Everything old is . . . still old

Honestly, I try to broaden my musical consumption, if not my actual tastes.
Try as I might to listen objectively, The Kooks Konk album, for instance, is never going to sound as good as The Kinks Lola vrs. Powerman, or take its place in my collection.

Even newer acts aren't making new albums that appeal to me -- or get played -- as much as their older efforts. As much as I appreciate the broader palate of sounds they use and the attempts at variety, I simply don't like the new Raconteurs as much as the first one. At the very least, there's nothing on the new one I like as much as "Is She Really Going Out With-" . . . I mean, "Steady As She Goes"

As for anything outside my narrow, rock and roll comfort zone, I'm ignorant, unmotivated, and easily intimidated. Alarmingly superficial, too, but if you've ever read me, you know what a quick read I am.

While I will own up to my faults, can I help it if all three of the new albums I got a chance to hear this week are from artists that have been around for decades?

My attitude toward Tom Petty has made a 180 in the past year or so. I was so tired of the sluggish, strolling tempo that he seemed locked into on every single song, the lazy songwriting that sounded so redundant, the drawl that is probably legitimate but started to sound affected.

Then he and the Heartbreakers released Highway Companion, which I truly enjoyed, with a couple of songs ("Saving Grace" and "The Golden Rose") that played regularly for some months. The band I play in started doing some of their tunes, which are great to play and always go over. And Runnin' Down a Dream shows them to be very likable, even if, four or five hours into the otherwise-excellent, four-DVD set, they're sort of like house guests that just don't know when to leave.

The Mudcrutch album is still a pleasant surprise, even given my recent, positive disposition toward Petty and co. His decision to reconvene his pre-Heartbreakers band came out of the blue, and the timing seems especially surprising, given that he's launching a summer tour with his regular sidekicks. (One of our kids is seeing the show in July, so it's a good thing I'm over my aversion, since we're hearing a lot of TP & the HB's, to prep.)

While most of the Mudcrunchers are also in Petty's other outfit, the band sounds much less like the Heartbreakers on this album than I expected. True to Petty's stated intent, Mudcrutch has the sound of a 70's vintage road band, plugging into the studio between tour stops, putting on tape the songs they crank out every night. The material seems neither overly crafted or extremely tossed-off, just like a good, solid rock n' roll record used to. And while Petty may never get to be a Byrd, he and the 'crutch contribute a worthwhile studio rendition of one of their better, latter-day songs, "Lover of the Bayou."

On the down side, the world truly did not need another cover of "Six Days on the Road," particularly one done by a rock n' roll band. The other disappointment is that nothing on the album sounds all that much like the Mudcrutch tracks included on the Petty/Heartbreakers Playback box, which was what I'd hoped for.

Also blindsiding me, Elvis Costello's ode to instant noodles, Momofuku (which I'm guessing is contributing to all sorts of sophomoric humor, if there are any radio stations playing it). Here's another artist who has redeemed himself in recent years. Elvis got on the fightin' side of me many years ago when he spotted a (forbidden) camera a few songs into a show at Indiana University, and stormed off. Hurled some epithets, too, IIRC. Which was all nothing compared to the Bonnie Bramlett thing.

Our family's seen him in concert twice in recent years, however, in shows that have gone a long way toward erasing any ill-will (at least over that IU show). His concert with Emmylou Harris was just plain delightful, and in his solo opening slot for Dylan, he was as personable as he'd been rude in '79.

If I'd ventured a guess, it would have been that EC's next album would be along the lines of "From Sulfur to Sugar Cane"--written with T. Bone Burnett for All the King's Men, although not in the film--which he performed at the Dylan show. To no one's surprise, I would have been badly mistaken!

Elvis the rocker is back! Not a moment too soon. Momofuku has the raw, immediate sound of his classic records with the Attractions. If lacking a track as arresting and durable as "Pump It Up," "Clubland," or "Tokyo Storm Warning," the new one at least demonstrates his ability to rock satisfactorily at an advanced age (I say, as one in the same general demographic). It may not still land in my CD player in a few years, as This Year's Model, Armed Forces, and Trust, but when it does, it should still deserve a spin.

For me, EC is at his best when he's not attempting to shoehorn too many lyrics into tempos that are too slow, in arrangements that are too showy, and that's what we get here. The presence of Jenny Lewis, well, that's just a bonus.

Another EC shows up on the third new release I've been listening to, Steve Winwood's Nine Lives. A better title might be The Picture of Steve Winwood, because, after seeing and hearing him on last year's Crossroads concert, I'm convinced he's got a painting of himself in an attic somewhere, and in that portrait, he's looking like the dickens. Really, like Charles Dickens would today if you dug him up.

Given his inhuman youthfulness, and his remarkable talent, it's reasonable to expect Winwood to produce at least listenable music, even four decades into his career. Although he was a major contributor to one of my favorite all-time albums, Traffic's John Barelycorn Must Die, nothing I've heard from Winwood in the past couple of decades gave me much hope that he'd produce anything nearly so memorable.

"When You See A Chance" is a perfect example of what's disappointed me about Winwood's music: a cool tune with that Traffic-esque, light jazzy feel, with his piano and organ driving it. All well and good, until that wretched, wriggly synth starts playing over the top of everything. Seriously, where did he get that sample? From someone letting the air out of the neck of a balloon? My perception may be off-base, but that annoying synth blatt seems like the signature sound of his entire solo career. And it utterly ruins songs I would otherwise enjoy.

Can you guess where I'm going with this?

Winwood's new one has considerable promise of a return to earlier, pre-blatting form, and the high spots, like Clapton-spotlight "Dirty City," suggested that recent concerts featuring the Blind Faith music might not have been a fluke. Most of Nine Lives' music, while unremarkable, could fit nicely in a Traffic playlist.

A couple of tracks, however, feature an instrument as prominently and as gratingly as the ol' blatt-synth. It would take a bagpipe, or possibly a concrete drill, to introduce a sound that so utterly undermines and ruins a song for me as the sub-Kenny G* soprano sax bleating lavished on "Fly" and "Other Shore."
It is not just the sound itself--although that's enough to single-reededly wreck a song--but the hideous lapse in judgment in allowing that pathetic moaning licorice stick sound on a recording. Seriously, I'd give me the blatt-synth before making me listen to the bleat-ophone again.

Somewhere I read someone taking Winwood to task as a ghoul for sampling (late Traffic sax/flute player) Chris Wood's sax sound. I think there's a real good chance that lots of samples in today's synths were created by folks who are deceased, so I'm not sure that objection has a lot of merit, or at least, stands out in its ghoulishness. What diminishes Winwood in my eyes is failing to distinguish between a sound like Wood's sax playing and the sorry sax-o-whine on Nine Lives.

* According to Wikipedia, Kenny G's nephew, David, plays bass in the band, Puking Up Sunshine. Uncle Ken has yet to sit in with them, I'd surmise.

Junk to the World!

[Here's a review I wrote recently for Blogcritics. Some years ago, I read a mountain of biographies to contribute to a book called The Juicy Parts, which started me on a nearly all-nonfiction reading diet for more than a decade. One I read in the late 90's became the subject of frequent ridicule from me, a book I'd point out as the generic rock star auto-bio, one that had all the stereotypical sex-and-drugs excess, leading to rehab and redemption. It was so by-the-number (and so poorly written), it could pass as a parody of the rock star tell-all.
It was One Is the Loneliest Number by Jimmy Greenspoon (now out of print, and I gave away my copy, long ago!). The book I review below validates Greenspoon's story. And, while it is equally lousy as a piece of writing, it is compelling, and one of the most depressing books I've ever read.*]

Three Dog Nightmare - The Continuing Chuck Negron Story by Chuck Negron

Through the early 1970s, Three Dog Night was a fixture on the pop charts, a non-‎threatening alternative to the Stones and Zeppelin, yet hipper and harder-rocking ‎than Bread or The Carpenters. The band filled this niche for nearly five years, racking up 21 consecutive Top 40 hits and selling over 80 million albums. They were unusual, not only in their three-lead-vocalist format, but also in the degree of control they had over choosing their material, using their own band in the studio, and acting as co-producers of many of their records. The group’s phenomenal success, and broad appeal, afforded them uncommon freedom from ‎Dunhill, their record label through 1973.

By 1975, though, they were on their third label in three years and the hits had dried up. And by the time Elvis’ walking pharmacy, Dr. Nick, confided to the world the King’s prodigious appetite for prescription drugs, Three Dog Night’s Chuck Negron was selling his gold records to subsidize a $2,000 a day heroin habit.‎

In case the title isn’t sufficient, Negron sets the tone for his autobiography with the book’s first sentence — “I should be dead” — and an opening chapter that catalogs overdoses, car crashes, gun play, suicide attempts, and nearly becoming a victim in the notorious Wonderland murders. By the book’s end, it does seem miraculous that he survived the dissolute life he depicts in Three Dog Nightmare. Negron is merciless, even relentless, in portraying himself as a reckless, impulsive, and selfish junkie who thinks no further than his next score.

His focus throughout the book, an update of the 2000 edition, is his drug use, his repeated attempts at rehabilitation, and his eventual recovery; his musical career is almost incidental to his addiction story. In fact, it becomes obvious that Negron was already dealing with a propensity for substance abuse even before he became a rock star. A few musically-related Three Dog Night anecdotes — like Danny Hutton singing the lead vocal for “Liar” with “his head a few inches above the water line . . . of this scummy toilet” — tease the story of the band that remains largely untold (the only other autobiography out of the band to date, Jimmy Greenspoon’s One Is the Loneliest Number, offers a disturbingly similar, addiction-oriented approach to the Three Dog Night story, and is long out of ‎print.)

Negron’s account of free-lovin’ rock and roll on the road, however — from the exploitation of groupies to his own sexual accomplishments — is covered in exhaustive, sometimes implausible detail. The book has gained some notoriety for the “penis explosion” episode, which is as repulsive, and ludicrous, as it sounds.‎

While Negron’s band mates are generally spared, when he does illuminate his dealings with them, especially his fellow vocalists, it is often in a negative light. Danny Hutton, who appears to have been the band’s early leader, is said to have a “dangerous” ego, and Negron “could no longer trust him with [their] careers” when they disagree on releasing “One” (coincidentally, a Negron lead vocal) as a single. Cory Wells is depicted as both miserly and passively complicit in forcing, and keeping, Negron out of the reconstituted band. When Negron attempts to rejoin them on stage for one song, in 1992, Wells turns him away, allegedly ‎saying, “We’ve been giving them hamburger for so long that if I bring a piece of steak on stage, I’ll never be able to give them hamburger again.”

Other celebrities pass through the book’s pages and, given the pervasiveness of drug abuse and Negron’s sometimes vindictive nature, most of them don’t come off well, either. Sly Stone and his heavies are depicted beating Three Dog Night’s road manager Bob Tomasso nearly to death over refusing to pay for a band ‎member’s cocaine. The legendary porn star, John Holmes, is among the periphery of Negron’s junkie circle, who is ultimately implicated in the Wonderland murders, which take place at the home of a friend where Negron often shot up.

The L.A./Hollywood rock scene was so insular in Three Dog Night’s heyday that Negron comes in contact with a number of other big names, in different circumstances. In their early days, as Redwood, the band collaborated with Brian Wilson, until other Beach Boys reportedly bullied Brian off the project; Mike Love is quoted, true to his reputed character, as saying Redwood is “nothing.” Negron’s band and Chicago encounter each other as collaborators and as both musical and romantic rivals. And when Negron meets Julie, who becomes the mother of one of his children, she was married to the Doors’ John Densmore and pregnant by Allman Bros. Berry Oakley, who was already deceased.‎

Negron reports that Hutton and Wells were apprehensive when he first published Three Dog Nightmare, concerned about their dirt being dished, but his goal was, “[not] telling anyone’s secrets other than mine . . . I was exposing the horrors of my addiction in hopes of helping others with addiction problems.” Through most of the 300 pages, and nearly 20 years, Negron’s single-minded desire for heroin (along with alcohol and other drugs) is shown jeopardizing the livelihoods of his band mates and the safety of his own family.

To his credit, Negron seems to recognize how deplorable his selfishness and self-indulgence are, and how serious the consequences have been for everyone in his life. That doesn’t make it any easier to read about his son, Chucky, being born addicted to heroin or his girlfriend deciding between an abortion or giving birth to a second addicted baby. And despite his candor, Negron seems lacking in introspection over what led to this destructive lifestyle, or what he could have done to prevent it. Had he used a Three Dog Night song title for the book, “My Impersonal Life” might have been appropriate.‎

One of the book’s most disturbing aspects, and the apparent reason for this new edition, is to update the fate of Chucky Negron, that addicted baby. By age 28, Chucky had become a “full-blown heroin and crack addict” and was on his way to prison. Despite the family’s participation in A&E’s Intervention series, Negron indicates that, at the time of his writing, Chucky’s addiction was far from under control.

It’s evident that Negron had the best intentions in portraying himself so negatively and that he is a testament to the practice of rehabilitation, given his ongoing sobriety after more than 30 failed rehab attempts. Three Dog Nightmare should have the desired “Scared Straight” effect, while offering encouragement for addicts and their families. Still, any personal victory Chuck Negron has achieved must be overshadowed by the tragic legacy he handed down to his son, which is certainly the most profound cautionary message of his book.‎

[* With the possible exception of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, which, while masterfully written (seriously, how can you describe an ash-gray landscape over 300 hundred pages without being repetitive or dull?), made me want to lay myself out in one.]