The Fall - TV Appearances 1978-2004

And for my final posting in my week of Fall-related releases in the wake of the death of Mark E. Smith, here's a fan-assembled compilation (in .mp4 format) of television appearances, videos and interviews by the band over more than a quarter-century. You could say that this amalgamation serves as the visual

companion to The Fall's Complete Peel Sessions 1978-2004 box set, released in 2005. There are some superb and iconic performances featured here, from the band's appearance on Tony Wilson's So It Goes program in the late 1970's to the "Cruiser's Creek" video. Get ready for over TWO HOURS of Fall goodness!

Enjoy and remember what we'll all be missing, now that Mr. Smith is no longer with us. And as always, let me know what you think.

R.I.P., Mark.

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Weezer - Weezer (Blue Album) (Deluxe Edition) (RS500 - #297)

When I was younger, a callow young military officer, I occasionally got involved in some hair-raising escapades, dangerous standoffs and amazing capers that to this day, when I think about them, make me shake my head and wonder what the hell was going through my mind at the time. For instance:

• I've talked my way out of a potentially dangerous and fatal encounter with a gang of armed, tough-looking Rastas who surrounded me one night in a dark neighborhood in the hills above Charlotte Amelie, St. Thomas, V.I....
• I somehow found myself alone and unarmed deep within a favela in Rio De Janeiro, with only a very few words of Portuguese at my command and many miles between me and safety... and
• I've come to from a booze bender in the wee hours in downtown Panama City (not long after the Noriega regime was toppled and the place was designated a war zone) having no idea where I was or how to get back...

In each of these circumstances (and a couple of others that come to mind), I've emerged unscathed and lived to tell the tale. The background behind some of these encounters aren't things I'd necessarily brag about now (or even then, for that matter). But what remains with me is the knowledge that I stepped out to the edge/threw caution to the wind more than once in my life, and felt that adrenaline jolt of making it through a crazy, unusual situation.

I have definitely had some colorful and memorable adventures, in locations all over the world. For various reasons (heh), others need not be revisited here... but there are some scams and shenanigans I pulled back in the day that still hold a warm, special place in my heart. This is one of my all-time favorites - probably because it DIDN'T involve the risk of my life or limb.

A couple of weeks after I moved to Christchurch, New Zealand, in the austral winter (the northern hemisphere’s summer) of 1993, the government announced that construction would soon commence on the first-ever casino in the country, right there in the city. The entertainment facility would be located on a then-vacant triangle of land between Victoria and Durham Streets, directly across from the Crowne Plaza, the city’s top hotel. The building effort was scheduled to start that month, and it was estimated that it would take about eighteen months to complete.

Needless to say, I was completely jazzed to hear this news. As I’ve pointed out time and again on this blog, I’m an inveterate gambler, who has managed to do pretty well at it over the years. In my previous duty station in the Washington DC area, I made many a foray up to Atlantic City and back in the two years I lived there, and got fairly proficient at the games that I loved to play (first blackjack, later craps and finally no-limit poker). I’d never be (and never had any desire to be) a professional at it, but after a while I knew that I could hold my own, and more times than not come away from such trips with a tidy profit. Plus, I enjoy the mathematical and psychological challenge of it all, keeping track of odds and trying to ‘read’ opponents. As such, I was sort of bumming during my first few days in New Zealand because, as fun and entertaining as the nightlife appeared to be in Christchurch, having no readily-available access to a craps or blackjack table was going to be a heavy blow. So this announcement was news from heaven, as far as I was concerned. I told everyone I knew, both my old friends back in the States and my new friends in Christchurch, that I was going to BE at that casino on Opening Night, no matter what.

All that austral summer, and throughout 1994, I watched that place go up (I passed it quite often, as it was a couple of blocks away from one of my favorite weekend haunts, The Club - in fact, one of my buddies, a bartender at The Club, had applied for a job at the new venue). It wasn't particularly a flash-looking, Vegas-style building... but it WAS going to be a casino, so I didn't care - I would've played sitting on a stool under a canvas tent, just so long as the games I liked to play were available.

Soon I began to hear about the government's plans to celebrate the opening later that year. It was going to be a swanky black-tie affair, with dignitaries and celebs from all walks of life flying in from all over Australasia. As such, the guest list was going to be very exclusive, with the vast majority hand-picked by the feds and the casino operators. However, apparently as a sop to the general population, the word was that some members of the public could also choose to be part of the opening gala - for only $1,000 per ticket.

Of course, I didn't have a cool grand to blow on something like that. So all that year, I tried to leverage my few New Zealand connections to help me wrangle one of those "dignitary" invitations. For example, I knew someone who knew someone who knew the mayor of Christchurch, and I thought they might put in a good word on my behalf; I made friends with some high-ranking NZ Air Force officers out at the old Wigram Air Base who I thought might be helpful; and I had some commercial connections through my work who I thought might be 'big' enough to make something happen. But no luck. As the year passed, and Opening Day crept closer and closer, I still found myself as one of the "outside looking in" crowd. I wracked my brains for a solution, but got no closer to finding one.

While all of this was going on, I went back to the States for leave that May/June (I returned to New Zealand the day after the infamous O.J. Simpson "Bronco chase"). Shortly after I arrived back to Christchurch, one of my good friends and fellow officers at the base, Rod, the Communications Officer, transferred back to the States. His replacement was another young lieutenant (let's call him "Phil"), a loud, brash New Englander who, at first, I was sure I wouldn't get along with. But we quickly became very good friends, hanging out together in town, hitting the clubs and chasing the local chicks when we weren't at work at NASU.

One night, a couple of months after he arrived, I went over to Phil's house in the center of Christchurch, to hang out for a bit at his invitation. We just chilled on the couch for a couple of hours, having a couple of Canterbury Draughts and watching a VHS tape he'd brought over from the States with him, a movie called True Romance written by some relative unknown newcomer named Quentin Tarantino. I'd never heard of the guy before, or knew any of his other work - but I enjoyed the film immensely. Phil told me that Tarantino had another film coming out later that year, a crime yarn called Pulp Fiction, that I should keep an eye out for. I figured it might be pretty good, but nowhere near as good as True Romance... (how wrong I turned out to be...)

After the film was over, he fired up some tunes, playing an album by a group which up to that point, I was unfamiliar with. The CD cover featured four rather nondescript guys, facing the

camera in front of a bright blue backdrop - the picture reminded me a lot of the cover of The Feelies' first album, Crazy Rhythms. The band's name was featured in bold, lower-case letters in the upper right-hand corner - Weezer.

Weezer was formed in Los Angeles on Valentine's Day 1992 by a bunch of mostly East Coast transplants who gradually made their way to California during the late 80s/early 90s. Bassist Matt Sharp was born in Thailand to American diplomat parents, but spent most of this early teenage years in the suburbs of Washington, DC. He moved to San Diego in the late 80s and joined a number of short-lived goth and thrash bands. During this time, he struck of a friendship with Buffalo, NY native Patrick Wilson, who had recently moved to LA and was drumming for a local band called Bush (no, not THAT Bush - this is another one you've never heard of). When that band fell apart in early 1991, Wilson and Sharp recruited a couple of friends of theirs, including Oakland, CA guitarist Jason Cropper, and formed a new band called Sixty Wrong Sausages. At the same time, Wilson was participating in Fuzz, another short-lived local band whose members included yet another out-of-stater, Connecticut-born Tower Records employee and erstwhile roadie Rivers Cuomo. Cuomo eventually joined the lineup of Sixty Wrong Sausages, which evolved into Weezer.

After some early practices, Weezer got its first gig later in 1992, in front of about sixty people at a crappy Los Angeles club called Rodgies; they opened for another local band also making its live debut that night - Dogstar, featuring actor Keanu Reeves on bass. While that show didn't exactly make Weezer a household name in the area, the band kept practicing, progressing and gigging, and inside of a year had slowly begun to make a name for itself in the Los Angeles Basin. On the strength of that local buzz, the group was courted and signed by Geffen Records in June of 1993.

Almost immediately, the label flew Weezer to New York City, to cut their debut album at Electric Lady Studios. The band wanted to self-produce, but Geffen wasn't about that at all, and pressured the group to select an outside producer - they settled on former Cars frontman Ric Ocasek. From all reports, the session went very smoothly, with all of the basic tracks laid down in a single day, and all in one take. The band's working relationship with Ocasek was cordial and productive, with the producer making only minor recommendations to improve the band's sound. The only disconcerting note during the entire recording process was the departure of founding guitarist Cropper (for years, the reason behind his leaving the band was a well-kept secret; it was only recently that Cuomo revealed that Cropper's personal issues - specifically, a pregnant girlfriend - began to affect the band's work, and led to his being asked to leave the group), immediately replaced by Brian Bell. Even with that, Weezer successfully completed the recording and mixing of their debut before the summer of 1993 was out.

Geffen released the album in the spring of 1994. The label initially put no money or promotional efforts behind the band's first release, wanting to see if word of mouth could propel sales. After a slow start, this strategy paid off - Weezer went gold before the end of the year, and reached platinum status (1 million copies sold) by New Years Day 1995, eventually peaking at #16 on the Billboard Top 200 Albums chart. Three singles from the album ("Undone - The Sweater Song", "Buddy Holly" and "Say It Ain't So") made both the U.S. Modern Rock Top 10 and the overall British Top 40 charts as well. I was fortunate enough to have heard it at Phil's house long before its more mainstream success; with that first listen, I instantly became a Weezer fan.

I went back to the States again that October, for a Navy Supply Corps conference in San Diego I had absolutely NO interest in attending, but one which my commanding officer insisted that I go to. Not that I was adverse to heading over to sunny California for a while... but like I said, I had just returned from a long vacation back in the country just a couple of months earlier. Plus, the conference was a complete boondoggle - no major policy decisions or changes were expected to come out of it; it was just a chance for a bunch of officers to hang out in Southern California for a week. I told the CO as much, along with the fact that the command's budget really couldn't absorb what I considered "unnecessary trips" like this (I know it sounds like I was pissing on my own potential parade... but I did try to keep a close eye on the government's purse strings). But I was overruled; he insisted that I had to go, to "keep in contact with my peers".

I was like, "OK, fine - yes sir", and started making arrangements that would benefit MY schedule. The major change I made to my itinerary was to arrive in San Diego three days prior to the conference, rather than on the day of - I had plans of my own I wanted to take advantage of...

My transpacific flight landed in San Diego on a Thursday afternoon, just before 2 pm. By 2:30, I'd collected my luggage, acquired my rental car, and was hauling ass through the desert on I-15, on my way to Vegas (I punished that car during that drive - it was over 100 degrees outside, I was traveling 85-90+ miles an hour, and I had the A/C cranked down to below 60 degrees; I'm still stunned that car wasn't a heap of smoldering slag by the end of my term with it). I made that five-hour-plus trip in a little less than four, threw my bags down in the cheapest place I could find

(the old La Concha Motel on the shitty end of the Strip - it was semi-clean, it had A/C and the door locked securely, which is all I cared about), then ran out to find the nearest craps tables I could find.

I powered through two and a half days of nonstop fun in Sin City, gambling until I couldn't see the dice or cards, then stumbling back to my room at the La Concha for a couple hours' sleep before charging out again. Yup - I was a total degenerate. But I made a fucking FORTUNE - that town was all but handing me money that trip! And occasionally I took a break from my debauchery for other pursuits - I had a couple of really good meals at some decent restaurants in the city. And on my last afternoon there, I went off down W. Sahara Boulevard to the now-long gone Tower Records store and spent some of my newly-acquired largesse on tunes. I bought a ton of CDs, including the Weezer album I'd heard back home. These new tunes accompanied me back to San Diego that weekend and, at the end of that week (which was, as I suspected, a useless conference - although I did have some fun and saw some old friends in town and up in LA while I was there) back to New Zealand. By the time I returned, they were putting the finishing touches on the gambling joint . . . and of course, I still didn't have a ticket to attend the opening gala.

The Christchurch Casino was finally completed in the late austral spring of 1994 and opened with great fanfare on Thursday, November 3rd. I got home from work early that day and watched the inaugural events on TV, which basically consisted of filming various New Zealand politicians and celebrities arriving at the front entrance of the place and gliding over the red carpet into the interior. It didn't seem like security was all that heavy; the broadcasts didn't show scads of police surrounding the joint - that wasn't the way New Zealand did things back then (or so I thought).

I watched the television coverage for a while . . . then thought for a few seconds and finally said aloud to myself, “Fuck it; let’s give it a shot.”

I went into my closet and pulled out my service dress white uniform, probably the most impressive uniform the U.S. Navy has to offer – gleaming white, with gold buttons and high “choker” collar. With the blue-and-gold rank shoulder boards and a couple of rows of multicolored ribbons over the left breast, the thing is pretty damn impressive. I just hoped it would be impressive enough.

As I carefully pulled my uni on and checked my white dress shoes for scuffs, I thought over my strategy for getting into the casino opening event. My plan was to drive downtown, park nearby, walk over to the building entrance, and boldly declare that I was the “official U.S. Navy representative” to the ceremonies, while defiantly looking the doormen/gatekeepers in the eye and all but DARING them to challenge my credentials. If, however, they did work up the gumption to ask to actually see my invitation, the next phase of my plan was to begin slapping my pockets awkwardly, and claiming I must have inadvertently forgotten it. In the worst possible scenario, I figured that I would ignominiously be sent packing down the street with my tail between my legs in front of all the locals and TV cameras (as you can tell, my mind was very narrowly focused in regards to consequences - the potential of instigating a minor international incident for something like "fraud" or "misrepresentation of a foreign military entity" never really entered my head). Otherwise, I was pretty confident that, with my “clever plan”, I could successfully crash the event.

Before I left the house, I had the presence of mind to grab some tunes to bring along with me, to steady my nerves as I made my way towards an uncertain outcome, one that could possibly lead to some minor personal embarrassment and humiliation, and at the most could... well, again, I didn’t really consider any worst-case scenarios. I jumped in my car, pulled out of the driveway, and left my Casebrook neighborhood for the ride downtown. En route, I stuck Weezer into the in-dash CD player, and tooled down the street while "My Name Is Jonas" blared through the car speakers.

Oh, I forgot to mention the car I was driving... When you transfer overseas, the Navy allows you to ship your privately-owned vehicle (POV) over to your new duty station at government expense, along with the rest of your household goods. This was my POV:

My pride and joy, a gold 1982 Porsche 928... at the time, one of six in the entire country, and the only left-hand drive model on the South Island. I bought this car a couple of years earlier from a dealer in Virginia and absolutely loved it, so much so that I wasn’t about to leave it behind when I moved halfway around the world. It arrived in Christchurch nearly two months after I did, but it was well worth the wait; I suddenly owned one of the (if not THE) hottest, fastest cars in the region. Not to brag, but to say that my 928 was of great assistance in my social life in New Zealand is putting it very, very mildly... and I’ll just leave it at that.

I made my way across town, down Papanui Road and across Bealey onto Victoria Street towards the venue; Victoria has a minor left-hand bend to it a couple of blocks down, so I couldn't quite see what was happening further down that road at the casino site (although I did notice that there seemed to be more people out on the streets than usual). As got closer, I saw what the deal was - and a funny and unpleasant feeling began to build in the pit of my stomach...

A cordon of police had the intersection blocked off at Salisbury Street, directing any unauthorized cars and non-guests to the event off in another direction. If I was going to bail out of this caper, now would be the time to do so - I could just follow the instructions of the cops, quietly make that left, and be on my way back home. But for some reason, I decided to 'take the plunge' and deal with whatever came my way; instead of turning, I boldly pulled right up to the barrier, turning the music down and rolling down the automatic window for the authorities there to get a full view of me in my regalia. Needless to say, I was a little tense, but I looked at the cops there manning the gate with the attitude and air of a man who's SUPPOSED to be let through... and it worked. Before I could say a word; they moved the barrier aside and waved me along.

Whew! So far so good! For that brief moment, I was feeling very positive and confident; if that was the best they had for security (and the worst I had to expect to get through), I was good to go. Then I looked ahead, and felt my nuts crawl up into my belly...

Holy smokes.

It appeared that my interpretation of the TV coverage was woefully incorrect. Instead of the light security I was anticipating, there was a massive and significant presence around the casino. The powers-that-be had pulled out all the stops for this event; the joint was practically ringed with local, federal (I forgot about the government bigwigs who were scheduled to attend) and corporate security personnel, and the streets were cordoned off with security barriers on the far side of Victoria Street and all the other roads around the casino building, with cops roaming around behind those barriers to keep the sizeable crowd of "unauthorized" spectators at bay. Between all of this, the streets were kept almost completely empty, except for the limos of the arriving guests/dignitaries...

And my dumb ass, tooling down the middle of the street in uniform, in my Porsche. I was as naked and obvious as a bug on a plate, and I KNEW that my ride and I were the cynosure of every person in the immediate vicinity. The moment of truth was about to arrive for me - and I've got to admit that in those moments, I wasn't feeling very confident. But it was much, much too late for me to bail.

I slowly pulled up to the entrance to the underground garage and stopped, and my car was instantly surrounded by at least a dozen stern-looking cops and casino security personnel. Inwardly, I was thinking "Oh shit - the jig is up!" I could almost feel the eyes of every spectator and the lens of every camera boring into the back of my head as I sat there - and it was then, finally, that the realization came to me that if I got busted now, I was going to be embarrassed on a nationwide level, and possibly be in for some savage shit when I went back to work at the base the next day. But outwardly, I tried to remain as cool and nonchalant as I could. I turned "Say It Ain't So" down on the car CD player, and reached over to press the button to open the passenger side window. The guy who I assumed to be the Head Cop jammed his head in; I could tell he was a bit confused at first, as he expected me to be sitting in a right-hand drive NZ car instead of my left-hand drive American model - I had a fleeting hope I could use that confusion to my advantage. He leaned in as far as he could, while the rest of his team gathered in tightly behind him and all around the Porsche. Instead of panicking, I calmly smiled, looked the guy dead in the eye, and said, "Any more parking down below for this event?"

The Head Cop looked hard at me - white uniform, gold braid, multicolored ribbons and medals on my chest - then he looked back and forth slowly at the interior of the Porsche I was in - then back at me. He paused for just a moment... that's the moment I assumed I was screwed. But the guy then broke into a huge welcoming smile as he said "Yes Sir! Happy to have you with us!"

Another "Whew!" moment! Instantly, two liveried casino employees sprung out from seemingly nowhere. The gauntlet of cops parted like the Red Sea and made room for me as these carhops, with one trotting on either side of my front hood like Secret Service agents, guided me inside the garage and right into one of the best reserved spaces, right by the basement entrance. From there, these two guys practically carried me to the casino elevator; I daresay I welcomed the assistance at that point, because I was a bit shaky from that make-or-break encounter at the entrance. I couldn't believe my luck so far!

But I knew that I wasn't out of the woods yet. From my observations over the past months as the place was being built, I knew that the gaming area was up on the second floor of the building, above the street-level casino entrance. During the street tete-a-tete with security, I had the presence of mind to glance over and observe that there was a reception/welcome committee set up on the ground floor, to greet the guests (and presumably to check their invitations/credentials) before allowing them to go upstairs where the action was. I had no stomach for another scene like the first two I'd been through. So as I entered the elevator, I quickly punched the button for the second (casino) floor, figuring I could bypass all of the rigamarole in the lobby, quickly exit onto the main floor and instantly blend in with the crowd (well, as much as a guy wearing a snow-white uniform could blend in). As the lift began its slow upward journey, I relaxed a bit. I figured I was home free.

So imagine my surprise when the fucking thing suddenly stopped on the lobby floor and the doors began to open! They had rigged the elevators that night not to go up all the way. By the time I thought about hitting the "close doors" button, it was too late - I was face-to-face with a bevy of dignitaries and facility major-domos, who I KNEW were going to request to see my invite. I imagine that I sagged visibly, like an animal taking a bullet - I KNEW the jig was well and truly about to be up. I stepped into the space and all but threw my hands up; I felt like a complete criminal.

The main guy there barely looked at me. Instead, he pointed towards the escalator. "Just go right upstairs, sir. Welcome, and have a great evening!" I was so shocked as his response and my reprieve that I stood there stunned for a moment. Then I hightailed it in the direction he indicated. Success!

The rest of the night turned out great - mostly. One of the first things I did when I got up to the casino floor was head straight to the bar - after all of the twists, turns and tension experienced in getting into the place, I needed a drink. And as fate would have it, the first person I saw when I reached the bar was my friend, the former bartender from The Club; apparently his application to the gambling joint was successful He was shocked to see me - "Jesus, man - how did YOU get in here!" I told him my story and we had a good laugh about it

together as he handed me my first extra-large glass of Canterbury Draught, which was on the house like all of the other food and drink at the event that night.

I then sauntered over the gaming area - sadly, no craps or poker, but plenty of blackjack, my old reliable moneymaker. I found a seat, set my drink down to get my money out... and proceeded to elbow that full glass of brewski over, swamping the table! I was VERY glad I hadn't gotten a drop of that spill onto my whites; however, I did have to sit there and endure the dirty looks of the casino staff and other players as they mopped up my mess. That was the only sour note for the rest of the night; I stayed at the event for hours, hobnobbing with New Zealand's "beautiful people" (of course, none of whom knew who I was - no matter; I was "there", so I HAD to be "somebody"), chatting up women, partaking liberally of the free spread and gratis booze offered... and ended up winning more than $600 at the $10 blackjack table. I felt like James frickin' Bond!

There was one thing I didn't end up doing during my event infiltration that I had every intention of accomplishing - getting my face on TV. I had an unstated goal of making an appearance in front of the television cameras, both for a laugh and as incontrovertible evidence to my boys that I HAD followed through on my plan. But in the end, I figured I'd pushed my luck that night juuuuuuuuuust about far enough. The last thing I wanted to happen was to be called on the carpet by the CO the next day, demanding specific answers on why I was at such an event in uniform, blah blah blah. So as tempting as immortalizing my infiltration on film would have been, in the end I just let it go. Besides, my buddy from The Club had seen me there, so I had some independent corroboration to fall back on!

All in all, it was a fun night, and a great story to tell my friends in town and at the base the next day and for the remainder of my time there. And all it took to succeed was the balls and chutzpah to follow through - well, that, and a little luck.

Here for your listening pleasure is the album that helped steady my nerves on the night I pulled that secret-agentesque scam, 23 years ago today: Weezer (The Blue Album), the debut long-player by the band of the same name, released by DGC Records (a subsidiary of Geffen Records) on May 10th, 1994. What I'm providing here is the 10th anniversary deluxe edition of this classic album, released in 2004, containing a second disc ("Dusty Gems and Raw Nuggets') of Weezer live takes, demos and rarities. Enjoy... and as always, let me know what you think.

Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:

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Nirvana - With The Lights Out (3-disc set)

On the evening of Saturday, April 9th, 1994 (April 8th in the States), I was feeling a mite peckish, so I took my girlfriend out to eat at Yamagen, the teppan-yaki joint located inside the swank Parkroyal (later Crowne Plaza) Hotel (now long gone, a casualty of the devastating February 2011 earthquake) in downtown Christchurch, New Zealand. The Christchurch Casino was then under construction directly across the street from the hotel, screwing up traffic moving up and down Victoria St. and limiting access to parking. But fortunately I found a spot a block over, on Peterborough Street close by Strawberry Fare, the dessert place I usually took my dates to after dining out. So my plan was to go there for a plate of Death By Chocolate after eating at the hotel.

Yamagen was basically the city's answer to Benihana, the international restaurant chain. I'd been to the place a couple of times before, and all in all the cuisine wasn't bad (although to be honest, teppan-yaki is pretty hard to screw up). The place was fairly packed, it being a weekend. But we were seated fairly quickly, and spent an hour or so there enjoying the food and the show the cooks at the grill put on for us, juggling pepper mills and flipping shrimp onto our plates.

After dinner, we grabbed our jackets from coat check and made our way through the Parkroyal's vast, cavernous glass atrium towards the street, headed for the dessert place. There were a few TVs placed here and there around the lobby, and in hindsight I can recall seeing out of the corner of my eye brief images of a semi-recognizable face flashing across the screens - a young guy with dirty blond hair. But I really wasn't paying attention, so nothing registered in my brain.

Just before we got to the door, a hotel employee wearing slacks and a blazer emblazoned with the company logo hurriedly came up to us, with a weird look on his face. I thought for a split-second that I might have left something in the restaurant, or there was something wrong with the bill I just paid. But the guy (who, by the way, I didn't know and never saw there at the Parkroyal ever again) literally grabbed my arm and all but shouted "Can you believe it? Kurt Cobain's dead."

That's how I first heard the news, and that's when everything I saw clicked. My girlfriend and I abandoned our plans to go to Strawberry Fare, and lingered for a few minutes in the hotel lobby watching the news coverage. Then we quietly walked out to my car and drove back to her place, where we sat and watched several more hours of coverage on SkyNews. As it was in the U.S. and the rest of the world, Cobain's demise was HUGE news in New Zealand.

This might come off as kinda cold and unfeeling . . . but as the seemingly endless round of stories and interviews related to Cobain's death aired that evening, I have to say that although I was sad, I wasn't exactly shocked and surprised to hear of his suicide. A lot of you may have forgotten about this . . . but it was little more than a month earlier that a story was published that during Nirvana's recent (and as it turned out, final) European tour, an unresponsive Kurt was rushed to an Italian hospital after ODing on roofies and booze. While there have been some dissenting opinions regarding the nature of the incident, the consensus is that it was an intentional overdose on his part. I remember the reporting of the incident very well, and immediately regarded it as an "uh oh" moment as it quickly faded from the headlines.  The handwriting was pretty much on the wall at that point.

After a week in a Rome hospital, Cobain returned home with his wife Courtney Love to Seattle, spending his days locked in his room abusing alcohol and drugs. In mid-March Love called the local authorities over, after another alleged (and still disputed) suicide attempt. Things got so bad in the house, that near the end of March, Love arranged a drug intervention with Cobain's friends and music company executives. By all reports, it initially didn't go over very well. But after a day of cajoling, Cobain finally relented, and agreed to check himself into a drug rehab center in Los Angeles at the end of the month. His stay at the detox facility lasted less than 48 hours; he fled the recovery center on April Fool's Day and flew back to Seattle, where he was seen at various area locations in the city over the next couple of days, before disappearing again on April 4th. An electrical contractor discovered Cobain's body in his mansion on April 8th, but it was later determined that he killed himself on approximately April 5th.

Conjecture and speculation on the causes and circumstances that drove Cobain to finally take his own life with a shotgun on that tragic day has for years filled the pages of many a book and magazine article. It is well established that Cobain had suffered from significant mental health issues, including bipolar disorder and ADD (both of which went largely untreated), for much of his life, long before he was ever in a band. In addition, there was a history of suicide in his family (two of his uncles also shot themselves to death), along with a family history of alcohol and drug abuse. In many ways, Kurt Cobain was almost a poster child for "potential suicide risk". And undoubtedly the pressures and issues related to the rise of Nirvana from their humble indie beginnings to superstardom only exacerbated his many conditions and tendencies.

Frankly, I didn't pay that much attention to Nirvana (consisting of lead guitarist and vocalist Cobain, bassist Krist Novoselic, and drummer Dave Grohl) when they first came onto the scene in 1989. I mean, I'd heard their name mentioned once or twice in the music rags, and I recall noticing their debut album Bleach in the racks when it was released in the summer of 1989. But by their appearance and with the little I'd heard of their music, I all but dismissed Nirvana as just another hair metal band - a genre I just wasn't into in the late '80s. There was plenty of other stuff out there that I was into in 1989; discs by bands like Ministry (A Mind Is A Terrible Thing To Taste), Nine Inch Nails (Pretty Hate Machine), The Jesus & Mary Chain (Automatic), De La Soul (3 Feet High & Rising), The B-52's (Cosmic Thing) and, of course, The Pixies (Doolittle) were just a few of the great albums released that year. So it's not like the world was hurting for good music. Plus, Nirvana's then-label Sub Pop didn't exactly kick out the jams to generate sales for Bleach; both national distribution and promotion of the album was sorely lacking, and in its first two years the album only sold about 40,000 units.

Nirvana began recording demos for their follow-up to Bleach in early 1990, but they were increasingly unhappy with Sub Pop's lack of attention and management issues (the label was then in the midst of some significant financial difficulties). So after laying down about half a dozen tracks, they abruptly shut down the session and started shopping the session tape around to other labels (kind of a dirty, backhand move on the band's part - but hey, I guess you gotta look out for yourself; no one else will). Due to the buzz the demo tape generated, Nirvana left Sub Pop and signed with major label DGC Records later in 1990. After a series of delays, recording of their sophomore album resumed in the spring of 1991 under the direction of DGC in a Los Angeles studio. But by the time this new album, Nevermind, was released on the first day of fall that year, Nirvana was almost completely off my radar.

I was transferred from Norfolk, VA to the Washington, DC area during the early summer of 1991, and moved into an apartment in nearby Arlington. I spent a lot of time that summer and fall fully re-familiarizing myself with the DC area, checking out all of the dance clubs and music venues. As I mentioned in an earlier post, there used to be great places all over DC, with every kind of music imaginable. I became a regular at places like The 9:30 Club, Fifth Column and The Spy Club, and through exploration and word of mouth I came across lots of other outstanding joints there were well off the beaten track.

A couple of blocks south of DuPont Circle, the area around the corner of 19th and M Streets was a minor DC party area during that time, ranking well behind the Georgetown, F Street and Navy Yard club and entertainment areas. The M/19th scene was centered around Rumors, a horrible, sweaty, cheesy Top-40 joint that somehow has managed to stay in business up to the present day. There were a couple of strip clubs (like Camelot) and half-decent bars along the north side of M Street, and the late, lamented Lulu's Club Mardi Gras dance place was a couple of blocks west. But the best places in that area weren't visible from the street. The blocks behind the buildings along M and 19th are/were laced with extensive alleyways and service roads, and back in the late 80s/early 90s, someone had the inspired idea of setting up a couple of rockin' warehouse-type clubs in some of the unused/neglected spaces back there.

It was in one of these places (the name of which I've long since forgotten) one weekend night in early/mid October, 1991 where I first heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit". The club was very crowded that night; I had a hard time even getting to the bar. But once there, I pretty much parked myself in a secure corner

with a bottle of Pete's Wicked Ale (remember that stuff? For a while there, it was running neck-and-neck with Sam Adams for top craft brew . . .) and surveyed the scene. A few minutes later, the DJ dropped the needle on this new song, and with the very first note of the opening guitar riff, there was a RUSH of people racing for the dance floor. By the time the drums kicked in seconds later, the floor was jam-packed with flailing, moshing, laughing people, and the bar area had, almost like magic, completely emptied. I had no idea what the name of the song or artist was, but it appeared that I was a lonely minority; seemingly everyone else in the club was intimately familiar with the tune. The dance-floor crowd happily belted out every word with abandon. All in all, it was a remarkable five minutes to witness; it had been many years since I'd seen a song have such an effect on a group of club-goers.

At the time, I didn't inquire as to the name of the song or band; I was a little embarrassed at being so clueless. But it was in the week that followed that "Smells Like Teen Spirit" broke out, in DC and across the nation - suddenly, the song was being played everywhere . . . and not just the alternative stations. Long-established local rock stations like DC101 jumped on the bandwagon as well. It honestly got to the point where you literally could turn the knob any time during the day and find the song playing on at least one station. At the time the song sounded like little else being played over the airwaves.

And in the same manner that it affected all of those folks in the club that previous weekend, it affected me as well - not just the excitement the tune generated, but the music itself. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is a very well-put-together song, with the softer verses drawing you in before launching into a chorus that kicks you in the head and gut at once. And the final payoff, with Cobain shrieking "A denial" over and over, is simply one of the great endings in rock history. Who cared if you could barely understand the lyrics? It made a Nirvana fan out of me. At the end of that week, I went over to the George Washington University branch of Tower Records and purchased Nevermind.

Nevermind, in my opinion, is one of those rare albums you come across that is completely devoid of filler. EVERY song on Nevermind is a winner, with several approaching all-time classic/near classic status: "Teen Spirit" (of course), "Come As You Are", "Lithium", "Something In The Way" - just to name a few. I thrashed this disc for pretty much the entire autumn of 1991 - not that I needed to; by November, practically every rock/alternative/college radio station in the country was playing multiple cuts off of it. By December, Nevermind was selling nearly half a million copies per week (prior to its release, the label was hopeful that the album would sell 250,000 total), and was flying off the shelves so fast that DGC Records gave up trying to implement a carefully crafted marketing strategy for the record they had concocted (to quote label president Ed Rosenblatt, "We didn't do anything. It was just one of those 'Get out of the way and duck' records."). In early January 1992, Nevermind took over the top spot of the Billboard 200 chart, ironically and prophetically replacing "King of Pop" Michael Jackson's Dangerous. As far as the mainstream was concerned, alternative rock had arrived, and was now a force to be reckoned with.

The massive success of Nevermind also put Nirvana in a weird and unwanted place. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was hailed from all quarters as "the anthem of a generation", and the band, especially Cobain, was thrust into the position of becoming spokesmen for Generation X - a place they did not seek and definitely were not ready for. You would think that, for a guy with low self-esteem issues like Cobain, finding fame for something you created and suddenly being hailed as a generational representative and voice of a movement, with people hanging onto your every word, would be the best thing ever to build up his confidence and esteem. But that's not how it works with depression. Instead of embracing the benefits of fame, Cobain shrank from them, constantly questioning the nature of the adulation and status he was receiving. He felt misunderstood by fans and critics and boxed in by his newfound celebrity. He began to harbor resentments against people who claimed to be fans of the band yet refused to acknowledge, or seemed to misinterpret/misunderstand, his and the band's social and political views. Cobain regarded himself as politically and socially liberal and egalitarian, with a Buddhist worldview and virulently anti-commercial, and appeared to make efforts to maintain these stances as Nevermind became one of the most commercially successful records of all time and was embraced and championed by factions of society (anarchist, libertarian, etc.) subscribing to ideologies at odds with what Cobain said he believed in.

But however much Cobain claimed to subscribe to his slate of beliefs, there was another side to his personality that belied certain aspects of his self-described ethos. Shortly after Nevermind went to Number One, Cobain bluntly asserted his power within the group and made what can only be described as a blatant money grab, demanding a reorganization of Nirvana's songwriting royalty structure. Rather than continuing their long-established equal three-way split based before on what was considered a collaborative enterprise, Cobain demanded the lion's share of royalties, since he wrote most of the band's songs. At first, and to their credit, Grohl and Novoselic were cool with this . . . until Cobain began insisting that the new structure be made retroactive to the release of Nevermind. Needless to say, the other two band members weren't about this proposal at all, and in the spring of 1992, the issue came very close to breaking up the group. In the end, a "compromise" of sorts was reached (although to me, agreeing to give Cobain 75% of the Nevermind royalties doesn't seem like much of a compromise). But bad feelings within the group remained, adding an additional level and dimension to the outside strains Cobain was under.

This was just one of the most obvious examples of the conflict going on within Cobain, as he attempted to reconcile the two sides of his image - the external side (superstar multimillionaire "King of Grunge") and his private (bohemian underground rock rebel); contradictory images that in many ways mirrored his bipolar mental state.  Cobain's lyrics, cryptic as they are, reflected these internal contradictions - seeming to mean one thing one minute before meaning the opposite in the next line.  In an interview last year, Krist Novolesic made an offhand remark about calling Kurt out good-naturedly on the nature of his words during their recording session - while at the same time succinctly confirming what I mentioned above, the tug of war going on within Cobain's head:

I'd go, "Did you hear what you just said? You contradicted what you said a minute ago." He'd laugh at himself, because he knew it. He would be like that. He wanted to be a rock star – and he hated it [my emphasis].

Another example of Cobain's dealing with this juxtaposition was in the recording of Nirvana's third (and last) album, In Utero. In Utero was supposed to be Nirvana backing away from their "rock stardom"and reclaiming their indie cred. But in many ways, In Utero simultaneously rejects and embraces everything Nirvana did before it.

In what is considered the definitive Nirvana biography, the 1993 book Come as You Are: The Story of Nirvana, author Michael Azerrad asserts that "the music of In Utero showcased divergent sensibilities of abrasiveness and accessibility that reflected the upheavals Cobain experienced prior to the album's completion." Novolesic has said that on this album, Cobain wrote some wonderful, beautiful songs, and then during recording deliberately tried to roughen them, add noise and rawness to the music, both on specific songs and throughout the entire album. For example, "Heart Shaped Box" starts off as a heartfelt ballad before suddenly launching into a howling chorus, then lurching back again to ballad-mode. Soft, soulful songs like "Dumb" would immediately be followed by grinding, shrieking guitar workouts like "Very Ape" and "Milk It". And, of course, Cobain couldn't help but take aim at both himself and his new supporters and critics - witness the first words in the very first song on the album, "Serve The Servants":

Teenage angst has paid off well
Now I'm bored and old
Self-appointed judges judge
More than they have sold

Practically every moment on In Utero is a contradiction to what comes immediately before and after it - and it was designed that way. Still, for all the band's talk about In Utero being a 'rejection' of their Nevermind sound, a lot of songs on this album follow the sonic blueprint of its predecessor - perhaps not in a point-by-point song comparison, but in the LOUDquietLOUD structure and instrumentation.  Nirvana was, after all, a three-piece, and there's only so much you can do to change your signature sound before going off into Lou Reed Metal Machine Music mode and completely alienating your fans - something Nirvana was not about to do.  

In Utero was purposely recorded and designed to be Cobain's ultimate "anti-commercial" response to Nevermind - but the fucking thing still sold 15 million copies worldwide.  So, um - mission accomplished . . . (?)  

In spite of all that, In Utero is a much more personal album than Nevermind, clearly reflecting Cobain's state of mind at the time of recording. After his death, a lot of critics and observers made much of the words and phrases used in the disc's songs, which to them seemed prophetic in terms of how Cobain eventually ended his life - Pitchfork media recently called the album "the rough draft for rock‘n’roll’s most famous suicide note". Personally, I think that's bullshit. I have never believed that Cobain wrote the album with the conscious intent of offing himself soon afterwards and justifying/explaining the reasons behind it to the masses

beforehand. Critics did the same thing with Joy Division's Closer after lead singer Ian Curtis' 1980 suicide - it was no truer in that case than it was for this one.

There is a term - apophenia - that I think applies here. Apophenia is defined as the "unmotivated seeing of connections" accompanied by a "specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness", but it has come to represent the tendency to seek patterns in random information in general. That's exactly what lazy journalists tried to do in the wake of Cobain's death, and that's where they failed. There is no morbid, sinister pattern in In Utero; it is NOT a farewell from a walking dead man.  It's just a very powerful record showcasing the many things that were on Cobain's mind at the time. Looking into it any further than that is a foolish and ultimately futile exercise. Dave Grohl did a lengthy interview with Rolling Stone last September, where he spoke extensively about Nirvana's last album. Here's what he had to say, in relation to what I wrote above:

"The album [In Utero] should be listened to as it was the day it came out. That's my problem with the record. I used to like to listen to it. And I don't anymore, because of that. To me, if you listen to it without thinking of Kurt dying, you might get the original intention of the record. Like my kids. They know I was in Nirvana. They know Kurt was killed. I haven't told them that he killed himself. They're four and seven years old. So when they listen to In Utero, they'll have that fresh perspective – the original intention of the album, as a first-time listener. Someday they will learn what happened. And it'll change that. It did for me."

* * * * * * *

Late last year, People Magazine published an article conjecturing what popular musicians who died young (like Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison) would be doing now if they had lived to the present day. For the story, the magazine commissioned a high-end film manipulation/restoration company to come up with mocked-up portraits, illustrating what these singers might look like nowadays. The pictures themselves are remarkably realistic and poignant, none moreso than that of a Kurt Cobain pushing 50:

The People story itself was lightweight foolishness, full of idiotic predictions as to what these stars' current lives would possibly be like (for example, Elvis "presides over the largest musician-owned eatery chain in the United States, an all-you-can-eat buffet called Hunks & Hunks O' Burnin' Love . . . "; Bob Marley "is elected president-king for life of Jamaica . . ."). But the writeup for Cobain is probably the most plausible of all the artists featured:

"Given Kurt Cobain's love for his daughter and his disdain for the media and stardom, we like to think that the Cobain of this picture eventually moved to Portland, remained wholly devoted to Frances Bean, and drives a Prius. He DJs (very) infrequently, turns down every interview request, and enjoys the occasional craft beer."

I could totally see that scenario happening for him, Cobain living the life of a rock recluse, the grunge version of Axl Rose (albeit with a little more class, hopefully). But we'll never have the opportunity to see that ourselves . . . which is a pity.

Then again, with Kurt gone for these twenty years now, you and I also have not and will never have the opportunity to see him in decline. We don't have to witness Cobain sliding into irrelevance, or hear critics badmouthing his latest poorly-received album, forever comparing his current output to his early iconic Nirvana hits. We are spared the ignominy of seeing Cobain as a contestant on Dancing With The Stars or serving as a guest judge on American Idol. We'll never have to deal with crap celebrity magazine photos of Kurt squiring his daughter to some pretentious fashion show premiere, posing dutifully and a bit shamefaced in front of a white canvas covered with corporate logos. We all are spared the constant biannual faux-media frenzy of a rumored Nirvana reunion at next year's Coachella or SXSW. There will be no nasty, drawn-out Kurt & Courtney divorce proceedings; no "tell-all" books by disgruntled old band members; no pointless collaborations with sorry bands like Slipknot or OneRepublic looking to milk whatever would be left of Cobain's indie cred.

 Like some other performers who left us far too soon (such as Belushi, Marilyn Monroe, and Hendrix), Cobain is now frozen in time, and is quickly passing into the realm of legend. He will always and forever be the brooding, scruffy-looking, twenty-something floppy-haired genius who impacted musical history. In many ways, he has ascended into the pantheon of those stars who will never grow old, and whose reputation and work will forever be secure. As tragic as his death was, and in spite of all that his friends, family and fans lost with him being gone from the Earth for these past twenty years, at least there is some small solace in that.

 My younger sister sent me this Nirvana box set for Christmas in 2004 - one of her better holiday gifts in the past twenty years. A Nirvana set was previously scheduled for release in late 2001, but was held up by Courtney Love, specifically over the unreleased song "You Know You're Right". Love considered the tune a valuable centerpiece song, and as such didn't want to see it buried and "wasted" in a multi-disc set. She dragged the surviving band members into court regarding it. In the end, a compromise was reached, and "You Know You're Right" was released on the 2002 single-disc Nirvana compilation - paving the way for With The Lights Out two years later (in the end containing an acoustic demo of "You Know You're Right", which I hope to God Grohl and Novolesic included as a "screw you" gesture to Love . . .).

All in all, this is a superb set, in that instead of repackaging cuts from the band's studio albums, the set consists almost entirely of previously rare or unreleased material, including b-sides, demos, rough rehearsal recordings and live recordings. The songs are sequenced in roughly chronological order, so by going straight through them, you can basically follow the evolution and development of Nirvana's sound. For fans, this is an essential recording.

So, here you are - Nirvana's With The Lights Out box set (Well, the first three music discs; I didn't include the fourth disc here, a DVD of band rehearsals, concerts and music videos), released by DGC Records on November 23rd, 2004. Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.  

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The Beatles - With The Beatles (Purple Chick) (3 Discs)

Well, here we are - November 22nd, 2013, the fiftieth anniversary of one of the worst, most traumatic and far-reaching days in American history.  This is going to be a day full of stories, tributes and recollections, graveside homages and pilgrimages to sites associated with that fateful day.  I already provided my reflections on the Kennedy assassination, and my journeys to and observations of the various locations in assassination lore, years ago in a previous post; I don't see any value or worth in rehashing here what the crime has meant to me throughout my life - you're going to get more than enough of that today, from multiple sources.

The shock and horror of November 22nd, 1963 and its association as a timeline-changing moment has long overshadowed the fact that this date was also one of the most momentous in popular music history.  Not one, but two legendary albums were released on this day: one was the holiday compilation A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector, put out in the United States by Philles Records - the grandfather of all holiday records to come.  The other was the British debut of With The Beatles, the band's second long-player, released eight months to the day after their debut album Please Please Me, the Number One album on the UK charts since May of that year.

In addition to featuring an iconic and oft-copied/parodied album cover (taken by photographer Robert Freeman), With The Beatles is significant in that it includes the first George Harrison solo composition (the great "Don't Bother Me") on a Beatles record (not that his bandmates appreciated his efforts; it would be nearly two years before another Harrison song appeared on a Beatles album).  It was also the last time that cover songs would make up such a significant proportion of a Beatles album (in addition to George's song, the disc included seven Lennon-McCartney compositions and six covers, including tunes by Chuck Berry and Motown artists, among others).  Their next studio album, A Hard Day's Night, released in 1964, would be the band's first containing all original tunes.

This album was hugely popular in England, taking over the Number One Album spot from its predecessor Please Please Me the week after its release, and remaining on top for almost six months (all told, the first two Beatles albums controlled the top of the British charts for a remarkable fifty-one consecutive weeks).  With The Beatles was only the second album in the UK (after the South Pacific soundtrack album of 1958) to sell a million copies.  However, with all of its popularity overseas, it was literally decades before this album was properly released in the U.S.  With The Beatles was an early victim of EMI's American distributor Capitol Records' tendency to repackage and alter the song lists and running order of the British releases.  Nine of the original album's fourteen tracks would appear on Meet The Beatles!, their first U.S. release, in January 1964; the remaining five would be released in the States on their second Capitol LP, The Beatles' Second Album, that following April.  It wasn't until July 1987 that the original With The Beatles album would be properly released in the U.S.

As for what I'm offering here: these are the Purple Chick bootlegs of this great album, put out in 2004 and gathered up by yours truly in that legendary week-long downloading marathon way back when . . .  This set includes mono and stereo mixes of the original songs, along with a third disc full of rehearsals and aborted takes of some of these classics.  If you have any prior experience with Purple Chick product, then you'll know that the packaging and sound quality of this music will be impeccable, as always.

So, let me offer up to you all one of the few bright spots from that sad and shocking date back in 1963: The Beatles' three-disc With The Beatles compilation, released by the good people at Purple Chick in 2004.  This music is provided not to drown out the thoughts and feelings regarding JFK on this somber anniversary, but to remind us all that the world is never completely evil or tragic, and even in the worst of times, good things can still occur.  Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

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The Beatles - The Complete BBC Sessions (Purple Chick) (10 Discs plus Bonus Disc)

January is always the slowest month for me, in terms of putting up new posts on this blog. Coming down off the highs of the run-up to Christmas and New Years, and facing all of the holiday bills I now have to pay . . . plus football season is winding up (with my team, as per usual, not making the playoffs) . . . and the weather REALLY starts to suck, so now I get to face weeks of driving to work over icy roads on bald tires.  Let's just say that my mood during January isn't the greatest.  I'm just trying to drag myself through the month, with a thick, hazy cloud of ennui hanging over my head like a real-life Schleprock ("Wowzy wowzy woo woo", indeed). And that slackadaisical attitude can't help but extend itself into my writing; I just lose the motivation to put pen to paper (or more accurately, "fingers to keyboard") for a couple of weeks.

But gradually, as February and the prospect of warmer weather in the near future approaches, I usually shake out of this funk, and start getting back to some serious posting. So just bear with me, folks, please - I'll be fully back at it soon enough.

In the meantime, I hope this one tides you all over: The Complete BBC Sessions, put out by the good people at Purple Chick back in 2004. This is the updated and expanded ten-disc set they put out in late 2004 (they originally released a three-disc set earlier that year), containing (by my count) all fifty-one Beatles shows aired on BBC Radio between 1962 and 1965.  And if THAT'S not enough, there's a little something extra I've included with this post - the elusive 11th disc in this set, containing interviews the band and band members conducted on a variety of shows between 1963 and 1970, along with songs from guest bands that were included as part of their many BBC shows (very few of their BBC shows were 100% Beatles material - music from groups the Fabs liked were usually included to fill out the programs).

I've been getting quite a bit of demand for this set over the past week, so I figured I'd post it, and let the masses have a crack at it as well! I've converted all of the albums over from FLAC to .mp3 - sound quality is still good, and the files are much smaller and iTunes-friendlier.  And all the song names and interviews denote the shows they originated from - it took me a while to find and append that information on each file, especially on the bonus disc - but it was worth it.

So, for your (extensive) listening pleasure, I proudly present you with The Beatles' Complete BBC Sessions, nearly 20 solid hours of nonstop listening spread over eleven discs, courtesy of Purple Chick. Enjoy this humongous stopgap done to rectify my recent lack of posts . . . and as always, please let me know what you think.

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[Postscript (26 May 13) - getting a HUGE amount of interest in this posting over the past week, due to the recent article in the Atlantic Monthly regarding the Beatles' BBC recordings - thank you, magazine writer Colin Fleming!  Here's a link to the article, if you're interested.]

The Clash - London Calling: 25th Anniversary Legacy Edition (RS500 - #8)

Been a while since I did a Rolling Stone 500 album . . . so here you are.

I have fond memories of this album. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I spent most of the summer of 1984 traveling up and down the East Coast on a Yard Patrol (YP) craft as part of my Youngster (sophomore) year training at the Naval Academy. We were part of a flotilla of three or four of these boats, doing training on maneuvers, navigation, etc. I thought that it would be a drag, but it turned out to be a lot of fun. We made port in cities from Maine to Virginia, and had a lot of laughs and adventures.

The training time at sea was intense, but interesting and somewhat fun as well. There were a couple of officers and enlisted on board, but most of the operation and management of the YP was done by the midshipmen, with two senior classmen in charge and more than a dozen of us lower-classmen doing the day-to-day duties. These included deck operations (handling the lines and the anchor), acting as radio operator or signalman, and the most coveted and enjoyable duty, manning the helm (actually steering the ship). But there was one job on board that everyone hated and tried to avoid - engine room duty.

The engine room space on the YP was a cramped, dank platform lined with valves and gauges, deep in the shallow bowels of that boat and accessible by a narrow, slippery ladder. These tubs were powered by cranky, rickety old diesel engines, which the engine room platform sat right in the middle of, so it was hot, loud and reeking with fuel fumes. Keep in mind that it was during the summer as well, which added to the heat down below. For your duty shift in this purgatory, you were responsible for monitoring power output and fuel consumption, and notify the officers at the first sign of any irregularity or malfunction. Basically, you sat on a stool for hours in the heat and noise, logging gauge readings into a grimy ledger, while a small and totally inadequate fan spun in a corner, futilely attempting to alleviate the temperature and stench. It was hateful but necessary work, and the first couple of times I took my turn down there, I was miserable.

But about a week into the cruise, I hit upon a solution - I asked if I could bring some music down into the engine room with me, and the powers-that-be approved (just before we left Annapolis, I had purchased a small cassette boombox at the Midshipmen's Store, and had brought it along with my rapidly growing tape collection). It did little to lower the temperature or dissipate the stench of diesel down there, but at least I could pass the time by listening to my favorite tunes. And the album I listened to down there the most was The Clash's London Calling - I don't know why; it just seemed right for the space.

I played songs like "Hateful", "Clampdown", "Brand New Cadillac" (covered by my own band many years later, to my delight), and my all-time favorite Clash song, "The Guns Of Brixton", over and over, perched on my stool in the bowels of that boat and singing along, safe in the knowledge that no one up above could hear me with all the engine noise down below. London Calling became a favorite during that summer, and remains a favorite to this day. As I've said before, Combat Rock is my personal favorite Clash album, but London Calling is probably the Clash's most perfect album, where they began to expand and add new sounds beyond their original punk style, without completely abandoning that ethic. There is no filler on London Calling - practically every song on the album is a classic.

[And, in addition, it has what is probably the coolest album cover in rock history, a shot of Paul Simonon smashing his bass in New York City in 1979. The original smashed instrument is on display at the Rock Hall of Fame in Cleveland - it was the single best thing I saw during my visit there in 2003!]

I have owned this album in practically every iteration - vinyl, cassette and CD. Back in 2004, when I heard that an expanded Legacy Edition of London Calling was going to be released, I immediately gave away my copy of the original CD and ran out to purchase the update. And I was not disappointed. The Legacy Edition contains a disc of remastered versions of the original songs, but the second and third discs are where the gold lies in this collection. Disc 2 features The Vanilla Tapes, the band's legendary rehearsal recordings from the London Calling sessions at Vanilla Studios in London, long thought to be lost after a roadie supposedly left them sitting on a Underground train seat. Mick Jones miraculously found copies of these tapes twenty-five years later, sitting in a cardboard box in his closet. And they are well worth the listen - intriguing demos of almost all of the songs that made the final album.

The third disc in this set is a DVD, containing promo videos for the songs "Clampdown", "Train in Vain" and "London Calling", candid footage of the band recording the album at Wessex Studios, and a great documentary, "The Last Testament - The Making of London Calling".

I'm not going to bother blathering on and on here about how great this album is - better writers than I have already showered London Calling with deserved praise. It is considered by most critics to be the best album of the 1980s (its American release was in January 1980, a month after its British debut), and without question it rates its inclusion as one of Rolling Stone's top ten albums of all time. So I'll stop talking, and just let you all listen and enjoy.

So, for your consideration: London Calling: 25th Anniversary Legacy Edition, the expanded and remastered version of the 1979 original album, released in 2004 on CBS Records. Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think:

Music (Discs 1 & 2): Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download links ASAP:

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Video (Disc 3): Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download links ASAP:

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The Beatles - Revolver (Purple Chick), Vol. I & II

I know that the consensus "Greatest Album of All Time" is Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band, but my all-time favorite Beatles album is Revolver. Revolver is where I think the Beatles peaked, in terms of overall songcraft, inventiveness and variety. Indian music, Motown, children's music, rock, pop, chamber music - all enhanced by the most groundbreaking studio techniques seen on an album up to that point (did I mention that this record came out in 1966?) - they did it ALL on Revolver, and everything holds together, as both stand-alone tunes and as a coherent album. I know that it's near-blasphemy to say this, but I feel that Revolver is FAR superior to Sgt. Pepper - and The White Album, for that matter.

I never get tired of hearing the songs on this disc. In fact, one of my favorite memories from my days in Texas is a trip I took with my girlfriend to Austin one weekend. We ended up in a small bar along the main drag there, where a four-piece band of what looked to be high school kids were set up and playing their songs. Suddenly, these youngsters kicked in with an absolutely amazing live version of "Tomorrow Never Knows" - I mean, words cannot describe how good they were, and how stunning their version was. I often wonder what happened to that group, and if they got any farther than that little club in Austin, because they were THAT good.

One weekend afternoon in the spring of 2008, I was browsing the magazine racks at Borders Books in Newark, Delaware, checking out the latest issues of Q and Uncut in the section housing the music rags. I can't recall what made me pick up the latest issue of Rolling Stone - maybe it was the cover photo, or a feature article that caught my eye. It HAD to be something out of the ordinary, because any other time I wouldn't have touched that magazine with a ten-foot pole. In my mind, Rolling Stone is the magazine of the music establishment; it's the one you go to if you want reviews on the most recent Springsteen or Third Eye Blind album, or commentary on the latest Dylan reissue. But as for any writing related to what is happening on the cutting edge of music, Rolling Stone is just about the last place on Earth to look for that. I respect their coverage of classic rock (as my own ongoing "Rolling Stone 500" postings here on this blog humbly acknowledge), and their political reporting over the past 40 years has been consistently superb. But in my opinion, Rolling Stone hasn't been interesting since they last published an article by or about the late, legendary Hunter S. Thompson, the magazine's former "National Affairs Desk" correspondent - the guy who more than anyone else put them on the map, journalistically speaking.

But I digress . . .

ANYWAY, as I was saying - for some reason, I picked up Rolling Stone and started flipping through it. Near the front of the magazine, I came across a small article celebrating the release of what were reported to be high-quality Beatles bootlegs, by something/someone called Purple Chick:

The Beatles' albums came out on CD in 1987, but fans have long complained that the early digital technology used to remaster the recordings left them sounding hollow and thin — and that the official remasters are way overdue. That's where Purple Chick comes in — a secretive fan (or group of fans) who has been quietly remastering classic discs like Revolver and A Hard Day's Night, and releasing the digital files for free online. How is this possible? The Beatles' CDs sound so bad that carefully digitized tracks from pristine vinyl copies are noticeably better — with crisper highs, a fuller soundstage, and more realistic reproduction of instruments and voices. And the Purple Chick editions are superior to the originals in other ways, too: The Sgt. Pepper collection contains the original record in mono and stereo, and four discs worth of studio outtakes; the White Album comes in a whopping twelve-disc version, including alternate takes, studio chatter, demos and fascinating jams.

Although the write-up was short, it included the website address where these bootlegs could be downloaded.

"Holy shit!", I thought as I immediately dropped the magazine back on the rack and literally ran out of the store, fumbling for my car keys as I inwardly cursed the stupid bunch of bastards the Rolling Stone staff apparently were for diming Purple Chick out so blatantly. By publishing in a national magazine the exact Internet location of where to download unauthorized records, I knew that the site was at risk of being immediately shut down by the authorities. For all I knew as I hightailed it home from the bookstore, the site had already been taken offline. All the way back to nearby Elkton, Maryland, I lambasted Rolling Stone in my thoughts for their idiocy, and as I hurried through the door towards my computer, I prayed that Purple Chick was still up and running.

To my relief and good fortune, it was. I sat down, settled in, and began downloading everything I could from their site.

The guy or guys at Purple Chick (no one really knows who or how many people were behind it) have over the years done many remasterings of classic albums. They've done some work on the Beach Boys' back catalogue, some with Tracy Chapman and a lot of Indigo Girls. But their main concentration and specialty was in Beatles remasters. Over the years, they put out amazing multi-disc sets of all of the Beatles major albums. In addition, they gathered rare and obscure Fab Four material (like the original Decca audition tapes, the complete BBC Radio shows, and their annual Christmas fan club records), cleaned those up, and released pristine versions. The work that they did on the Beatles music, unheralded and unrewarded, puts to complete shame the botched job EMI did with their widely publicized recent "remasterings" of the Beatles catalog.

Alas, with all of the great work Purple Chick did with this music, they were forced to go further underground. Sure enough, just as I figured would happen, the authorities came in and clamped down on the site within a week of the RS article appearing. Fortunately, by the time they were shut down, I had gathered up pretty much everything I wanted from them, including their Revolver remaster (I was sorely tempted to get their twelve-disc(!) reworking of The White Album - auditions and studio takes included - but I just didn't have the time or wherewithal (not to worry, though - I got it later!)). On everything I collected, the sound quality was just as superb as had been claimed.

For your information, here's the song lineup for the Purple Chick 3-disc Revolver set:

VOLUME I (Disc 1 is in stereo; disc 2 is in mono):

Disc 1:
1: Paperback Writer
2: Rain
3: Taxman
4: Eleanor Rigby
5: I’m Only Sleeping
6: Love You To
7: Here, There and Everywhere
8: Yellow Submarine
9: She Said, She Said
10: Good Day Sunshine
11: And Your Bird Can Sing
12: For No One
13: Dr. Robert
14: I Want To Tell You
15: Got To Get You Into My Life
16: Tomorrow Never Knows (mono = mono matrix ii)

alternate stereo mixes
17: I'm Only Sleeping (US mix)
18: And Your Bird Can Sing (US mix)
19: Dr. Robert (US mix)
20: Paperback Writer (Anthology video)
21: Rain (Anthology video)
22: Eleanor Rigby (Y.S. Songtrack)
23: Love You To (Y.S. Songtrack)
24: Yellow Submarine (Y.S. Songtrack)
25: For No One (Anthology DVD)
26: Paperback Writer (Anthology DVD)
27: Rain (Anthology DVD)

Disc 2
alternate mono mixes
1: Paperback Writer
2: Rain
3: Taxman
4: Eleanor Rigby
5: I’m Only Sleeping
6: Love You To
7: Here, There and Everywhere
8: Yellow Submarine
9: She Said, She Said
10: Good Day Sunshine
11: And Your Bird Can Sing
12: For No One
13: Dr. Robert
14: I Want To Tell You
15: Got To Get You Into My Life
16: Tomorrow Never Knows (mono = mono matrix ii)
17: I’m Only Sleeping (US mix)
18: Dr. Robert (US mix)
19: Tomorrow Never Knows (Mono Matrix I)
20: Yellow Submarine (unreleased)
21: Yellow Submarine (film mix)

VOLUME II (one disc)

1: Mark I (Tomorrow Never Knows) - take 1 (Anthology 2)
2: Got To Get You Into My Life - take 5 (Anthology 2 + Anthology DVD + Anthology video)
3: Paperback Writer - take 1 (Studio Sessions)
4: Paperback Writer - take 2 (Studio Sessions + URT1)
5: And Your Bird Can Sing - take 2
(stereo remix from Anthology DVD surround channels, with loop removed)
6: And Your Bird Can Sing - take 2 + overdubs
(stereo remix from Anthology DVD surround channels, with loop removed)
7: Taxman - take 11 (Anthology 2)
8: Eleanor Rigby - take 14 (Anthology 2)
9: I'm Only Sleeping - rehearsal (Anthology 2)
10: I'm Only Sleeping - remake take 1 (Anthology 2)
11: For No One - rehearsal (CRMM)
12: For No One - take 1 (CRMM)
13: For No One - take 2 (CRMM)
14: For No One - a (CCRMM)
15: For No One - b (CCRMM)
16: For No One - c (CCRMM)
17: For No One - take 10 (composite from CRMM)
18: For No One - take 14 (composite from CRMM)
19: Yellow Submarine - take 5 (Real Love single)
20: Here, There and Everywhere - take 7(+14) (Real Love single)
21: Here, There and Everywhere - take 14 (composite from CRMM)

alternate mixes:
22: Got To Get You Into My Life - take 5 (Anthology 2)
23: And Your Bird Can Sing - take 2 (Anthology 2 OOPSed)
24: And Your Bird Can Sing - take 2+overdubs (Anthology 2)

monitor mixes:
25: Mark I (Tomorrow Never Knows) - take 1 (Anthology DVD)
26: Tomorrow Never Knows - take 3 (Anthology DVD)
27: For No One - take 10a (CCRMM + CRMM)
28: For No One - take 10b (CRMM)
29: For No One - take 10c (CRMM + CCRMM + CRMM)
30: For No One - take 14 (CRMM + CCRMM)
31: Here, There and Everywhere - take 14a (CCRMM + CRMM)
32: Here, There and Everywhere - take 14b (CRMM)
33: Here, There and Everywhere - take 14c (CRMM)
34: Here, There and Everywhere - take 14d (CRMM)
35: Rain - take 7

The Purple Chick remasters are exceedingly hard to find on the Internet now. It's not like they've totally disappeared - this IS the 21st Century, the Information Age, and once something hits the Web, it's all but impossible to make it go away again. But to save you from the time and drudgery of searching, I offer you here my copy of the Purple Chick Revolver remaster, released in 2004 (the files are in .m4a - sorry). Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:

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