tragic love affair because I keep bursting into tears. I feel there’s some emotional connection, elemental and beyond words, and maybe only momentary. But Dave   probably has this effect on many people and has learnt to go with it.

I’ve never cried so much or been hugged so much in my whole life although my life has not been high on the hugs front anyway. It’s cathartic. The other members of the group are really supportive and kind and I hope that many of us will keep in touch. There is healing from the professionals Dave has enlisted but it’s therapeutic just to be in the group, to accept its and Dave’s kindness.

It’s interesting to hear some of Dave’s ideas, reassuringly eclectic, especially for someone like me, a Brideshead Revisited type of Catholic, more interested in the superstitious, personality-based side of religion, whose own brand of beliefs is a bit like a Woolworth’s pick and mix, with bits of everything all jumbled up, there’s nothing like variety, my ultimate faith lying in St Anthony, and Dave’s credo, which is based on love, should be our ideal although some things are a little harder to accept (like dolphins coming from another planet). Having recently had what faith I had shaken by an event that belies any concept of karma (and not for the first time), it was surprisingly moving to be with people who still believed in something, who could conceive that their positive energy could affect the universe, that we could pool our spiritual resources and make a difference. Dave is very anti intermediaries (priests and so on) but he can be my intermediary any day. Dave notwithstanding though, a couple of days after the weekend, I hedged my bets and bought medals of the saints from Buckfast Abbey and celebrated the Equinox at some stone rows on Dartmoor with a Druidess.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not quite ready to canonize Dave yet because I just read an interview with Ray where the interviewer was ‘kind’ enough to point out all the cruel things that Dave had recently said about him. Ray said that he wouldn’t read the article because it would only upset him. It reminds me of my sister and I. I once said that she has empathy for every living creature except me. I know circumspection’s not in your nature but have a heart, babe. He may be all those things but if you prick him, doth he not bleed?

And am I the only one who was a bit disappointed that the talking stick never said anything?

But, let’s be honest here. I didn’t even know what satsang was so I’m not really here for that even though it was intriguing and I found it really affected me. (Or was it just Dave?) Primarily, I’m here for the music.

The gigs in the evening are amazing and the band are great. More than intimate – we’re practically standing on top of them. Dave might forget the words or even the chords occasionally but the emotion and the passion and the humour shine through any minor restarts. He really gives of himself when he performs. He might have managed to get through ‘Flowers in the Rain’ the second night without crying but I didn’t and L* knew I wouldn’t. It gets me every time. I don't think about myself – it’s imagining what he’s feeling that upsets me so much. Empathy. Kurt Cobain was right about that. Still, Dave manages to slip easily between joking and intensity.

But we danced, we sang along, we had a blast. As a relatively new fan, it was the first time I had heard ‘Are You Ready, Girl?’, ‘Rock You , Rock Me’, ‘The Lie’ and ‘Get Back in the Line’. Wow. How lucky am I?

It was incredibly uplifting to hear Dave sing ‘I’m Not Like Everybody Else’, a pivotal track for me and a major factor in the reasons for me being here at all, and have everyone sing along. I could forget my disappointment in karma and experience unadulterated joy. And he danced with me! Well, sort of.

So many things that I wish I’d asked or said, like ‘Dave. Did you ever know all the words to ‘Village Green Preservation Society'?’

And maybe next time I’ll get up the courage to request some songs. I was dying to hear ‘Run’, ‘Mindless Child of Motherhood’, ‘Lost in Your Arms’, ‘Love Gets You’, but angsted too long over whether there was some particular reason he didn’t play them any more.

Despite everything, the expense and the extreme secrecy, I ask a friend if she’d do it again and she says ‘In a heartbeat’ and I would too. Of course it’s Dave that does it; he still has it, whatever it is. He really touches me. Ok, he looks older but he has that indefinable something; you can see and hear the sixteen-year-old he was in him still, that love of life. Great to see him so well recovered from his stroke. If he toured, wouldn’t we all go? Looking forward to hearing the new album.

Dave, Don’t Stop Breaking My Heart.