Now that the temperatures are finally starting to climb above Antarctic resort levels and I begin to regain sensation in my fingers (back home in Chiberia they’re expecting temps to jump between 80 and 90 degrees this weekend!), thought I’d crawl out of my igloo to highlight a couple of salmon I caught swimming by under the ice. Since my last post a few weeks ago I’ve been obsessed with The Last Waltz, partly because of how negatively drummer Levon Helm talked about it in his autobiography, but also because of how good I’ve always thought it was. I remember first seeing it way back in high school when I got home from being out one night (probably at something totally rad like chess club or raging with the mathletes). The local access station always showed a weird mix of stuff in the late night hours — Three Stooges blocs, All in the Family or Laugh In mini-marathons, bad B-movies, or old concerts — and I always found a bunch of things that caught my fancy.
This night they were obviously fishing from the latter category and I remember watching with curiosity as it opened with this strange (but lovely) orchestral music, as well as interviews with these shaggy guys I didn’t recognize — including what appeared to be a crazy homeless guy curled up on a couch (who I later learned was keyboard/pianist Richard Manuel). Once they got to the music, though, I was grabbed from the outset — this country-tinged shuffle of an intro quickly followed by the drummer growling, “When I get offa this-a mounTIN, ya knoooow where I wanna go — straight dooooown the Miiiiiiiiiiiiiississippi Rivah to tha Guuuuuuulf-a Meeeeeeeexicooooooooooooooo!” in the opening classic “Up on Cripple Creek.”
It’s a great song, to be sure, but something about the band itself prevented you from looking away — whether it was that crazy homeless guy banging away at the keys with a voice that sounded a little like Ray Charles, or that drummer who looked like a lumberjack and sang out of the side of his face, or the other organ player who looked like a physicist and had an untameable mane of hair exploding from his bald spot’s perimeter like the President’s does now. To say nothing of the skinny guitarist with circle glasses ripping off riff after riff without breaking a sweat, or the bassist with the voice that emerged in a series of sweet honks, or the endless parade of legends — Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, and a couple of Neils (Young and Diamond), among others — coming out one after the other across this warm, opulent stage.
It was magnetic — the way each person sang a different song, each song spanned a different genre, and so many superstars wanted to say goodbye to these strangers I’d never heard of. (In addition to them playing for nearly three hours and almost everything they sang being so dang catchy.) To hear Helm talk about it so harshly made me wonder if I’d missed something or had somehow gotten it wrong, so I went back after reading his book to make sure this wasn’t yet another item from my youth that I’d overvalued or outgrown (like Cavaricci pants or role playing games). And while the movie is still amazing — it’s almost worth watching just to hear the exchange between Robertson and Clapton as they trade licks on “Further On Up the Road” and see the smile on Clapton’s face when Robertson crushes the so-called god of guitar, or the tingle-inducing end of “It Makes No Difference” when Hudson appears, invoking what might be the first/only time in human history where you think to yourself “FUCK yeah, saxophone!” — what’s captivated me the past few weeks has been the 40th anniversary audio edition, which has nearly another hour and a half’s worth of material that I never knew about.
Thanks to Helm’s account I learned more about how that day went down, with the band playing basically non-stop for four or five hours, doing essentially a Band concert on its own before each of the allies and influences started coming out to play two to three songs a piece (vs the single songs that show up in the movie), along with several encores and rehearsals. For some reason they didn’t film all of the above, only recorded most of the audio, so there’s a bunch of treasures I’d never heard until I started mining my obsession the past few weeks. And while I think it’s fair to say the movie captured most of the concert’s best segments, there were a bunch of really good songs that somehow didn’t make the cut — the New Orleans tinged (or titled) “Life is a Carnival” and “Down South in New Orleans,” the swinging hoedowns of “Rag Mama Rag” and “W.S. Walcott Medicine Show,” or the uniquely Band-ish tracks like “This Wheels on Fire” and “King Harvest.”
Hearing all this made me understand Helm’s distaste a little more — not only because the Band sounded so good (Helm’s gravely growl in particular is a delight, making songs from the first two albums sound better than they ever did on the records), but also due to the haphazard chaos of the movie, which missed several key moments. (Helm was specifically annoyed with how Muddy Waters was handled, with the great track “Caldonia” left out as well as the legend’s intro/exit.) That said, I still think writ large this captures a magical moment in time — a band in its prime giving a monster farewell show with some of the biggest names of the day — that definitely lives up to the mantra of “leave em wanting more.” Check out some of my favorites and see for yourself:
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We’ll close with the regular assortment of one-offs — first this article from Stereogum on the anniversary of beloved Built to Spill’s classic, Keep it Like a Secret, which turns 20 today (exhibit 12760 why I am O.A.F.) It does a good job walking you through the album and its many gems — I had the good fortune to see them perform this in its entirety two years ago back home and it was like a one hour waking dream. Warm, shapeshifting, and hazy around the edges, this thing’s perfect from top to bottom. Pop this on and hop onto the cloud:
Next comes a surprise single from Interpol, “Fine Mess,” whose album last year was the good-not-great Marauder (although it topped body double Gabriel’s year end list, which just shows his taste is as questionable as our appearance), and it hearkens back to the band’s early years, all nervous energy and twitchy guitars. It’s unclear whether this is part of another album or an extra from the last one, but it’s a good listen regardless — give it a spin here:
Up next comes the much-anticipated return of fellow New Yorkers Vampire Weekend, who released two songs from their upcoming album Father of the Bride this week. It’ll be the first album without founding member Rostam Batmanglij and their first since 2013’s Modern Vampires of the City(number 7 on that year’s list), so the band plans to come back strong by making it an 18-song double album. “2021” is a slight little throwaway, but “Harmony Hall” is a solid song, sporty a lovely little guitar riff that doubles on itself before adding in pianos and building to a bright chorus. Hopefully the rest of the album leans towards this one vs the former:
Next comes another surprise return, this time from former Libertine (and tabloid trainwreck) Pete Doherty, who’s been touring with a new side project, the Puta Madres (which means “jolly sailors” in Spanish), and plans to release their debut soon. Doherty has apparently cleaned up his act after years of trying to kill himself with drugs and booze (he even reconciled with former bandmate Carl Barat, recording a new album three years ago I somehow missed) and while the shambolic energy of that former unit’s early years is missing, it’s still a pretty good song. I’ll be curious to hear the rest of the album when it comes out — give this a ride in the meantime:
We’ll close by circling back to the start and another offering from America’s Hat, this time with the latest single from Canadian punks Pup who plan to release their third album Morbid Stuff in the coming months. Thankfully it doesn’t sound like they’re straying from the formula that’s gotten them this far (no dreaded synthesizers in sight), tossing off another catchy, high energy ripper. Let’s hope the rest of the album follows suit — check out “Kids” while we wait:
Until next time, my friends… –BS