The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Film of the Week!

"You can keep your Marxist ways, for it's only just a phase,

For it's money, money, money, makes the world... go... round!"

--Monty Python, "Money Song" (written by Eric Idle and John Gould)

I alluded to this week's film a couple of weeks ago when I wrote about films of the 1970s, specifically that week Albert Brooks's film Real Life.  Both films eerily predicted a lot of things that in the last half century have become so commonplace we don't even really give it much thought today.  The word "prescient" gets thrown around a lot, particularly when discussing this week's film.

I watched it again this past week.  I first saw it 20 years ago and I found it powerful and thought provoking then.  It resonated even more with me this week in the wake of "The Late Show" going off the air.

In the movie, news anchor Howard Beale (played by Peter Finch) is essentially fired because of bad ratings.  After making a spectacle on live television that draws in quite an audience, the network decides to give him his own show in which he tells a studio audience--and millions of viewers watching at home--exactly what's wrong with the world today and what they need to do to fix it.  After Beale convinces his audience to try to kill a business deal that his network is trying to secure, the network realizes that he might be a liability to their bottom line and devises ways of bringing him under control.

Since the film was released 50 years ago, we've pretty much erased the line between news and entertainment.  It is ostensibly a satire of media culture.  It's a biting critique about how corporate greed has taken control of everything.  In the movie, much like in real life, networks are being run by corporations with only one guiding principle--to make as much money as they possibly can, any way they can.  We saw that in Paramount's decision to axe Stephen Colbert.  They argue that it was financial.  A lot of people (myself included) think it was political.  Honestly, what's the difference at this point?  Paramount wanted to merge with Skydance and the administration needed to approve the merger.  The administration has made it clear they don't like Colbert.  Getting rid of him would definitely make the merger more appealing to the government.  Even from a political perspective, the move was still financially motivated.

Paddy Chayefsky's Oscar-winning script is a feast for the ears.  Watching the movie, you can tell that every actor was relishing their dialogue--especially the lengthy monologues.  Beale's speech about how "there's an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube," is even sadder to contemplate when you realize that this now encompasses at least three generations.  When Arthur Jensen (played by Ned Beatty) takes Beale to task for "meddling with the forces of nature," one really believes that there are no nations, just a list of corporations and conglomerations and an "international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet.  That is the natural order of things today."  Honestly, if this is what Chayefsky thought of television, I envy him for not living long enough to see what the internet has brought us.

The movie has proven to be quite prescient indeed.  In the commentary track on the DVD, recorded in 2006, director Sidney Lumet says that everything that is depicted in the film has since actually happened in real life with the exception of the end of the movie.  And he seemed pretty convinced that he would live to see that happen too.  (Lumet died in 2011 at the age of 86.  I'm glad to say it still hasn't happened.  However, who knows what will happen tomorrow?)  Even my favourite screenwriter, Aaron Sorkin, wrote, "no predictor of the future, not even Orwell, has ever been as right as Chayefsky was when he wrote Network."

The film went on to set a number of Academy Award records.  Peter Finch died before the Oscars were awarded in 1977 and became the first actor to receive one posthumously.  Beatrice Straight won Best Supporting Actress in spite of only being in two scenes with a total screen time of just over five minutes.  Hers is the shortest performance to win an Oscar.  (It should be noted that Ned Beatty also received a Best Supporting Actor nomination and he appeared in the movie for just under six minutes.)  Finally, with this film, Paddy Chayefsky became the only screenwriter to win three Oscars for solo writing.  (He also won in 1956 for Marty and again in 1972 for The Hospital.)

Even after half a century, the premise is still so relevant that it was adapted for the London stage in 2017 starring Bryan Cranston as Beale, opposite Michelle Dockery.  A year later, Cranston continued the role on Broadway with Tatiana Maslany and Tony Goldwyn.

Originally released in 1976, starring William Holden, Faye Dunaway, and Robert Duvall, and directed by Sidney Lumet, please enjoy Network.  It might make you mad as hell too.

As I said in my album "sermon," I'll be taking a couple weeks off because of family commitments.  Until I return, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

Yours in peace, love, and rock 'n' roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents a Bonus Album of the Week! (One From the Vault!)

I wrote what follows on 5 August, 2023.  It was originally posted exclusively to Facebook in the days before I posted these "sermons" here.  This was the first time I felt compelled to focus on an album for a second time--I had already written about it in 2021.  I thought I should revisit it again after writing the "official" Album of the Week "sermon" for this week.  Enjoy.

This week's sermon is a first for me.  When I started these nearly four years ago, I made--and still make--a conscious effort to be as diverse as possible when it comes to genres and artists.  I don't like to get stuck in a rut by spending weeks focused on a particular performer or style.  Admittedly, I probably don't submit enough country, classical, or opera, and I don't think I've ever submitted a reggae or a rap album, but it's not for lack of trying on my part--most of the time, I just had more to say about something else that moved me more in that particular moment.  However, the one thing that I've been adamant about is not submitting an album more than once.  As a preventive measure, I even have a running list of the albums I have submitted so that I don't repeat any.  But since rules are made to be broken (and they are my rules anyway), for some reason, I feel compelled to revisit an album I submitted two years ago.  Besides, most of you reading this probably wouldn't have known the difference unless I told you.  I certainly hope this doesn't become a habit on my part.

Two years ago, I shared a relatively obscure album with a somewhat notorious past.  It was the eponymous (and only) album by a two-man psychedelic/heavy metal act calling itself Attila, originally released in July of 1970 on Epic Records.  The group consisted of the drummer and keyboardist/vocalist from an earlier band called The Hassles that had done two albums in the late 1960s.  There were no singes released from the album, critics hated it and if it's remembered at all, it's usually remembered for its cover which consisted of the two band members standing in a meat locker dressed as Huns, complete with furs and armour.  Music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote for AllMusic, "Attila undoubtedly is the worst album released in the history of rock & roll--hell, the history of recorded music itself.  There have been many bad ideas in rock, but none match the colossal stupidity of Attila."

I stumbled upon a cassette of it at Big Lots around 1997.  I had read about it, but had never actually heard it (the internet hadn't quite reached the level of pervasiveness that it has today), so I took a chance.  Worst case scenario, I figured I would only be out three bucks.  Strangely enough, I found I quite enjoyed it, in spite of its reputation.  As I said in 2021, I wouldn't give it any Grammys or anything, but it's a great album to listen to while driving.  I'll even go as far as to say I've heard worse albums that were actually hits.  In fact, I'll even say I've heard worse albums that were hits by bands I like more than this.  When I first submitted this album, I had said that I really wanted to find it in a format other than cassette.  I seldom play my tape because I am always afraid it's going to jam up in the cassette deck (an occasional hazard with that particular audio format).  I really wanted it on CD, primarily so I could listen to it in the car, but it's never been released that way--at least not in this country.  I also wouldn't turn my nose up at vinyl (I actually saw a vinyl copy on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when I visited in 2001).

I'm sure you're asking yourself at this point, "Will--baby--why are you seemingly so obsessed with something that is seemingly so despised?"  Well, to put it in nerd parlance, I've always been fascinated by origin stories.  I like knowing where people and characters I like come from.  As I said, Attila consisted of only two members.  The drummer was named Jon Small.  The keyboardist/singer was Billy Joel who went on to have quite the career some years later.  I had read about Attila as well as their predecessor, The Hassles, while reading about Joel in some book about the history of rock and roll.  Joel himself has described the album as "psychedelic bullshit" (for which, admittedly, I do have a bit of a soft spot).  In a 1985 interview with Dan Neer, he said, "We had about a dozen gigs and nobody could stay in the room when we were playing.  It was too loud.  We drove people literally out of clubs."

What's really frustrating to me is that the album is not even available on iTunes--a metalcore band from Atlanta, Georgia, is using the name now.  In fact the only remnant of that album that seems to be readily available is an edited version of the track "Amplifier Fire" which appeared on a 2005 Billy Joel boxed set titled My Lives.

After more than 25 years of looking, I checked out a website that seems to specialize in obscure and hard to find titles--I had some luck finding Lynda Carter's first album from the site last year as a Christmas gift for my roommate (long story).  Lo and behold, I actually found a CD of the album from a seller in France.  I think I may have paid more for the CD than I paid to see Joel perform live in 1994.  It arrived this past week and it's been such a delight to be able to listen to it again... and again, and again.  In the liner notes (something my old cassette doesn't have), Tom Paisley seemed insistent that the album "has no studio gimmicks, no multiple-track recordings.  No extra musicians were called in for the recording session.  The sounds you will here are the same as you would hear live" (assuming you could stand to be in the same room, apparently).  And listening to it again, I seem to have an even greater appreciation for it now.  I don't know why--again, it's not a great album by any stretch of the imagination.  It's loud, it's cacophonous, it's not terribly accessible, but I still think there's some merit to it.  Perhaps it's gotten better in the 53 years since its original release--maybe even just in the 26 years since I first heard it.  But then I've always said there's a difference between what I like and what I think is good.  In 2003, for the British website Head Heritage, a reviewer known as Boy Howdy summed it up nicely when he wrote, "But it's just too over the top... the album cover, the vocals, the lyrics, it just ends up being an extremely entertaining joke that Billy wasn't in on.  But I've gotta say, I dug his trip, and the record still puts me in a good memory every time."

So this week, please enjoy (again), Attila.  If you're a fan of Billy Joel (and even if you're not), I promise it's nothing like what you know of his music.  For further exploration, I also recommend The Hassles which can be found on the YouTube channel where I found the link to Attila.

Until next week (when I promise to pick something I've never submitted before), stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

Yours in peace, love, and rock and roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Album of the Week!

This week, I want to explore a theory of mine.  It might be kind of crazy.  As far as I know, I'm the only person who thinks this.  But hear me out.

In rap and hip-hop, there's always been this whole east coast/west coast rivalry... thing.  But I don't think it's exclusive to hip-hop.  I wouldn't exactly call it a rivalry--as I said, I'm the only person who seems to have picked up on this.  And I only really noticed it because of this week's artist.  Please... allow me to explain...

When I listen to many artists that made names for themselves during the "singer-songwriter" movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, I do notice that, like hip-hop artists, their music does tend to have a certain east or west coast vibe to it.  On the west, you can hear it in the songs of The Mamas and Papas; The Byrds; Buffalo Springfield; Crosby, Stills, Nash and/or Young; Joni Mitchell; The Eagles; Warren Zevon; and Randy Newman.  You can possibly even trace it back to The Beach Boys before that.  There's a certain mellowness that comes through in their music.  After all, it was The Eagles who, with a "Peaceful Easy Feeling," told us to "Take It Easy."

On the other side of the continent, artists like Paul Simon, Carole King, James Taylor, Carly Simon, and even Bruce Springsteen, were writing their songs--many with some of the same messages as their west coast counterparts--but with a different vibe to it.  I can't really explain the difference verbally.  It's more of a feeling than anything else.  Maybe it's the time difference, I don't know...

To be clear, I'm not advocating for a rivalry here.  As a fan of all of the artists I mentioned above, I would even find it hard to pick a side.  And obviously other regions had an impact on the artists that emerged from them.  I could write a doctoral thesis on how the south affected the music of Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Allman Brothers, and Jimmy Buffett.  Bob Dylan, Bob Seger, and John Mellencamp all have a midwestern feel to their music.  And I haven't even mentioned British artists.  And I'm not saying any one style is better or superior to any other.  And truthfully, I'm not sure I would have noticed it at all had it not been for one artist.

I often say that I lose a lot of rock snob street cred points by admitting that I'm a fan of Billy Joel.  So be it.  If he did nothing else, he made me love the sound of the piano.  I would even go as far as to say it's my favourite musical instrument... well... it's tied with the bagpipe.

Joel's Greatest Hits Volume I and Volume II was a staple in CD players when I was in college.  My freshman year, I lived on the fourth floor of my residence hall.  One afternoon, I took a walk around the floor just to clear my head.  I counted at least six rooms playing that album in the brief time I was out walking.  And, had I been in my room, there's a distinct possibility that I would have been playing it too.

Toward the end of that year, I started exploring beyond the Greatest Hits.  My roommate, Jake, had a cassette of 1977's The Stranger which included three songs I'd never heard on the radio as well as the full-length recording of "Just the Way You Are."  I realized that the Greatest Hits used a lot of "single edits," a notion which, over time, I learned to despise.  Before too long, I bought all of his albums.  I also started reading any kind of literature I could find on the Piano Man.

I found that Joel started out in the 1960s when he was still a teenager.  He was rumoured to have played on some of Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound" recordings, although I've never been able to verify this, let alone find out which songs he might have played on.  He later played in a psychedelic band called The Hassles.  They recorded two albums for United Artists Records between 1967 and 1969, but they were never hugely successful.  The label dropped them and the band dissolved.  Joel, along with Hassles drummer Jon Small, formed Attila, a two-man heavy metal/psychedelic outfit who recorded one self-titled album in 1970 that is notorious for being considered possibly the worst album in the history of rock 'n' roll--even Joel himself described it as "psychedelic bullshit."

(I humbly disagree with that assessment.  I've actually explored that album in these weekly "sermons"--twice!  Perhaps I may add it to this blog as one of my "Bonus" "From the Vault" entries.)

After the implosion of Attila, Joel moved to Los Angeles to pursue a solo career.  Most famously, he worked in a piano bar, the experiences of which inspired his signature song, "Piano Man."  He recorded his first three solo albums between 1971 and 1974 with session musicians.  By 1975, he had started recording his next album but was dissatisfied with the early results.  He had also grown dissatisfied with L.A. and decided to move back to New York.  Which brings me back to my east coast/west coast theory.

I've always felt that Joel's 1974 album, Streetlife Serenade, is his weakest album.  It's not that it's a bad album.  The songs are solid and well written and he sang them... well.  But when I listen to it--especially when I compare it to his later work, it just sounds to me like he almost doesn't belong there.  He's a man out of place.  He's an east coast songwriter stuck on the west coast.  Worse than that--he's an east coast songwriter trying to sound like a west coast songwriter.

After moving back to New York, Joel began re-recording his next album, this time producing it himself and using his touring band instead of session musicians.  The end result became a turning point for Joel.  He began to make more of a name for himself and--with the exception of his 2001 "classical" album--every album he recorded after that was at least a Top 10 hit in the U.S.

But, to me, it all starts with this week's album--an east coast album recorded by an east coast songwriter who knows who he is and isn't trying to sound like anyone else.  Featuring the now-standard "New York State of Mind," from 1976, please enjoy Turnstiles.

(SPECIAL GEEK NOTE:  If you're only familiar with Joel's Greatest Hits, you may notice a slight difference in the recording of "New York State of Mind."  The saxophone solo is different from what was on the original album.  Interestingly, when the albums were re-mastered in 1997, the CD of Turnstiles, for some reason, included the Greatest Hits version of "New York State of Mind."  I haven't listened to subsequent re-issues, so I don't know if this was ever changed back.)

I will be taking a couple of weeks off in order to spend time with family.  Until I return, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

Yours in peace, love, and rock 'n' roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents a Bonus Album of the Week! (One From the Vault!)

I wrote the following and posted it exclusively to Facebook on 4 November, 2023.  I was reminded of it over the last few weeks.  I recently acquired a 17-disc box set covering the bulk of the artist's work.  I guess you could say I've been binging his music.  This has caused me to have an even greater admiration for him as a singer and a songwriter than I already had.  And even after hearing all of these wonderful albums that I had never heard before, this one particular one still remains my favourite.  Enjoy.

 

"I kinda just wanted to be a songwriter, you know?  I think that's the hardest thing, to write a song... a song that, you know, when people hear it, they go, 'Oooohhh.  I know what that guy was feeling when he wrote that.'"

 --Adam Sandler as Robbie Hart in The Wedding Singer, 1998

I've always admired songwriters.  The ability to encapsulate human emotions and experiences into a three minute (give or take) musical expression is an impressive feat.  I dabbled in it myself in college.  My magnum opus, "Arctic Bitch (Colder Than You)," notwithstanding, I wasn't very successful at it... although I did get a lot of love for "Calamari (The Squid Song)."  As I learned, it's a lot harder than just writing a decent poem and setting it to music... although if I do try to write a song these days, that's still kind of how I do it (I've actually partially written two songs for fictitious Broadway musicals based on classic films... long story).

I think we've all had those experiences when we hear a song and wish we had written something that profound, that clever, that moving.  Personally, I've always wanted to write rhymes like Tom Lehrer (check out "The Vatican Rag" if you're not familiar with his work), or at the very least Paul "Rhymin'" Simon ("Getting Ready For Christmas Day" is quite phenomenal--especially the second verse).  I've always wanted to be able to write a sappy piano ballad (and I mean that as a compliment) like Billy Joel, something as cryptic as Dylan, as thought provoking as Leonard Cohen, as beautiful as Tom Waits, as biting as Randy Newman, as broken as Warren Zevon, and/or as spiritual as Bruce Springsteen.  But when I do come up with something it usually feels like a pale imitation of any or all of them.  Which is why I turn to writing things like this instead--it at least satisfies the creative urge in me.

The thing I find kind of sad is that aside from country music and novelty songs, there's not a lot of humour in your standard, everyday pop/rock song.  And it's not that the songwriters don't have a sense of humour or can't appreciate a good laugh, but if you're trying to pour your heart and soul out in a song, you typically want to be taken seriously.  According to legend, Paul McCartney woke up one morning with the tune of what would become "Yesterday" in his head.  He was convinced someone else had written it and it took the other three Beatles to convince him otherwise.  Eventually, he sat down and wrote one of the most beloved ballads of the 1960s, possibly of all time.  But until he got serious, the original lyrics were, "Scrambled eggs... Oh, my baby how I love your legs..."  I kind of wish he'd finished that.  I think I would have really enjoyed it just for the silliness of it.

In spite of my love of the works of "serious" songwriters, I do tend to gravitate toward those who aren't afraid to place their tongues firmly in their cheeks.  As much as I love a song that can break my heart, make me cry, think, and marvel at the artistry behind it, I also like something that can make me smile, even laugh.  And there's nothing that says I can't be moved by something that makes me laugh.  Few people did that better than this week's artist.

Harry Nilsson came along in the late 1960s.  While working as a computer programmer in a bank, he became fascinated by musical composition and started writing songs that were initially recorded by other artists, most notably Three Dog Night who had a hit with his song "One."  He became well known for his own recording of Fred Neil's "Everybody's Talkin'" which was used in the movie Midnight Cowboy, for which he won a Grammy.  Like me, Nilsson clearly admired songwriters and wasn't afraid to shine a light on them--such as with his 1970 album Nilsson Sings Newman in which he celebrated the works of a then relatively unknown Randy Newman.  In 1971, he released his most commercially successful album, Nilsson Schmilsson, which featured the hits "Without You" (which he didn't write) and the classic (and admittedly silly) "Coconut."  In 1973, he tackled the Great American songbook with his album A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night--long before it became fashionable for "pop" artists (or artists of any other genre, for that matter) to record whole albums of standards.  For the rest of his too short life, he not only wrote some downright amazing songs, but explored the works of other great composers.

This week's album was his follow up to Nilsson Schmilsson and I have to be honest--I like this one better.  It runs the gamut between heartbreak ("Remember") and humour ("Joy").  There are songs I wish I had written (admittedly most of the songs on this album).  I think "Turn On Your Radio" is so beautiful, I want it played at my funeral/memorial service.  "You're Breakin' My Heart" is, perhaps, the greatest expression of the dichotomy of love.  And, if nothing else, you've got to give the man serious props for having the balls to sing a song about aging and dying with a choir of senior citizens ("I'd Rather Be Dead").  So this week, from 1972, please enjoy Harry Nilsson with Son of Schmilsson.

Until next week stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if you haven't got an answer, then you haven't got a question.  And if you never had a question, then you'd never have a problem.  But if you never had a problem, well everyone would be happy.  But if everyone was happy, there'd never be a love song.

Yours in peace love and rock and roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill

 

 

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Film of the Week!

I honestly had no idea what film to submit this week.  A few days ago, the Criterion website delivered me a sucker punch by having a sale on their entire catalog.  (I've talked about the Criterion Collection in previous posts, so I won't go into it here.  If you're not familiar with it, you can look for those posts after you've read this.)  So I bought a couple of titles.  They literally just arrived less than an hour ago.  I realized that one of the titles I ordered, in spite of the fact that it's more than 60 years old, still holds up.  It's still a shocking film that still freaks the shit out of me every time I watch it--and now I get to watch it in high definition blu-ray!

Originally released in 1962, the movie focuses on Raymond Shaw (played by Laurence Harvey), a Korean War veteran who comes home after being held as a POW with the rest of his troop.  He's considered a hero for what happened.  Much to his disdain, his stepfather is a high profile senator, John Iselin (played by James Gregory), hell bent on rooting out Communism in the government.  However, Raymond's mother, Eleanor (the great Angela Lansbury in an Oscar-nominated performance) is really the person running the show, controlling what her husband says in front of the TV cameras and smearing the reputations of anyone who dares question him.

Some time after the return of Raymond and his men, certain members of his troop start having nightmarish flashbacks.  Major Bennett Marco (played by Frank Sinatra) begins to have doubts about what really happened and decides to investigate, only to find a terrifying truth.

At the time it came out, it was a shocking political thriller.  After the assassination of JFK, the film was rumoured--falsely--to have been pulled from circulation for over 20 years.  In 1988, the film was re-issued in theaters and subsequently on home video.  It was even given a PG-13 rating which, at that time, was still a relatively recent thing.  And even nearly 40 years after that, themes like fundamental freedoms of speech and press and holding those in power to account still resonate today... sadly.  Perhaps the most shocking thing about it is that those themes are still eerily relevant.

I always recommend this film to people my own age and younger just because of Lansbury.  Having come of age during the 1980s, I essentially grew up on "Murder She Wrote" and Disney films like Bedknobs and Broomsticks.  I tell people that if that's all you remember her from, this performance will set your hair on end.

In 2004, director Jonathan Demme remade the film starring Meryl Streep, Denzel Washington, and Liev Schreiber.  As much as I like Demme and his cast, I've never seen it.  As I understand, the plot was updated to make it more about corporate interference in government policy--although that is also a concern more than 20 years after that was made.  The original was so rooted in the Cold War that it was practically another character in the movie.  I've always felt that taking it out of that environment would ruin it--I don't care how good the cast and director are.

Co-starring Janet Leigh, based on the 1959 novel by Richard Condon, and directed by John Frankenheimer, please enjoy the original (and, dare I say, better) version of The Manchurian Candidate.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

Yours in peace, love, and rock 'n' roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill

 

 

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Album of the Week!

"Any band that doesn't play live is only half a band as far as I'm concerned."

 --Keith Richards

Most musicians will tell you that most of their money is made on the road, playing in front of a live audience--especially if you're albums aren't exactly Top 40 material.  As good, even great, as a studio album might be, the artist typically has to go out and promote it.  That usually means concerts and late night TV appearances.

Playing live allows for a certain amount of freedom.  In the pre-CD era, bands could take a song and turn it into a half hour jam session--for better or worse.  Obviously this wouldn't work in a studio when you only have roughly 20-25 minutes per side of an LP.  Admittedly this was done primarily by jazz musicians and The Grateful Dead.

Some artists, I think sound better live.  As much as I love Santana's first three albums--and I do--the live performances of those songs, especially from their first album, never cease to blow my mind.  Santana was one of the breakout performances at Woodstock in 1969, roughly two weeks before the release of their debut album.  According to legend, Carlos Santana thought the band was going on later in the day, so he dropped some acid figuring it would wear off before they performed.  Unfortunately, he seriously miscalculated when they were playing and so it kicked in as they were taking the stage.  He's said that he has no recollection of playing "Soul Sacrifice," he remembers wrestling with a snake.  But I contend it's still the best performance of that song ever recorded--certainly better than the trimmed down 6-minute version that closes the album.

A few years ago, I had the pleasure of seeing D.A. Pennebaker's concert film Monterey Pop.  Released in 1968, it documented the music festival organized by John Phillips and Lou Adler the previous year.  So many of the artists made a name for themselves at that festival because of those performances, which are now legendary.  Jimi Hendrix famously sacrificed his guitar at the end of his performance.  Otis Redding began connecting to audiences beyond soul and R&B listeners.  (He would have continued to do so had he not died in a plane crash six months later.)  And Janis Joplin... her performance of "Ball and Chain" with Big Brother and the Holding Company is a sight to behold.  I can't even begin to describe it.  And I don't have to--the look on Cass Elliott's face in the audience said everything.

Obviously, the main difference between a studio album and a live performance is the audience.  It's the ultimate way for an artist to know whether or not the material works.  Having chart success is one thing.  But playing your song and having thousands of people singing along is something else entirely.  Sometimes it's best to just let the audience have at it.  During a 1985 performance of "Breakdown" at L.A.'s Wiltern Theatre, Tom Petty let the audience sing the first verse and chorus while he and the Heartbreakers played.  He quipped, "You're gonna put me out of a job."

As an audience member, I'm just as guilty as anyone of getting into the performance and singing along more than I probably should.  When I was fifteen, I saw the Rolling Stones when they toured behind their album Steel Wheels.  It was my first concert.  I was super stoked when they played "You Can't Always Get What You Want," which has been my favourite song since I was twelve.  Mick just sang "You can't..." and 35,000 people sang back the rest of it.  It was the first time I ever felt like I was a part of something bigger than myself.  I still like to think I'm singing backup on the 1991 live album Flashpoint.  (I'm sure I'm not, but it's still fun to fantasize.)

That interaction between artist and audience is almost spiritual.  I saw Billy Joel in the spring of 1994 with a bunch of friends from Ball State, including the mother of one friend.  When he closed the show with his signature tune, "Piano Man," he just let the audience sing the chorus to him.  We not only sang along, we all had our arms around each other and were swaying back and forth.  I had my arm around my friend's mom--who I only just met that afternoon--singing to one of my favourite musicians.  During the last chorus, not a sound came from the stage.  Not one guitar riff, not one drum beat, not a single note from Billy's piano.  The only sound in Market Square Arena (don't look for it today, it's no longer there) was a singing audience.  It still makes me emotional today when I think about it.

Some artists connect with their audiences in almost mystical ways.  When listening to Bruce Springsteen's live recordings, especially with the E Street Band, you can tell he feeds off the energy of the crowd and gives it back to them.  His shows notoriously run over three hours--quite a feat for a guy now in his mid-70s.  Some songs, like "Badlands," require the audience to essentially sing backup.  During some of those songs, he goes into what I call "rock 'n' roll preacher mode."  He basically turns the concert into a religious revival.  And even though I've never seen him live, hearing those performances frequently makes me feel as though I'm there with him.

Live albums serve two important purposes.  Firstly, they showcase what a band can--or in some cases cannot--do on stage.  It's often fun to compare and contrast the live performances to the studio ones.  Secondly, they provide a nice souvenir for the audience who spent a lot of money (especially these days) to see the show.

Some live albums have become classic--even iconic--over the years.  When I hear some of them, I often wonder what it would have been like to be there in person.  This week's album is one of those.  Strangely, I've only just discovered it in the last month.  I found a used CD of it on Record Store Day and felt compelled to grab it immediately.  Glad I did--it's one of the best live albums I've ever heard.  It was originally released as a double album in 1971.  There was enough material that didn't go on the album that three performances were actually included on their next studio album.  In 2003, because of the ability to put more music on a CD than a vinyl LP, a special deluxe edition of the album was released featuring even more music than it originally had three decades earlier.  This week please enjoy that edition of The Allman Brothers Band At Fillmore East.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

Yours in peace, love, and rock 'n' roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill 

 

 

The Reverend Will the Thrill Presents the Film of the Week!

I've studied film for more than thirty years now, both in college and just for my own amusement.  I'm not what one would call a preeminent scholar on the subject by any means--my knowledge of foreign films is pretty limited, and I've only read a handful of books about cinema.  I just watch a lot of movies in a lot of different styles and genres.  I know what I like, I know what I don't.  Really, I'm more of a nerd than a scholar, but nerds and scholars tend to share the same passion.

"Everybody knows when you go to the show, you can't take the kids along.

You've gotta read the paper, and know the code of G, PG, and R, and X.

And you've gotta know what the movie's about before you even go.

Tex Ritter's gone and Disney's dead and the screen is filled with sex."

--The Statler Brothers, "Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott?", 1973

One thing that scholars and a humble nerd like myself do agree on is that cinema drastically changed in the 1970s.  While I've not seen actual documentation on this, my theory is that it had to do with the ratings system that was implemented in the late 1960s when the Hayes Code became effectively unenforceable.  Starting in the late 1960s, there was a movement, especially in independent films, to make things as "real" as possible.  In Bullitt (1968), Steve McQueen insisted on it, going so far as to shoot hospital scenes in an actual hospital and using real doctors and nurses instead of actors playing doctors and nurses--and, of course, he did all his own driving.  Movies suddenly no longer had to just refer to more unseemly topics like sex and drug use--they could actually show them.  Characters in movies could suddenly talk the way normal people talk--people curse in real life.  M*A*S*H (1970) is considered the first American film to drop the dreaded "F-Bomb."  (And, if I may say so, it's one of the funniest lines in the whole movie.)  If any content in someone's movie might be considered "taboo" in any way, shape, or form, you could just slap an R rating on it, say it's not appropriate for children, and we never looked back.

The violence became bloodier which made films, especially crime dramas, like Dog Day Afternoon (1975) and Taxi Driver (1976) more visceral.  Science fiction films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Alien (1979), and especially Star Wars (1977), created new special effects technologies in order to visually tell stories that took place in environments we can only imagine.  Filmmakers were essentially free to tell the stories they wanted to tell without having to censor themselves.  (Of course, fights over the ratings of those films continue to this day.  For more on this you can read my blog post from 1 July, 2017.)

A couple of films of the 1970s are looked at today as having predicted certain elements of the media landscape that we have today.  The big one was Network (1976), which, while a satire that focused on corporate greed and the media's willingness to do anything for ratings, is considered by many today to be prescient for its time--maybe even too prescient.  Nothing in that film seems too outrageous today.  Frankly, I'm kind of surprised that some of the events in the film, particularly the ending, haven't actually happened... yet.

I only just recently saw this week's film for the first time.  The film was inspired by the PBS documentary series "An American Family" (1973), which followed the Loud family (that's their name, not necessarily a description of them) as they actually navigated their real day-to-day lives.  In this movie, Albert Brooks plays Albert Brooks, a filmmaker who decides he wants to film his own American family for a full year.  After an extensive amount of research and testing, he decides to film the Yeager family of Phoenix, Arizona.  He sends them on a vacation to Hawaii and, while they're gone, outfits their home with high tech hidden cameras and recording devices.  He even buys the house across the street, so he can be nearby monitoring the action at all times, aided by two social scientists.

From the moment he picks up the Yeagers at the airport, things go comically wrong.  Dr. Warren Yeager (Charles Grodin), a respected veterinarian, is clearly aware of the presence of cameras and tries to paint as rosy a picture as possible.  His wife Jeanette (Frances Lee McCain) begins having reservations almost immediately and even seems to try to undermine the whole project in order to spend just a little time by herself.

Today, the concept of "reality TV" is commonplace.  Over the last few decades, we've watched famous families like the Osbournes and the Kardashians open up their homes and not so famous people in competition to see who can rough it on some remote island.  But when this film was made it was pretty outlandish.  Even the technology used in the movie, which seems kind of clunky and science-fictional for its time, is nothing special by today's standards.

Albert Brooks had already established himself as a groundbreaking comedian and director of short films, particularly for "Saturday Night Live."  This was the first feature film he directed, which he also co-wrote with Monica McGowan and the great Harry Shearer, who also plays Pete the cameraman.  From 1979, please enjoy Real Life.

Until next week, stay safe, be good to your neighbours, and please remember that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving definitely isn't for you.

Yours in peace, love, and rock 'n' roll!

The Reverend Will the Thrill