Since the wind is howling outside like a frigid tornado and it’s therefore too damn cold to do anything else, thought I’d pop in with a couple recommendations that’ve kept me company by the fire, three auto-biographies for folks familiar to the eight of you that you might find worth a spin.
First comes the coffeetable sized book about the beloved Lizard (aptly named Book) — because if anything says “I’m warm and inviting — place me out in the open so children and random visitors can rifle through me,” it’s these guys, one of the loudest, heaviest, and flat out ferocious bands around. Comic irony about the book’s format aside, it’s a great read — aside from quick backgrounds on each of the members, told first in the individual’s words and then added to by the remaining three members, it walks through each of the band’s albums, from the drum machine origins of Pure to the disappointing departure of Blue. Bassist David Sims leads most of those discussions, giving interesting background on the recording process writ large, as well as recollections (and recommendations) for specific songs on each album. There’s validation in hearing that your favorite albums/songs are some of his/theirs as well (Goat, Liar, and Shot rank highest, and Down is acknowledged as one of the weakest), but it’s also fun to go back to albums/songs you’ve written off and try them again because they’re his/their favorites. (“Trephination” and “Too Bad About the Fire,” for example, or virtually all of Blue, which they still like/rank higher than Down.)
There’s also a ton of great photos of the band, both at gigs and behind the scenes (the blood-splattered guitar of Duane Denison with no explanation raises a tantalizing array of questions), and loads of stories/additional context from non-band members, such as producers, writers, and fans. The ode to the first second of “Boilermaker” is one of my favorites — both because it’s spot on and because not many bands elicit this level of adulation. (I’m afraid to look, but highly doubt there are blog posts or articles about the intricacies of 21 Pilots songs.) Here’s a taste:
“The opening second of Liar is hands down the greatest opening second of any album ever recorded…Part of its charm is how hilariously self-defeating it is to put the climax of your album within its first second…if Liar were a splatter flick, it would start with the woodchipper scene. It’s getting cold-cocked without even seeing the face of your attacker. No matter what volume your stereo is at, it’s too loud…it’s like walking in mid bark…it’s opening the door to find the Jesus Lizard rehearsing (or worse) in your living room…[it’s] an abrupt jolt coming in midsentence, seeming to send the message, “Uh, the party’s already started, where the fuck have you been?'”
Next comes the tale of Tweedy, as remembered by Jeff himself, Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back). Apparently Santa is one of the eight readers here, as she heard my wish and delivered this to me just after the holiday, and I’m glad he did because it’s a fast, enjoyable read. Despite what you’d guess based on the tone of most of Tweedy’s music, he’s got a really good sense of humor (saying a signature on one of the pictures in The Loft had been “eradicated by the power of sad mid-tempo rock,” for example) and he’s often self-deprecating, which helps keep the mood light, even when he’s talking about pretty serious stuff — whether it’s the well-publicized breaks from the Jays — Jay Farrar from Uncle Tupelo and Jay Bennett from Wilco — or his equally well-publicized addiction to painkillers. Tweedy seems intent on not glossing over things to make himself look good, owning up to elements that helped lead to those breaks and providing details that really drive home that first point (such as admitting he would steal painkillers from his dying mother-in-law when he was in the grips of his addiction).
It makes for a resonant, sympathetic read — from his childhood in Belleville, Illinois, a tiny town outside St Louis with “the longest Main Street in America,” where his dad worked for the train company (the town’s main employer) and his mom would put up posters for his early gigs (while also adorably taking money at the door) to the formative days of Uncle Tupelo, trading music with Farrar and his family, and the birth of Wilco in the wake of the former’s demise. Tweedy unsurprisingly knows how to tell a tale, and he walks us through a lot in the book’s ~300 pages — aside from the aforementioned episodes, he also details a lifelong insecurity and anxiety surrounding his music that seems surprising for someone of his undeniable skill. (It also leads him to admit to something I’ve long suspected, his “trying…to find ways to undermine songs,” which seems like a form of self-defense now that you know where it’s coming from.) Both for what he’s gone through and how he chooses to portray it, Tweedy really endears himself to the reader and makes you connect to the music in new ways, now that you’re armed with additional context and detail. Reiterates the suspicion that he’s a guy you’d like to hang out with for a couple hours — or at least I sure would… (if for no other reason because he knows about ridiculous things like this video, which he mentions in the intro as something guaranteed to make him smile, and it certainly worked for me. Be sure to stick around for the “solo” a little over a minute in…)
Last up comes the story of The Band as told by its drummer, the famed wild man Levon Helm, in This Wheel’s on Fire. It’s an equally vivid read, as one would expect with a narrator like Helm, taking you from the cotton farms of his youth in Arkansas to his formative years on the road with Ronnie Hawkins, which ultimately became the farm team for the future hall of famers. Both segments of his life feel like relics of a long-ago past — the sharecropping, segregation-era South and the birth of rock and roll — but Helm’s natural storytelling ability makes both crackle with detail. Whether working the fields in the blistering heat, living in houses with no electricity or plumbing, or working the chitlins circuit, driving thousands of miles and playing hundreds of gigs, often for little or no pay, you can picture everything whether you believe it actually happened or not. Which is not to imply Helm is embellishing, just that these eras seem so distant despite only being 60 or 70 years in the rearview mirror. (Another such example being his seeing Elvis play a show early on with no drummer because there was a law you couldn’t have one in a place that served liquor!)
Helm’s stories about life on the road during the birth of rock and roll are particularly incredible — playing four to five gigs a day, six to seven days a week, with a lead singer (Ronnie “The Hawk” Hawkins) doing backflips onstage and a piano player hitting the keys so hard the hammers would pop out like popcorn. Driving all over the South, playing torrid sets and getting in bar fights (and at least once blowing a place up for not paying them), before driving all the way to Canada to repeat the process. It sounded like barely contained bedlam — but man it also sounded like fun…
Through it all Helm’s country phrasings liven the proceedings, with lines like “so cheap he could squeeze a nickel hard enough to make the buffalo shit” or “stunned like a hog staring at a wristwatch” (or even calling harmonicas “harps”) giving everything a warmth and geniality as if you were sitting around the campfire listening to him tell stories. Even when he gets to the Band era, which gets a lot more complicated and dark despite the fame and success, the stories are still engaging and give you insight into another key period in our history, the Vietnam/Woodstock era of the late 60s/early 70s.
Similar to Tweedy and Sims, Helm is refreshingly honest, talking candidly about the band’s output (essentially the Big Pink and its self-titled successor are the only two albums he rates highly) as well as its ultimate demise (he spares no sharpness for Robbie Robertson and his decision to pull the plug, in addition to causing their decline in the first place by taking almost all the songwriting credits). It was surprising to hear how much he hated The Last Waltz, which I still think is pretty great, but based on the circumstances at the time (as well as what it sounds like got left out of the final product) makes sense in his telling. It’s an entertaining read, whether you’re a devotee of the band’s music or not.
That’s it for now — hope you enjoy these. I’ll see you once the ice hurricane lets up…
–BS