Reviews: Jimi Hendrix's "Valleys of Neptune"

First Published in PressPlus1 Online Magazine:

http://www.pressplus1.com/blog/evan+dowbiggin/1859-valleys-of-neptune-another-from-the-seemingly-bottomless-archive-of-jimi-hendrix.html

"Some die too young, some die too old; the precept sounds strange, but die at the right age."

-Friedrich Nietzsche

Was Hendrix's death at age 27 the right time for him to go? Ponder that. One can definitely argue — and I tend to do so whenever dragged into the matter — that he was a one-of-a-kind star, destined to burn out before he faded away. I always felt that what the future had in store for Hendrix was never meant to be found out. Those other early casualties? Most just crashed after several years of cheating death in their drug or alcohol stupors.

I guess I couldn't see Jimi ever becoming washed up. Nay, I couldn't stand the idea. It seemed good for a guy as otherworldly as Hendrix to leave the world before his greatness left him. Hey, no one said the road to rock & roll infamy was paved with candy coloured rainbows and marshmallow cobblestones... unless the one going down the road is tripping on acid. No, it's pockmarked by blood, bones, powders, syringes, broken bottles and other unsightly things.

Sure, Jim Morrison had more to give too, but it would've been progressively more dreadful and embarrassing considering his drug and alcohol appetites. And it would've been expected instead of pitied. Hendrix was too important to die, many told themselves, as his passing reverberated with waves of shock.

Jimi was not renowned as a troubled addict like others who dropped dead in his generation of rockers. Jimi was troubled for sure, but by the shackles of being a creative beacon with a tangled up family past as well as by no longer feeling secure in his own skin as a major star. Mr. Hendrix's chemical dependencies marked his undoing, but the now-stereotypical rockstar death of choking on your own vomit hardly seemed like the type of end he deserved. Morrison naked in a bathtub, heart given out from all the abuse it had taken — I find that very fitting. A poet's death, if you will. A drunk, manic shaman poet's death.

But Hendrix should've been in one of those mystical plane crashes like Otis Redding or his future disciple Stevie Ray Vaughn. Ah never mind, this is getting morbid. The bottom line is that when a significant artist flames out before their time, dies in the throes of youthful genius, croaks before he or she can truly deliver a long, healthy prime or full-bodied career, it's a blessing and a curse for that artist and their fans.

The blessing is that the short time span allows that artist to be crystallized as anyone remembers them best, immortalized when they shone brightest. The curse is that the future becomes littered with various parties who were unrelated to the true meat and bones of that legend, all cashing in off that death in a way. Hey, someone has to or the memories would fade into the sands of time!

This all aids in lifting the memory of the deceased icon to near God-like status. Not to mention, the hodgepodge clutter that becomes the discography, where live performance, studio outtakes, radio appearances, backstage jams and anything else within a microphone's radius becomes fair game to put together new albums with.

For nearly four decades, this has been going on with James Marshall Hendrix. No one can say for sure what Hendrix would have done but the immediate future seemed full of possibilities considering his 1970 flirtation with jazz and funk. Personally, I think the disco era and punk/new wave eras would have been a lean time for Hendrix the artist, though as a musician he'd be a guest on everyone's records no doubt.

It's astounding to note that Hendrix's recording career as a solo artist and/or bandleader was less than four years long, though his popularity post-mortem would have you believe he was around for the entire 1960s decade and then some. As everyone knows, Hendrix was a revolutionary of the rock & roll genre, the guitar, and managed to be the first rocker to ever touch what jazz greats had done previously: Be virtuosic/visionary on their instrument and tremendous as a composer to boot.

Hendrix still stands as the John Coltrane of rock. Coltrane is a controversial figure among jazz purists for his "sheets of sound" hysterics on saxophone and complete radical departure from the standard way jazz had been played. Hendrix didn't change contemporary composition or the way rock was approached so much as he changed the sound, by swaying everyone from "At the Hop" Chuck Berry-impersonating to an electrified, cosmic adaptation of Chicago blues guitar stylings.

He wasn't the first to try that but he was the best and most powerful. Jeff Beck and Clapton seemed timid all of a sudden when this guy strutted onto the scene. He did this through his unmatched ideas, talent as well as being the first to take advantage of improved technology in musical gadgetry, including the fuzz box, distortion pedals, wah-wah pedals, high gain amplifiers (including the super charged Marshall stacks) and other inventions. Plus he used the previous taboo of feedback to his advantage.

His detractors called him airheaded, sexist, macho and full of himself. But while he may have been a gypsy hippie intent on dancing with the drug demons and conquering the ladies but as he tried to be Dylan, Albert King, Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy all rolled into one, he struck upon his own unique psychedelic style.

There are plenty of extraordinary guitarists from that time period but Hendrix had something deeper than your average Alvin Lee, Robin Trower or Jimmy Page. He merged black and white music worlds and embraced music as colourless and raceless, though he often struggled with trying not to seem like some sort of Uncle Tom that didn't care about black listening audiences or radical black politics of the time too.

It was impossible to please everyone of course but Jimi tried his best. After he died, his closest comrades in music oversaw a series of new studio releases of backlog material, primarily his long-time drummer Mitch Mitchell and producer/engineer friend Eddie Kramer. Alan Douglas produced several of these 70s albums but he drew heat for overdubbing new parts onto them and essentially producing them alternately from Hendrix's original intent. Contrary to popular belief, the notorious Annual Post-Mortem Release did not start with Tupac.

When legal wrangling over Jimi's estate and recorded works became a simmering pot of troubles, the situation just got greyer for fans. But 1993 finally settled this when Jimi's father Al gained control and rights over his son's likeness, recorded output and artistic license. Via the formation of the company Experience Hendrix, Ltd., the restoration and repairing of Jimi's catalog began and the cottage industry overseeing Jimi's legacy was born too.

Hendrix’s hometown of Seattle attracts tourists with the claim of him as a native son featured in museums and landmarks alike. For him, there have been many albums of "new" material plus live albums, compilations and several official and unofficial bootleg releases. Too numerous to mention, really. Experience Hendrix has managed Jimi's large archive and through a deal for distribution through MCA, before it was bought up by Universal. They did a bang-up job bringing some cohesion to the playing field.

Currently, Sony distributes Jimi's work through their catalog division label Legacy Recordings, the label that works with re-issues and compilations from its vast array of labels it absorbed from business purchases (the legendary companies Columbia, Epic, Sony BMG and RCA Records for example). Of the major Experience Hendrix initiatives to clearing up Jimi's unfinished work, there was 1997's First New Rays of the Rising Sun, an album that was created to be as faithful as possible to a similarly titled album Hendrix was working on when he died in September of 1970. Previously, it had been spread over 3 different LPs released in the early 70s.

Nowadays, very few who were around Hendrix when he was creating are even alive anymore. His managers Chas Chandler and Michael Jeffery, Experience bandmates Mitchell and Noel Redding, and his Band of Gypsys drummer Buddy Miles have all passed on.

When Hendrix's father Al passed away early last decade, the inheritor of Jimi's estate became his stepsister Janice since most of Jimi's blood relatives had died too. But the Hendrix memorial train has kept rolling and this latest release is the most significant plying of his unreleased treasure trove since First Rays.

Now, that 1997 release did the biggest task of revisiting what Jimi had left on the table throughout his last year of life. This one skimps the trash can a bit more. Super dedicated Hendrix fans might own all this anyway while less dedicated fans, me included, are content to have the important releases and nothing but. I'd give this a chance but only for a handful of the selections.

Let's be frank: posthumous discographies are such a nightmare to follow, so it's all one big trial-and-error process anyway. On Valleys of Neptune, there are 12 cuts, 7 of which have never been released elsewhere. Most of the recordings were done at Hendrix's favourite studio, the Record Plant in New York City.

Hendrix's first single in the UK in November 1966 was a cover of the popular folk song of the day "Hey Joe," while its B-side was one of Hendrix's first compositions, "Stone Free." Valleys of Neptune leads off with a 1969 version of that track from a run-through in April, done probably for rehearsal purposes since it was one of the first sessions for the Jimi Hendrix Experience with Billy Cox as bassist instead of the recently departed Noel Redding. It's more noteworthy for having backing vocalists in Roger Chapman, at the time lead singer of the band Family, and a young Andy Fairweather Low.

With such a sparse setting not augmented by the studio mastery one is used to from Hendrix, this isn't one of the better available renditions of "Stone Free." The title track comes up second, proving to be a rather upbeat, cheerful cut that could have been a cut for the Temptations or one of Motown's other harder R&B acts of the time.

Hendrix had a keen ear for soul despite never fully embracing it, having cut his teeth — and not just on the guitars he played — on the Chitlin Circuit, the nickname given the touring locale of the American Southeast. Playing with pickup and bar bands all the way up to gigs with Little Richard and the Isley Brothers gave Hendrix a better background in the music of African-Americans than most would assume right after hearing his white-favoured rock sludge in the late 60s.

The basic track to "Valleys of Neptune" was recorded in September of '69 while Hendrix was still tinkering with the size and personnel of his backing lineup. The disc's lead single, Elmore James' tune "Bleeding Heart," was first heard in Jimi's hands on the 1972 release War Heroes. Here, none of the Alan Douglas overdubbing mars it.

"Bleeding Heart" features fierce half funk/half blues slide work from Hendrix's guitar, though there are a good half dozen blues covers in Hendrix's career that outshine this one. Stemming from an April of '69 session Billy Cox on bass and Rocky Isaacs on drums, "Bleeding Heart" packs the punch one would hope to find in a blues cover by the unmatched Hendrix.

Following this is "Hear My Train a Coming," a Hendrix original that's appeared on several posthumous releases but never showed up on any 45 or LP during his life. Hendrix's ability to convincingly perform the blues on slide guitar and without proficient amounts of volume and distortion is often overlooked, but his musical ability could never be clouded by his taste for wild sounds. "Hear My Train a Coming" is one of the purer blues tracks he ever laid down and one can see how with one listen.

It was when he allowed the effects, pedals and knobs to be turned up that his grasp of electric blues led him tocreate guitar masterpieces such as "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)", compositions so vivid and on the edge that they defy categorization, though they are arguably responsible for influencing funk, hip-hop, metal and various subgenres to come in rock music.

The cheeky "Mr. Bad Luck" is the furthest dated recording this album goes back to, coming from a May 1967 session at Olympic Studios in London and produced by then-manager and former Animals bassist Chandler. "Mr. Bad Luck" would have made a nice B-side, showing an example of the more humorous elements in Jimi's songs and the only one here that features the Experience in their early days before Hendrix's overarching, often difficult creative process that essentially forced out a frustrated Redding.

One of the prime cuts from this album, alas one of the few genuinely great moments, is when we get Hendrix showing Cream how it's done with "Sunshine of Your Love", sans vocals. Clapton wrote that signature song with Hendrix in mind, in effect making it his tribute to the newest guitar God (Clapton having been proclaimed as such just a year earlier by graffiti-scrawlers of London). So it's no fluke, I suppose, that Hendrix found the tune irresistible and perfect for him.

Before Valleys of Neptune, one of the few times anyone ever heard "Sunshine of Your Love" outside of bootleg form was when on British TV he performed an impromptu version during the final credits of Lulu's variety show. He was doing his own "Voodoo Child" when the plan was enacted, leading to the unknowing producers ending the show in mid-performance. Hendrix did this as an homage to Cream in the fall of '68 when their rather stunning breakup was announced.

Jimi tears the song up from its original state, turning "Sunshine of Your Love" into a real Hendrix "fire and dragon" affair that would make Clapton's simmering original sound like his laid back "J.J. Cale Wannabe" period by comparison. Instead of laying on us stuff we could've heard on some other disc, the album goes into "Lover Man", a heavy and downright greasy track that sounds tailor made for the Stevie Ray Vaughn Texas blues of the 80s. Hendrix toyed around with "Lover Man" every now and again but never found a take he was satisfied with. This particular one comes from the same February 1969 session at Olympic that generated the Cream cover.

Another Hendrix-penned rarity comes in the form of "Ships Passing Through the Night." Drawn from his April 1969 sessions booked at the Record Plant, "Ships Passing Through the Night" is a chunky piece of funk that's a good precursor to what Parliament-Funkadelic picked up on not long after.

Where Valleys of Neptune struggles is how little it offers us in genuinely new content. Anything short of hearing a horn and string section behind him would not be a revelation at this juncture. Haven't we, pardon the pun, experienced it all? The overfamiliarity of his repertoire means we're given two more versions of the standard 1967 classics "Fire" and "Red House".

"Red House," the one and only true 12-bar blues number of heartbreak, cheating and despair that Hendrix achieved, is the better of the two. He channels B.B. King so well on the latter, but has his own manner of playing. It's uncanny and when you can tell a guitarist by hearing their soloing, you know it's something timeless.

"Fire" and "Red House" are done in run-throughs with the Experience at the tail end of their existence in February 1969 but it's always a treat to hear "Red House" since Hendrix uses it to veer off into beautiful solos that are rather of the moment thanks to the tune's slow blues tempo, a conducive groove for any guitarists to go nuts without losing the meter at all. And of course Jimi uses such space wisely.

Also culled from April 1969 is the fine instrumental "Lullaby for the Summer," showing vocals were only a small part of the magic Hendrix could create. He often evoked the gospel business of Curtis Mayfield's R&B guitar playing with his group The Impressions. Hendrix admitted Mayfield was a big influence and one can hear him take it to new heights on tracks like this, not to mention the released ones such as "Castles Made of Sand", "The Wind Cries Mary" and "Little Wing."

Often, the lyrics were a weak point on Hendrix compositions, sometimes being brain-fried ramblings of a gyspy bandit, C-grade poet. So to have instrumentals once in a while was no letdown. From the February '69 sessions at Olympic, "Crying Blue Rain" is derived. It's the twelfth and final track but the driest blues yet, a raw "fly on the wall" feature that contains a light drum backing from Mitchell — a great reflection on his jazz chops- and what sounds like Hendrix fingerpicking his guitar part. If all the tracks were as stellar as "Crying Blue Rain," we'd be dealing with a worthy competitor to the shimmering, incomplete, yet expansive First Rays.

But the abundance of songs that have been heard in multiple forms elsewhere hampers Valleys of Neptune. Even if you don't own any Hendrix outside his recognized studio albums as well as that live document Band of Gypsys, you'll be better off going for Live at the Fillmore East or even Live at BBC. The unreleased material is enjoyable and of a passable fidelity, but only Hendrix's devotees are going to be awed by this album.

Some tracks here have me feeling "ho-hum," asking "So what? Didn't we already know all this?" Others are challenging and just barely reach the gold standard for Jimi while the rest are middling to acceptable versions of stuff heard elsewhere a billion times, therefore redundant. Meld it all together and what you get is a B-minus grade (three stars out of five), which is about as generous as I can allow. 'Scuse me while I skip this, guys...

Track Listing:

1. Stone Free

2. Valleys of Neptune

3. Bleeding Heart

4. Hear My Train a Coming

5. Mr. Bad Luck

6. Sunshine of Your Love

7. Lover Man

8. Ships Passing Through the Night

9. Fire

10. Red House

11. Lullaby for the Summer

12. Crying Blue Rain

Rating: 3/5 stars (B-)

Reviews: Peter Gabriel's "Scratch My Back"

First published in Pressplus1 online Magazine:

http://www.pressplus1.com/blog/evan+dowbiggin/1766-cd-review-scratch-my-back-by-peter-gabriel.html

Peter Gabriel tends to make appearances on record, once in a while... when he's ready... sometimes. And that, my friends, is why folks are gearing up for his next studio album with the anticipatory exalt of it being his first real studio record of his in 8 years. The first in a while with vocal performances I should add. But guess what? It's a covers album. Does that burst your bubble? Well it shouldn't. Still, I have to wonder: Is songwriting his part-time job? Apparently. But don't let that fool you because he always provides something essential and innovative each time out, no matter who's doing the writing. Sure he pens as many completed works in a year as Elvis Costello does in an afternoon between tea and lunch, but the guy's a perfectionist. It's been an intermittent solo gig for Gabriel since the 80s ended, as his workload has dwindled to much lighter than what it was during and after his time in Genesis, the band he helped found before leaving in 1974. He started his solo career officially in 1977 with an album slanted to the tastes of arena rock, 70s "prog" and other side trips unthinkable for the modern Peter Gabriel to ever touch (Heavy metal? Cocktail jazz? Barbershop? It's all there on Peter Gabriel- the one with the rainy car window cover). The man behind that first step, Canadian born and based Bob Ezrin, has been a reputed rock producer for years, meanwhile some critics and fans still accuse him of mishandling Gabriel's debut way back when (Gabriel himself grumbled about the treatment of some tunes, notably the apocalyptic opus "Here Comes the Flood"). Nonetheless, Ezrin has been brought back to produce this new release.

Gabriel, in those formative years all by his lonesome, put out a comparatively startling 4 albums in his first 5 years then went four years before the multi-platinum pop breakthrough of 1986's So, although that's if you don't count the soundtrack to Alan Parker's 1984 film Birdy where he created instrumental re-imaginings of some tracks he'd previously done. Another soundtrack arrived in 1989 with Passion, the soundtrack to Martin Scorcese's The Last Temptation of Christ. But aside from that rather beautiful instrumental work, Gabriel didn't have a new tune with a vocal between 1986 and 1992 other than a collaboration with famed Senegalese singer Yousso N'Dour on his own 1989 cut "Shaking the Tree." Then came 1992's Us and Gabriel proved the wait was worth it, although the album didn't transcend the way So did by cutting across all commercial barriers and catching the fancy of critics at the same time. The rest of the 90s saw Gabriel become immersed in the workings of his record label, Real World, which is dedicated to introducing peoples' ears to world music of every variety. He stayed close to his affinity for soundtracks, releasing a document of the live concert for London's Millenium Dome Show in 2000, a record titled OVO. A year later came Long Walk Home: Music from the Rabbit Proof Fence, his third film soundtrack. His true followup to Us was still in the works even though most of it had been completed between 1995 and 1998. Therefore, Gabriel justly earned the reputation of being a slow worker, a meticulous studio dweller who tinkered with albums for years the way some scientists slave to come up with a groundbreaking thesis.

Finally in 2002 came Up- another in a long line of briefly titled records, a flippant and witty reaction to when Geffen Records in the early 80s requested he stop self-titling each of his albums- and with the same font for his name, as if to make each cover one in a continuous series of magazine issues. Supposedly, they requested this in order to avoid confusing the public, therefore Peter has released albums with titles like So, Us, as well as the compilation Hit. Up managed to confuse anyway since it was released the same year as Shania Twain's Up (speaking of artists who wait eons to release their albums!). This was followed by more spellbinding touring behind enchantingly elaborate visual fancies, a trademark of Peter's concert legacy that can have you either scratching your head or with your jaw hanging open in amazement (if you love Cirque De Soleil, then Peter's your kind of musical entertainer). But then came another long silence. Finally Peter has returned but with a new album that's a bold step even for him. Rather than new compositions, Scratch My Back is a collection of 12 covers, compositions stretching back in age as much as 30 years with a few recent ones sprinkled in. The selection of covers cuts a wide swath of tastes and genres by picking from groups with underground/indie cred as well as from fairly well known artists that have been doing their thing even longer than Peter, though he has them beat for his youth when starting out, as Genesis cut their first singles when Gabriel was a 17-year old still in school.

And the caveat is that a companion record called I'll Scratch Yours will feature the artists Gabriel covers doing renditions of of his songs. It's a unique concept to see a "various artists" disc that will no doubt be more relevant and interesting via this tie-in. If you think all this was as out of the ordinary as it gets, well wrap your mind around the radical idea of Gabriel doing these covers with full orchestral backing. Remarkably organic for a Peter Gabriel album, isn't it? The usual cadre of African drummers, exotic percussion, innovative synthesizers, production tricks and longtime bassist Tony Levin's unique drumstick bass, is absent from Scratch My Back. Gabriel uses a hushed vocal a majority of the time on the opener, a cover of David Bowie's "Heroes," slowed to a crawl with a church organ as the main chordal structure. It turns what was a theatrical, vivid, dramatic portrayal of a lover's tryst by the Berlin Wall into more of an elegy, a sort of elegiac state of pondering like slowing down the moment for reflection. This isn't the greatest, most mesmerizing adaptation one will hear of "Heroes," but to find Gabriel re-inventing it the way he did his own "Here Comes the Flood" in 1990- which went from overproduced apex of hard rock to forlorn piano ballad in a sort of anti-climactic way- is a curious thing to behold. Taking Bowie's hyperkinetic melancholy and replacing it with the sort of hush that Arcade Fire excels in is a risky move that doesn't fully pay off.

Paul Simon's "The Boy in the Bubble," which opened his legendary Graceland album, has much the same transformation engineered on it, turning into some sort of picturesque Randy Newman piece, instead of the bubbling African-Zydeco that Simon first shaped it as. Gabriel's soothed, hoarse voice is one that I often don't find at its best when singing soft compositions or ballads, but he really hasn't used it for shouting and barking in a long time. And though that's his prerogative, I do miss the bite behind tunes like "Modern Love," "And Through the Wire" and "Red Rain." So I suppose his careful, silent manipulating of this one is a bit more boring than bristling, which sags the album a bit. But luckily, more interesting is the third selection, Elbow's "Mirrorball." Here Gabriel has the song paced by the meditative loop of an organ as the string parts build over it with warmth and precision. It's not too far off from the music box chiming of Elbow's original, a sure harkening back to Gabriel's days in Genesis itself. Elbow is the British "alternative" rock group forgotten in the mix thanks to crossover successes like Coldplay, Radiohead and Keane. But in recent years, their struggle to be acknowledged even in their homeland was eventually overcome and they've become recognized as contenders to Radiohead's supremacy and Gabriel's cover is another sign of gratitude and interest from a long-standing, respected artist. Where the two previous cuts were uncertain adaptions of pieces that didn't seem to carry the right aura for Gabriel, "Mirrorball" is right up his alley.

Ethereal chamber music is struck upon with "Flume," a track first done by critical darlings Bon Iver. The ultra sensitive and forest-friendly folk of Iver's Justin Vernon doesn't necessarily get ingested by me like a fine wine, the way it does for others, but Gabriel hits a more earthy quality with his rendition and I appreciate it in the end. We finally get Peter shooting into his upper register vocally too. Piano comes back as the basis for chords on "Flume" and the horn parts can easily remind anyone of the humanist beauty that symphonic winds can express. "Listening Wind," a cut off the Talking Heads monumental 1980 record Remain in Light, never fully takes off the ground though. This cover carries plenty of nervous energy and mystery, though not nearly the kind that the Heads did with their eerie reggae sort of post-punk, enlivened by Brian Eno's method of creating melody around electronics. The original "Listening Wind" had an atmosphere nearly replicated by several tracks off of the next Gabriel album to come after Remain in Light, 1982's Security. The jungle soundscapes of "The Rhythm of the Heat" and "Lay Your Hands on Me" paralleled a lot of what David Byrne was exploring with world music sounds on his own, with Eno and with his band. So the two seem like kindred spirits on opposite sides of the Atlantic and slightly different wavelengths (i.e. Byrne is much weirder). How Byrne approaches his Gabriel cover of choice will be highly anticipated by me- I say Byrne because the rest of the Heads are estranged from him therefore no full band participation is expected.

Fear not though, because Peter does hit shining moments at times on this album, namely with a cover of "The Power of the Heart," a yet to be formally released Lou Reed composition that he has performed live several times. It's one of Reed's more pure and devoted love songs, no doubt inspired by the experimental conceptual artist-cum-musician Laurie Anderson, his wife of a couple years now. Layering piano and horns onto what's another good old primitive but deep effort from Reed brings out some more tenderness and melody where there maybe wasn't before. Gabriel meets the criteria for giving it his own spin and earns my kudos for that- though not too much charity considering the slight failure of two other tracks to this point. This highlight of the LP makes for good and highly deserved exposure for one of Lou's best ballads in years, a sensational thing to see from an old wrinkly rocker aging gracefully with maturity who's still alive despite a 1970s rife with drug-induced decadence and debaucher- a legacy that Gabriel's never had to shake off, thank goodness. Staying current, PG does Arcade Fire's "My Body is a Cage" from their 2007 opus, Neon Bible. If only prog rock in Genesis's era had been less self-absorbed and less self-centredly narcissistic, then it would have resembled Arcade Fire. And that would've been a monumental good thing, as Devo once proclaimed. The chilling final cut on their most recent studio album is taken on by Gabriel in a subdued manner.

Peter prefers to keep it more bottled up, less ferociously tense than Win Butler, he being one never too shy to go for a little melodrama if you didn't already know. That approach works in that it makes "My Body is a Cage" into a more seductive and holy piece, rather than the intermittently angry and paranoid version Arcade Fire produced. With "The Book of Love," the first single chosen from the album, Gabriel gets a little more energetic, so as not to lull listeners into a false sense of sleep or some other coma-like state where classical overtones can fatigue more than perk up the mind. The Magnetic Fields' original is not dense either, but prefers to be a sort of bluegrass-meets-the-coffeehouse creation that's about as unique as you'll find in the music scene today, and that's because it dates back to 1999. But then again, there was nothing like this in 1999 either, except for maybe that lovable Jonathan Richman, a long practicer of capturing geeky angst and lovelorn feelings into parlour hall tunes since he arrived in the early 70s. Magnetic Fields frontman Stephen Merritt does indeed remind one of Richman, the marked difference being in mood as Merritt's a real downer in his blue state of mind and is an openly gay singer-songwriter, not a hilarious Bostonian who's perpetually, but winningly, adolescent at heart like Richman. By choosing to cover "The Book of Love," Gabriel chooses wisely and I find this recording to be a deserved lead single. And here I was thinking it was going to be a cover of that doo-wop classic by the Monotones. Now THAT would have been neat to see Peter manage.

My earlier reference to Gabriel making a Randy Newman pastiche out of "The Boy in the Bubble" comes back into relevancy thanks to Gabriel's own try at "I Think it's Going to Rain Today." Newman, himself a very sparse producer of full-out studio albums ever since his Hollywood priorities took precedence in the 80s, often can write bitterly caustic and genuinely funny character studies, full of piss and vinegar but with a deep understanding of humankind and, as this song describes, the odd showing of "human kindness." Once in a while, amidst the commentary and Allan Sherman levels of satire, Newman can pull out a serious piano ballad like "I Think it's Going to Rain Today." The more heavy stuff is what's distinguished Newman as a highly sought after film composer in fact (Toy Storyand The Natural being just the most well known of his towering catalogue of scores). Mind you, this particular number dates back very far in his pop songwriting career, appearing on his self-titled debut in 1968 and being covered to death afterward. The fact he was in his early 20s when he wrote it shows he never outgrew or lost his knack for lovely torch songs. Rather uneventfully, Gabriel goes for a near Xerox of "I Think it's Going to Rain Today." At least Joe Cocker tried to make it a soulful rave-up, even if that didn't fully connect. While Gabriel uses his own way of singing in a hushed voice (think back to 1992's "Washing of the Water" or 1978's "Mother of Violence"), it's still too much like Newman's original.

Newman could be a defining influence behind this album's 100% orchestral style, given the fact he's put orchestral arrangements behind his piano forever, completely in lockstep with his family's line of work. He is a singer-songwriter Gabriel has taken after for a long time now, since he became a big admirer of him in the late 60s. But here, Gabriel is essentially trying to find more artistic fertile ground in a mine that Newman already drilled through. Therefore, it seem almost too perfect for Gabriel to be doing this cover- too expected, if you will. A little female appreciation is finally given out with a cover of Regina Spektor's 2006 composition "Apres Moi." Spektor's indie pop style, buoyed by the advantage she carries in her extensive piano training, makes it one of those affecting singer-songwriter ditties you often hear from sources such as Feist or Fiona Apple. The quirkiness of indie pop, even the stuff that never makes it to top 40 radio, is not my favourite contemporary development, as usually I find that field to be too cutesy/smart/artsy and knowingly hipster for its own good. Not all of it is this way, just a lot of what I hear. But Gabriel allows for some creative chamber music to be his backing and therefore "Apres Moi" is one of the standout cuts that sticks its head above the majority of the pack and, dare I say it, improves on Spektor's original?

Moving on, Gabriel harkens back to a more long-standing singer-songwriter with Neil Young who, for all his well-known compositions, is a hell of an underrated writer of gorgeous piano ballads too, even if he's more simplistic and wears his heart on his sleeve far more often than Newman. This skill of Young's stretches as far back as "After the Gold Rush" from 1969-70 or as recently as "The Way" from 2007. Neil's 1993 contribution to the Oscar-nominated film Philadelphia was the esteemed title track, becoming the veritable theme of the movie even if Bruce Springsteen's "Streets of Philadelphia" got all the pub and ultimately the golden statuette. But "Philadelphia" is a tune that perfectly captured the sadness and human tragedy of AIDS, without ever directly mentioning it (its only literal reference to the movie's plot being the line "City of brotherly love/Don't turn your back on me/I don't want to be alone"). Such is the power of song: To never lyrically address an issue but still hit the nail on the head. Jonathan Demme, a friend of Neil's dating back to the music videos he directed for him in the 80s, better have been thanking his lucky stars for knowing Neil and getting that tremendous effort out of him. Supposedly, he was expecting a couple juiced up rockers about the hardships of life in the big city when you're dying from AIDS and carrying that stigma of not being a real man, being homosexual, etc. Instead, he got a grade A tearjerker. That being said, Gabriel's version is a disappointment. It's the only true lead balloon, opting to give a key change that just doesn't work and paves the way for this "Philadelphia" to resemble corny, mawkish soundtrack sap.

Yes, Peter's version doesn't really work much at all, which is too bad since the tune can be very touching when done properly, as evidenced by its inclusion in the final credits of Demme's film. Gabriel finally finds a pocket he can work out of by trying on Radiohead for size, specifically "Street Spirit (Fade Out)." It's not as if the 1995 original wasn't fatalistic and black itself, but with spare horns and funereal piano, he brings it down a few notches lower in dynamics, all without losing any of the hopeless void that Thom Yorke stewed up back in 1995. This "Street Spirit" redeems some of the more yawn-inducing moments from earlier in the album. Overall, Scratch My Back contains many moments of gorgeous, soft-bracing music with that classical spin you don't get to hear too much anymore. But Gabriel fails to convincingly deliver several of the tracks and despite the concept, it's not the artistic slam dunk one would hope for. Yet, taking many of these songs out of their element and giving them the subtle, silent treatment is a brave step for Gabriel as he seemingly tries to emulate Randy Newman only with the more artful, English sensibilities one has come to expect out of him all these years. Ever the progressive artist, this seems oddly natural and unpretentious for Gabriel, unless you find all classical melding with contemporary to be totally self-inflated regalia and snootiness (I don't... unless we're talking about Electric Light Orchestra).

It remains to be seen how I'll Scratch Yours will stand up to this disc- in some ways I look forward to that one more, since it has 12 different artists on tap. At least Peter Gabriel is bothering to release a studio album instead of staying preoccupied with Real World, soundtracks, interactive projects, etc. Scratch My Back will soon be available in his native United Kingdom, but North Americans have to wait a few more weeks (see release info at the top). In summary: Far from great, far from mediocre. I give it a slight chance that non-fans could be swayed by checking this out, but I suggest it'd be better for them to start with his earlier material to get accustomed to the man and his music. Oh and by the way, he's still perfecting his next album of original compositions, to be titled I/O. Hmmm, that one should be ready by about 2012 if past events are any indication.

Track Listing (Artist Being Covered):

1. Heroes (David Bowie)

2. Boy in the Bubble (Paul Simon)

3. Mirrorball (Elbow)

4. Flume (Bon Iver)

5. Listening Wind (Talking Heads)

6. The Power of the Heart (Lou Reed)

7. My Body is a Cage (Arcade Fire)

8. The Book of Love (The Magnetic Fields)

9. I Think it's Going to Rain Today (Randy Newman)

10. Apres Moi (Regina Spektor)

11. Philadelphia (Neil Young)

12. Street Spirit (Fade Out) (Radiohead)

Rating: 3.5/5 stars (B)

Reviews: Neil Young's "Dreaming Man, Live '92"

First published in Pressplus1 (Online): http://www.pressplus1.com/music-reviews/dreamin-man-live-92-neil-young-sparse-and-illuminating-document-from-his-early-90s-revival.html

Ok I realize this is the third batch of reviews for Neil Young I have penned, but the guy keeps releasing these archive series discs a mile a minute... ok maybe every few months then. But this one, unlike the others, follows Neil on tour years after his younger prime. Neil had a resurgence no one saw coming in the 90s and this continued right into the middle part of the decade before creative juices wore off. Since then, Neil has offered quality with his releases but often has fallen short of the satisfaction craved by those who remember his latter day comeback let alone his 70s reign as the best, most fearless troubadour in rock. It's probably a bit overeager for anyone to expect a masterpiece out of the now-64 year old Canuck, but in the early 90s he had all his followers, critics amongst these, craving what came next. I reviewed the remasters of his first four albums a few weeks back and left off portraying Neil as a bonafide star, enjoying (but really not enjoying in the literla sense) his Harvest album at #1, the units flying off the shelves as rapidly as any album of the time not released by John Denver or the Osmonds (Note to all classicists of 20th Century Music: Supposed golden ages all have their own embarrassing public faves). After this, he took a trip through the gutter of rock life, feeling a heavy heart over the drug casualties going on around him. This gave us masterful works that were at first misunderstood: Time Fades Away (Live 1973 release), Tonight's the Night (recorded 1973, released 1975) and On the Beach (1974). A reformed Crazy Horse brought some grungy brightness back on Zuma (1975) then Neil paired with Stephen Stills for Long May You Run (1976), credited to the Stills-Young Band and much slicker than the usual fare for Neil in the mid-70s. He then veered into ragtag country-rock for the majority of American Stars n' Bars (1977), while the rest was a grab bag of material from various sessions and back to traditional folk and country on the underrated Comes a Time (1978). These albums between Harvest and the end of the 70s ranged from tremendous to decent, but mostly they were tremendous. Then Neil kept up his heavy workload as he turned toward another film project, his first being a homemade docu/fiction piece of junk called Journey Through the Past, released to a limited run in 1972. This new one, not released until 1983 as it turns out, was called Human Highway. But more importantly, it led Neil into an offshoot idea for a concert film. Recording his new tunes live resulted in the breathtaking rock signpost album Rust Never Sleeps (1979), his all-time greatest album in my estimation. A live concert film accompanied it and then a true to form live album capturing the 1978-79 tour came. The whole multimedia rush still couldn't distract from the fact he'd returned to Crazy Horse (for the electric sets and the side 2 of Rust) in a most enthralling way.

Rust summarized his entire career to that point and once again Young was lauded on a wide scale. But now reaching well past 30, the family man Neil emerged in the 80s as he tended to the needs of his second son Ben, a non-oral, spastic cerebral palsy sufferer. Personally, he was focused on improving his son's lot in life and getting involved in the well-being of all those afflicted by CP (his first son Zeke, by actress Carrie Snodgress, was born with a less severe form of it). Young scaled back his rock star life and though he would go back to touring, he was virtually inactive outside of sporadic studio work from 1979-81. This definitely harmed the creative process as a strict physiotherapy program with Ben, that ultimately proved fruitless, made it so that 1981's Re-ac-tor, one of only 2 albums with Crazy Horse in the decade, could only be worked on in the hours Neil had available in his home studio. Artistically, he has never been more unfocused than he was from 1980-88. Before Re-ac-tor came out, Neil became some sort of political commentator with Hawks & Doves, a short-running hodgepodge and another one where the sids were markedly, drastically unto themselves. But then again, Neil titled side 2 to be "Hawks" and side 1 to be "Doves," so perhaps that was the intention. The first side was made up of outtakes from 1976-78 work intended for an aborted album entitled Chrome Dreams and they were in line with the spooky acoustic side Nel procreated in his productive 70s. Side two was like the ragged country-rock of 3 years prior, only even more slapdash and this time with a lear intent and message. Neil began championing like a Republican congressman, highlighting the recession and its plight on the average, hard-working American. Despite his transplanted citizenship to the U.S. of A, Neil bled red, white and blue all over Hawks & Doves, alienating some and just confusing others. After Re-ac-tor failed to ignite any glowing reviews, Neil ended his 13-year association with Reprise to sign a big contract with Geffen Records. Right off the bat with Geffen, Neil overnight became Mr. Everything, intent on tackling any genre he felt like. First he tried to throw his hat in the ring of techno-pop by familiarizing himself with all the latest keyboard, computerized hijinks for 1982's Trans. Unlike other clearly mediocre records of that time, Trans was a "love it or hate it" record that, underneath its techno pall was a complex record about the communication barrier Neil was facing with his mute, disabled son. A few Hawaiin-inflected cuts made their way in there, but overall it was a decent foray into explaining robotic dimensions of the world and the breakdown in communicating between the handicapped and the able-bodied. Nice sentiments, but the record flopped and even though Neil toured behind the media-oriented theme and music, he quickly jettisoned that for a retro rockabilly pose.

This generated him touring around with a band he called the Shocking Pinks, which he disappeared into as some sort of act, not unlike the Beatles pretending to be Sgt. Pepper only this was in person. Neil greased his hair up in a pompadour and acted like he was at the malt shops again and it provided us all with an erratic, flawed album with some of the dumpiest digital production you're ever going to hear. That 1983 dud Everybody's Rockin' was in response to Geffen wanting more of a rock record this time out and he took it almost too literally on that one by going back to the sound of R&R in its infancy. It was to be quickly followed up by a country record, something Geffen had been clamouring for no doubt. Neil gave them a record based on the hardships under Reagan's America and called it Old Ways. It was rejected but a Nashville-recorded second gasp at it wasn't. But this official Old Ways from 1985, was let down by glitzy production and half-baked Cosmopolitan Nashville tunes. These all were like third-drawer Harvest dead ringers but Neil, as he was prone to do in the 80s, took the latest stylistic detour full throttle and began dressing like a renegade cowboy. He turned a bit right-wing and jingoistic in interviews and began extolling the virtues of Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson (both of whom he paired up with and clearly was trying to emulate via cowboy hats, scarves, bandanas, jeans and cowboy boots). During this 1984-85 side route, he toured with a country outfit he assembled called the International Harvesters. But again, if anyone thought they had him pegged, he pulled the rug out from under with 1986's Landing on Water. This was a re-visiting of contemporary 80s sounds as it tried to incorporate Neil Young classic songwriting with thundering gated drums, airy keyboards and so forth. The production is a bit dated now of course, but not too bad at all. It's simply the poor writing that made it one of his 3 worst albums. Neil took all the fancy equipment to the road, finally hooking up with the band he'd been estranged from for 6 years in Crazy Horse. Drawing on the past as a source of inspiration, Neil decided to record new tracks in concert and then put them, minus the crowd noise, on his next album. Exactly the same process that begot Rust Never Sleeps. The end result was simply called Life. This 1987 release was promising, although it was no winning, enduring and deserving sequel to Rust. On the bright side, it was probably the best of his Geffen releases. The old garage spirit returned on a few tracks and Neil had a bit more venom, some political and some not, back in his arsenal. But Life was not properly capitalized on, at least not immediately. Neil let his Geffen deal run out, capping a roller coaster ride that saw his commercial and critical stature drop and his very own label sue him for performing music unbecoming to an artist with the sound and reputation of a Neil Young. The desperate move never did anything in court of course and sowed the seeds for a discontented Neil to leave David Geffen's company in 1988 and promptly arrive back on Reprise. But he just delivered them another genre exercise with the blues offering, This Note's for You.

The album is probably best remembered for its title track's music video, a satirical tirade directed by Jonathan Demme that skewered advertisting but mostly how pop artists were now being heavily relid upon to hock the consumer products. As a result of its blatant use of advertising in order to turn the cannons right back in the face of these scorned corporations, MTV banned the video. This firestorm of controversy soon found MTV cast as the villains, Neil as the bemused victim and the video a hot commodity that MTV made a big deal about showing just once and only once. As a token or gesture, they gave it their MTV Video Award for Best Video but it didn't change the fact that Neil was no fan of the station's dumbing down of rock. Despite all this, the album's sales were mediocre, a bad sign considering the publicity outbreak. On it, Neil brought his guitar histrionics back, but the horn charts were by and large dull and needless in his quest to cut a blues tribute. Anyway, there was just as much Memphis Soul and jazz experimentation as blues on the album and although it beat 80% of anything he did for Geffen, it was yet another shrugging of the shoulders from his faithful. But then, as Neil rediscovered his intensity for the guitar, something changed. With this newly minted blues ensemble, the Bluenotes, on tour with him through 1988, Neil showed signs of life in his newer compositions and a Japan-only EP called Eldorado in 1989 hinted at a return to glory. Then came Freedom, an assault on the senses that perfectly captured what had gone wrong in the 80s. Neil had found his powers to communicate his social conscience in a way his audience could understand and grasp. Plus, both his electric and acoustic sides were firing on ally cylinders. He fell in on common ground with emerging alternative rockers and bands that would in a few years time come to take over the rock landscape with grunge. The sheer force behind guitar cataclysms like "Don't Cry," "Rockin' in the Free World" and "Eldorado" told the beautiful story. Freedom was one of the 5 best albums of the year 1989 and with a roll established, Neil did his first truly proper and exciting full album with Crazy Horse since Zuma in 1990. Called Ragged Glory, it re-established rock credibility and taught everyone how guys in their mid-40s were nowhere near over the hill (thanks to folks like Neil and Springsteen, but primarily the Stones who broke the convention that rock bands must die off before they hit the 2 decade mark together, we have bands that stick together and still put on great shows and write relevant music into their 40s). Ragged Glory had exciting jam pieces alongside simple, rustic country-rock with the knobs turned to 11 to quote Nigel Tufnel. The tour that followed had the perfect backdrop of the Gulf War, allowing for Neil to get his anti-war stuff back on the table and off his chest. As of 1992, Neil was praised in the press by the likes of Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Sonic Youth and had regained his stature as an iconic singer-songwriter. 47-year old Neil Young was riding high as the 90s dawned and progressed further. Having become more political and hard-edged topically than ever, Neil endured as a significant voice in pop music, although he had not really enjoyed a smash hit album since Rust Never Sleeps. That changed as he decided to go softer, crafting his most quaint and peaceful album overall since Comes A Time.

In 1992, perhaps it was while reeling from tinnitus that inspired Neil to write softer, folkier, country-flavoured songs once again. You see, tinnitus is an ear condition where hearing becomes super sensitive after being exposed to constantly high decibels in volume. And Neil had just completed a 1991 tour with Crazy Horse called "Smell the Horse" where he challenged bands like Sonic Youth for sheer noise, distortion, feedback and dissonance. There had been some moments of calm here and there on 1989's Freedom and songs left on the shelves during the 80s but Neil had not crafted a whole LP of acoustic-based music since the Comes a Time and only Hawks & Doves had seen his acoustic folk side highlighted at all in the 80s. Ah, those 80s. Containing a spell of records at Geffen from 1981-87, it was a decade where Neil became lost as he couldn't satisfy his core audience anymore. After Rust Never Sleeps landed him back in the spotlight as one of rock's bright lights- although he had never really left, just never made a splash on the market to rival that of Harvest- he had withdrawn because of family and adversity, namely his son Ben being born with a severe, spastic form of cerebral palsy. Neil showed no focus or cohesive ideas as he followed leaving Reprise Records in 1981 with brief dips into techno/electronica (1982's Trans), retro rockabilly (1983's vacuous, digitally produced Everybody's Rockin'), mainstream Nashville country (Old Ways), modern tech-rock (1986's Landing on Water and partially on Life, 1987's Crazy Horse collaboration) and horn-driven blues (1988's This Note's for You). It took till 1989 for Neil to feel at home in the 80s and with Freedom, he knocked everyone who had written him off for a loop. His charting pull then began to improve itself after an 8 year period of falling fortunes. With Freedom, he created his strongest batch of tunes in years, dabbling more in folk again and writing harrowing hard rock that was highlighted by the anthemic "Rockin' in the Free World" bookending the album, first with a live acoustic version then an electric studio version that perfectly encapsulated all the writhing anger and the nascent, palpable sense of danger back in Neil Young's writing. Afterward, he experienced a renaissance that didn't let up until the late 90s and right away he reinvigorated his formerly strained relationship with Crazy Horse on their joyfully hard rocking Ragged Glory in 1990. Now Neil was back in the hip category, or the "What's Hot" bracket if you care for Us Magazine. He could be seen dressing in T-shirts, jeans, lumberjack jackets and sometimes leather but looking bad ass in general and convincing while doing so amidst a sea of younger bands trying to place themselves on a similar mantle. Not often does a legendary artist get praised by newer bands while also being vital contemporaries of them. But Neil was creating garage rock brilliance at the same time bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam were singing is praises. Now commercially, it has always been the softer side of old Neiler that connected with the public and generated good sales. Harvest Moon has actually gone double platinum as of today, only the third album of his to do so (joining Harvest and After the Gold Rush), success that Neil had only experienced prior as part of the ultra popular megagroup CSNY.

The album itself has become one of his select chart and sale successes. Thematically, it finds Neil in a less introspective mood than its "prequel" Harvest, instead finding him a melancholy, contented man entering middle age feeling better than ever and still in love too. Often, that melancholy can become weary and boring. This is maybe the first indication that Neil mellowing with age could take the edge off him. He was no longer churning out moody love songs like "Pardon My Heart" or "Look Out for My Love," perhaps because he really was happy with his personal life. A cranky Neil meant prosperous things artistically, but that has changed as he's aged. On Harvest Moon, Neil still came up with wonderfully tuneful work however the disc begins to seriously lose steam after a primo opening of five lovely cuts. Neil enlisted the original Stray Gators lineup, a group of sidemen including Kenny Buttrey, Jack Nitszche, Tim Drummond, Spooner Oldham and Ben Keith that had been his group on Harvest. With their presence, Neil returned to that easy-going country/folk formula that struck gold (or platinum that is) 20 years earlier. Therefore, we got more pronounced use of harmonica, very few electric guitars (unless pedal steel counts), brushed drums, soothing piano and nothing as riveting rhythmically as something found on Ragged Glory or Freedom. All in all, because of some modest, rather restrained performances and production, Harvest Moon does not sizzle like its inspired 1972 predecessor, although both share the distinction of being his highest-selling albums, which may explain why they're often considered two of his most overrated. This is no mere product, but it's not the latter day masterpiece it's sometimes touted as. There's something missing, some gravitas that used to separate Neil from your average airy-fairy folkie. But what about this new archives release? Well like three prior ones, it's a snapshot of Neil performing acoustically on his own without anyone else. On this newest live document, we are exposed to live recordings of tracks entirely from that Harvest Moon record and they are seen from a different aspect. Consequently, I find some of these songs hold up even better than on record and sparkle in a new way. I suppose some rarely heard tracks would have been something momentous, but it's hard to argue with some of the fine music here. The song that the album bears the namesake of opens the disc and this version is a bit melancholy, but features Neil and Neil alone on his acoustic guitar so it's a one-man specialty. He wryly introduces "Dreamin' Man" by saying there's no literal meaning to be taken from the words. "Such a Woman" was a sappy, dull cut- much inferior to "Philadelphia," a similarly piano-based ballad written for Neil's friend Jonathan Demme's 1993 film of the same name. That was the studio version, right? Well it's both. Let's call a spade a spade; It's a hallmark card type of love song for his wife and the only possible improvement is by not having the schmaltzy orchestration present. Let it never be said that Neil can't write like Billy Joel or any other adult contemporary tunesmith. That said, "Such a Woman" is one of the more undynamic compositions of his career, in spite of the heavy love sentiment behind it. On the bright side, his vocals are tender and don't waver out of tune at all.

Neil manages to give "One of These Days" as much wistful beauty as the studio version does with a full band and some female backing support. Like the rest of the album it is derived from, it's nostalgic and rooted in family values, though this time Neil pledges to write a long letter to all the good friends he's known. Gee, somehow I doubt he ever got around to all that. "Harvest Moon" is as great as you remember it for the studio cut, complimented by Neil going it alone. What you find about his criminally underrated acoustic guitar playing is that he plays such intricate picking patterns and chordal structures that he doesn't need bass, drums and other accessories to flesh out a song. Since he writes almost all of his songs from this acoustic standpoint, it's no wonder the original guitar arrangements are the most central component. In several sequences, the picking connects the dots of the main melody. Indeed, like few guitarists we've heard in the rock lexicon, Neil Young can tag along his guitar comping to the vocal lines in nearly identical fashion. Harvest Moon was perhaps the most contented batch of love songs Neil ever wrote as he details the roads of life, the travails and moments of glory but ties them all into his current enjoyment. "You and Me" has the most explicitly romantic lyrics outside of "Such a Woman" but is a much better song that only loses points for sounding too much like a re-write of "Old Man." Not a bad way to copy yourself, mind you, and he throws in just enough guitar flourishes to merit minor praise. The best lyrical journey of Neil's newfound zeal for middle age comes on "From Hank to Hendrix." Now, any acoustic performance that absolutely touches a nerve is when Neil has for us something eloquently written, where he plays guitar fantastically in his unique trademark style (which involves hammer-ons, hammer-offs and strumming techniques that accentuate melodic ideas and riffs alike) while blowing that high, forlorn harmonica (with bends in the pitch thanks to an old bluesman trick of soaking the instrument in water). Add to that singing from that borderline whiny, but incredibly vivid and expressive voice and hardly anything can beat the awe his talent expresses to devotees, myself included. This is one of the better versions of "Hank to Hendrix" ever put out and it's swell to hear the audience cheering enthusiastically in between verses, well aware they were hearing more golden moments from the man who was already a legend by that point. The pastime tribute "Unknown Legend" looks at the back story of a woman near to Neil's heart, yes it's a literal story of his wife as a young girl herself. He harkens back to a day when she was a Hippie free spirit who rode motorcycles and worked as a waitress, a position that has a plain, feminine aesthetic of intrigue, common beauty and working class charm for Neil, a middle-class Canadian who has always been touched by the humbler, simpler walks of life. He is like a lot of good old salt of the Earth people we have in our Canadian small towns. Just take a listen to 1988's long unreleased "Ordinary People" for a bigger slice of that social spectrum Neil covers (18 minutes worth to be exact!).

Young's literary touch is a great one by rock writing standards, so it shouldn't be discounted that it's simply a facet of his genes as his father Scott was a well-known, famous sports journalist and novelist. One of the more modest, country pickin' delights from Harvest Moon was "Old King," a tribute to a beloved dog Neil had for years, performed ably on an eerily tuned down banjo. This is where Neil even manages bluegrass, although in his own madcap way. This lower key was a wise choice and "Old King" is the most improved track from studio to live comparison, as far as I see it. Though a soundalike to his acoustic "Cortez the Killer" arrangements, "Natural Beauty" is spine-tingling in its own way. While Neil has strayed in his political beliefs from liberal to conservative over the years, one thing he has always respected is the environment. In that sense, he is a green thumb and a dyed-in-the-wool conservationist. Neil eschews the wild progressions technology offers, unless of course they can be used to aid our natural world. Like any Californian Baby Boomer rocker, Neil doesn't have clear religious convictions and though he has never claimed to be an atheist, he feels nature is the world's true religion because it's a lovely mystery in itself, but one best enjoyed if treated fairly like it were a living, breathing person. The version of Harvest Moon was not far off from this solo offering, though it had vocal harmonies, marimbas and unnecessary nature sound effects. Neil weaves his beliefs on how the planet has been destroying itself around homilies about how it's bad because the environment should be respected and it's so darn great, don't ya know? Well he pours forth from his heart as the subject is obviously one racing through his mind, however sometimes the lines are redundant and lame (case in point the chorus's first line: "And natural beauty should be/Preserved, like a monument/To nature"). But it's still an arresting, cautionary folk composition that features several verses and even exceeds the 10 minutes of the studio cut by making it to 11.5 minutes. While not cluttered by the sound effects, Neil misses the backing vocals of Nicolette Larson and the atmospheric touches. His voice doesn't always manage the falsetto notes so great, but it's still a hauntingly, splendid listen. One of the other topical selections from Harvest Moon is "War of Man," an ominous, broad musing on war and how in the end "No one wins/It's a war of man." Not targeting one war in particular like on previous outings, Neil assails the devastation wrought by war though he would offer a nod of tribute to the men who fought in those conflicts with "Western Hero" in 1994. Not besting the studio version, this is still a worthy live performance of "War of Man" where Neil again delivers rich, intricate guitar work. There are moments where the Harvest Moon record is indeed the superior one for reference, but Dreamin Man: Live '92 is a pretty companion piece. A hardcore Young fan will cherish it and those who find Harvest and Harvest Moon to be their cup of tea should give it a shot, unless of course they can manage to listen to an album performed entirely solo. The fact it holds up so well and resists one-dimensionality brings me to my final verdict for this album: four out of five stars.

Thoughts on the Overlooked, Underappreciated Genius of Paul Westerberg

First published in PressPlus1 Magazine (Online):

http://www.pressplus1.com/music/the-overlooked-underappreciated-genius-of-paul-westerberg.html

Ah yes, the godfather of alternative rock for the angstful young man. Paul Westerberg- now here we have a man who has taken the course less traveled in recent years by forgoing the major label status to release his albums independently. All the while he lives in the domestic suburbia of the Twin Cities area, where he grew up and his wonderful 80s group the Replacements started (I shouldn't say his since he didn't even found the group but you know what I'm getting at). This is admirable for a man who has admitted that he never found fame or fortune because he never sought it and when the Replacements always had chances to break through to the mainstream, they purposely squandered it, sometimes with a proverbial middle finger (see music videos they sardonically delivered for MTV rotation with 1985's "Bastards of the Young" being just a black-and-white solitary shot of a speaker playing, while 1987's "Alex Chilton" was the same, only with a record player. MTV's grumbling forced a more conventional- yet still abstract- video with various shots of the band sitting around on a couch and doing things completely unrelated to the song). Westerberg's biggest claim to notoriety started off innocently enough, or crudely enough if you prefer, when the Replacements were nothing but a bunch of young men singing tunes of teenage delinquency and frustration that gave the Ramones a run for their money. Westerberg joined the group when it was a motley crue that called itself Dogbreath and then the Impediments.

The Replacements name was borne out of the self-mocking attitude in the band that they were the group you got instead of one you truly wanted to see. The 'Mats is a fan nickname that has stuck, based on "The Placemats," a common mispronunciation of their real name and/or a derogatory term from some naysayer(s). So, this rapscallion bunch had their first album in the can by 1981 and established themselves alongside Husker Du as one of Minneapolis's premier rock groups. Often times the music put forth, written primarily by Westerberg, was an expression of unabated testosterone taking over- subject material about everything from partying it up with booze and cigarettes to the hangups of sexual difficulties. This was eventually streamlined into an alternative rock style with an ear for pop that was way ahead of its time. 1984's Let it Be was where the twain met and all their influences and developments coalesced to make an essential, legendary record. But the group was heading toward a bigger focus on tenderness, lower volumes and songwriting that, as the sales proved more and more disappointing with raised expectations on major label Sire Records, eventually overtook the danger in the Replacements rock youthful vigour. Westerberg matured bit by bit, even as the group's onstage drunkenness and sloppy spontaneity failed to go away.

To throw audiences for a loop, the Mats often scrapped their own tunes in the setlist for a 100% cover show, following themes at times or just playing an entire album or all songs by the same artist. The punks loathed this diversity for its foolery but Westerberg rightly pointed out the hypocrisy in punk fans being so opposed to this when it was supposed to be right up the punk alley of "D.I.Y., Anything Goes" and instead was more rigid and narrowly defined than other listening crowds. The more unexpected, the more the Replacements wanted to tackle it (Westerberg sometime around 1987 in a TV interview hypothesized that the worst thing they could do going forward was cut a rap album, to which he drly added after a dramatic pause for reflection, "So I guess we'll do that..."). A chance for national exposure was even prime ground for the Replacements pranking as their musical guest appearance in a 1986 episode of Saturday Night Live found them performing drunkenly, Westerberg cursing within earshot of the mic while all but Bob Stinson switched into each other's wardrobe for the 2nd number. While the later albums are a bit too easy going, the older ones are too one-dimensionally balls-to-the-wall too. That is why Let it Be was their perfect moment, an 80s rock album that crossed the punky angriness with thoughtful minded teenage social commentary.

By the 1985-90 back half of the Replacements' existence, Westerberg wrote bouquets of ear-catching melodies that would later be bastardized by the likes of city mates Soul Asylum as well as the Gin Blossoms, Hootie & the Blowfish, Goo Goo Dolls and everyone else who had a sunny, 90s good vibes college rock sound on the radio in that post-grunge comedown. Tim was the Replacement most accomplished pop pursuit and most likable, friendliest album, as lead guitarist Bob Stinson's lust for the breakneck, heavy rush of their punk roots became phased out, as Stinson was a year later in 1986 because of his supposed drug and alcohol abuse- though creative differences played just as big a role (Stinson eventually couldn't make the high times last, dying in 1995 from natural causes no doubt brought on by his addictions). 1987's Pleased to Meet Me as it turns out was their final gem and from there, it got less and less fun for all involved. Truthfully, it was Mr. Westerberg who was the cog that made the whole engine work, growing from an ambitious shouter who crafted 1 minute orgies of noise and puerile tales to a fabulous writer that foreshadowed Kurt Cobain vocally and mentally. You could say he was a precursor to grunge in a time when no one was quite prepared for it, Westerberg having moulded himself into a carefree but frustrated soul.

In that wasted, ravaged, nicotene-burnished voice, no one else could transmit such intense emotion across like Paul Westerberg. Who can listen to "Bastards of the Young," "Answering Machine," "Sixteen Blue," "Within Your Reach" and a bevy of other five-star inclusions without deeply admiring and aligning themselves with the all too real howl of Westerberg? If emo rock was more like Westerberg's, we wouldn't be considering it to be the trendy, irritating scourge of youth rock music today. You could say that the snarling punk Westerberg came off across as in the early 80s was perhaps a phase, perhaps just a young, alienated man getting his ya-yas out before collecting himself after a series of hangovers (and yes the Replacements made it a ritual to peformer intoxicated). Westerberg has always insisted that he had a wide palette for songwriting even when he wrote high school homilies and that intended to unleash it one day, but he was too wary of how his bandmates would react, fearing it would elicit laughs and teasing. He even brought his personal history into his art when he wrote 1987's "The Ledge," a song about a teenage kid who vows to committ suicide with everyone watching, apparently based on Westerberg's suicidal thoughts as a teenager. Even John Lennon never opened up in that respect and Westerberg, to the best of anyone's knowledge, never partook in Arthur Janov's Scream Therapy. In time for Tim in 1985, the 'Mats had bolted from their native Minneapolis label Twin Tone for the big label of Sire Records. When this occurred, some say their energy, spirit and anger didn't make the transition with them. Perhaps that's true but Westerberg began to mature along with his audience, whether they knew it or not.

The inner dynamic of the band changed when Bob Stinson was gassed after Tim, a culmination of his phasing out over the final two albums he did with the group. He preferred the manic, breakneck frenzy of their roots but when he was sacked the official verdict wasn't that it happened due to creative differences but that it happened due to his drug and alcohol abuse (strange to hear coming from a band of party animal booze cans). The other parts to the equation shouldn't be brushed aside. Chris Mars the drummer was an accomplished, well-rounded musician but never was the forceful songwriter that Westerberg was and the same goes for bassist Tommy Stinson who was much younger than the already fresh-faced rest of the band was. Stinson is now residing as the bassist in Guns N' Roses while Mars has given up music to focus on painting. Westerberg shied from the spotlight and on top of that, the Replacements last two albums fizzled on the charts despite making obvious overtures for the top 40 leading to nothing but opening for stadium acts and headlining tours of bars and small theatres. By 1991, it was finally over with. While as part of the Replacements he had enjoyed singing for the misfits and outcasts while flaunting a caricature of a wild man in interviews and stage demeanour. But the revelling in mayhem caused some sobering times for Westerberg who had to settle down and conquer his drinking in the 90s. Overcoming all this still did not make him renewed enough to move some big units.

True to his restless allergy to the mainstream, Westerberg has carved out a solo career where he makes the odd appearance on a soundtrack or two, more recently for kids films since he became a dad himself. After all, he once quipped that the Replacements would rather play for 50 people that know them than play for 1000 people who don't. It seems perfectly fitting, although anti-climactic because of the potential it once promised. While the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame strives to make headlines by inducting a member or two each year that is well known to the public, great bands with high critical reputations will be ignored and the Replacements are one of them. One day maybe they will get their due but sometimes being misunderstood before receiving full recognition is the greatest legacy of all in contemporary music. Robert Christgau put it well when reviewing Paul's 1996 album LP Eventually, saying he sounded "too mean because he's not as important as he thinks he is, too irrelevant because he's not as important as he should be." But that may well be how Westerberg prefers it. And remember that when you look at your favourite indie act today and bemoan their lack of recognition, just remember that time clears through the muck and divides the wheat from the chaff. Your modern day hero could one day become Paul Westerberg, a cult hero who despite shunning the attention is recognized for the major impact they had on contemporary music going forward.