C or D: Emitt Rhodes?

Think the group is public anyway so you can see everything anyway, just more likely to see stuff as a member and I can chime in if I really feel the need.

Listening to the tribute on SiriusXM Volume West. Michael Des Barres compared Emitt to Nick Drake, fair enough. Chris Price, who produced his last album telling interesting stories about how he met Emitt and about Emitt's (-day-) job at Mike Nesmith's Elektra studio where among other things he engineered Judee Sill's third and last and unfinished for a few decades album.

This interview is great. Clears up a lot of stuff.

Also, that makes sense re. Rainbow’s End being recorded later – the doc was 2010-11 and the record wasn’t released until 2016 or so. Seems fitting that he got fucked by the industry right to the end.

Re. his lyrics, I agree – one of my favorite tunes of his has always been “Live Til You Die,” but it was only this week that I really listened to the lyrics, poss. with an eye toward his innate unhappiness. In retrospect they feel a bit like him shouting into the abyss:

I have to say the things I feel, oh
I have to feel the things I say
You must live till you die, you must fight to survive
You must live till you die, you must feel to be alive
You must live till you die
See the sun rising in the east, welcome warm days
Feel my heart flying every time we're alone, babe
Everything around me has been changing so
I can't let go, oh no, no
You must live till you die, you must fight to survive
You must live till you die, you must feel to be alive
You must live till you die
Feel the earth trembling, have you heard distant thunder?
Everything's moving what's this feeling I'm under
Everything around me has been changing so
I can't let go, oh no, no
You must live till you die, you must fight to survive
You must live till you die, you must feel to be alive
You must live till you die, you must live till you die
I have to spin the spinning wheel, I have to kneel that way
I have to say the things I feel, I have to feel the things I say
You must live till you die, you must fight to survive
You must live till you die, you must feel to be alive
You must live till you die

OTM. He even had a way with titles. I finally learned yesterday whilst listening to the Chris Price interview- in the SiriusXM Volume West archive, through Sonos, that the last album is in fact called Rainbow Ends.

Here is some kind of “official” playlist of covers of his songs (it’s owner/creator is listed as Emitt Rhodes), in case we didn’t have it linked here yet.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5rYo0km9q4cWvoN6jRQDqg?si=bPs83hgoRL-Vg8QejiGotg

Maybe Emitt and not Elvis Costello is the real Cole Porter of Rock.

Hope you folks watched "One Man Beatles" before it went off of vimeo because of you.

Am I allowed to say I don’t care for any of his 2000’s work? As noted, it’s great he recorded anything again. And I’m sure I could find some parallels with his earlier work if I squinted hard enough. But honestly I’m not really sure I want to.

That Bangles cover of Live really hits the spot.

I’ve heard that cover many times through listening to the album it is on, but it has been hitting the spot for me these days too.

No worries if you don’t like the latter-day material, it’s sonically so different. I like it much more than most comebacks. Not sure if it is up there with Arthur Alexander, who I mentioned upthread but it’s close.

Meant to say it’s in the running

Lefsetz weighs in

Somebody quoted that whole thing on the fan group, maybe the bass player on Rainbow Ends and several people thanked him for expressing himself so beautifully

Hot off the presses! youtube.com/watch?v=MJu1yaIQZr4

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJu1yaIQZr4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJu1yaIQZr4

Handsome young chap. Weird to have him singing and playing to a backing track though.

Those are those Whistle Test clips I was talking about upthread! From one of the first episodes, iirc. There used to be an account on YouTube that had at least about 70-80 uncut episodes, presumably taken from original tapes (had the official BBC countdown leader and title cards), which was where I first saw it.

Another red hot release, coming right up!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXy9xOc-rxQ

Sad and kind of o_O interview on WFMU that aired today.

He’s a little out of sorts for this interview but it’s as expected with what we know about him by now and ultimately still charming.

At the end Michael Shelley says the 2010 interview was one of his favorites and that somebody made a Youtube video with pictures of ER in the background.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfqEhZO7I3w

.

This interview is indeed O_o. Fasten your seatbelts before listening.

Which reminds me I just came across this:

In 2001, Rhodes and his daughter were in a car accident after Rhodes lapsed into a diabetic coma while his car was stopped a stoplight. The car rolled into a truck and crashed.

In 2001, Rhodes and his daughter were in a car accident after Rhodes lapsed into a diabetic coma while his car was stopped a stoplight. The car rolled into a truck and crashed.

― Time Will Show Leo Weiser (James Redd and the Blecchs)

he mentions that accident the first time he shows up in that doc!

Hm, barely remember that, don't know what else I was doing while I was watching, thanks.

Before I sign off for today, here's a link to a Steve Hoffman thread discussion, about some of his business troubles, mostly involving management and publishing: https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/emitt-rhodes-on-hip-o-select.182344/page-7

Maybe I was in a pre-diabetic coma myself.

I still remember how excited I was to hear that 2010 interview on WFMU and then being just completely flattened and bummed out by it. Rough stuff.

I suspect, based on his fearful and pretty nasty homophobic comments in this and one other interview I’ve read online, comments uttered without any sort of “one of the boys” jokiness, that Rhodes went through or witnessed some physical abuse that fucked him up. Or possibly he was repressed? Who knows? And this is on top of all the record contract grief. He just reads like a heavily battle-scarred person. Sad.

I mean...

https://scrammagazine.com/emitt-rhodes/

emitt makes an appearance at around 1:45

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNyoAyo9088

https://i.imgur.com/OIlRtDo.png

from p. 9 here:

http://krlabeat.sakionline.net/issue/4dec65.pdf

so david beaudoin actually wrote a book in 1997 about his experience with the palace guard and the hullabaloo. based on the title, i wonder if he talks about the sexual abuse that emitt brings up in those two interviews:

https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1550493239l/1589699._SX318_.jpg

I suspect, based on his fearful and pretty nasty homophobic comments in this and one other interview I’ve read online, comments uttered without any sort of “one of the boys” jokiness, that Rhodes went through or witnessed some physical abuse that fucked him up. Or possibly he was repressed? Who knows? And this is on top of all the record contract grief. He just reads like a heavily battle-scarred person. Sad.

― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee)

i don't know emitt's life or what he went through.

i know there are many, many kinds of trauma and abuse - physical, sexual, emotional - and they are all damaging. i know that trauma and abuse is far more common, particularly in cishet-identifying men, than is readily acknowledged. i know there is a lot about rhodes' life that i have seen, uh, very commonly in, particularly, amabs who have gone through trauma and abuse, who are socialized to handle trauma and abuse in a certain way, for whom trauma and abuse are _normalized_.

i know that trauma and abuse is not a matter of "victims" and "abusers" but is a cycle, a pattern of behavior, that is instilled. i am not surprised to learn of the things that emitt rhodes has to say about gay people. whatever he went through, whatever brought him to that point, i think he is responsible for what he has said and done, and i do not think anything he may or may not have done exculpates him.

i very much enjoy much of emitt rhodes' music. i am saddened, but not surprised, to learn how difficult his life wound up being, how much hurt and pain he went through, and i am glad that he is not suffering anymore.

Man, reading that long interview the good Capitaine Jay Vee posted. Every time I see the name of the manager who messed him up I keep thinking "the bass player for the Monks!?" Sorry, my mind has a mind of its own.

I am still a little 🤯 after listening to the 2010 interview and reading that other interview.

On a lighter note, that interview also has this great exchange:


Kim: Your label mate, at the time, over at A&M was Phil Ochs, who was going kind of psychedelic…

Emitt: Nobody liked Phil Ochs. Did you like Phil Ochs?

Edwin: I loved his music.

Kim: I heard he was a horrible human being, by all accounts, but I still liked his records.

Emitt: You mean you liked him??
(The waiter walked up at this point to ask if we needed anything and Emitt addressed him.)

Emitt: Ever heard of Phil Ochs?
Waiter: Uhhh…

Emitt: How old are you?
Waiter: I’m nineteen.

Emitt: No, you’ve never heard of Phil Ochs. Forget it.
(The waiter left and we continued this thread)

...and this:

Kim: But you’d go back in time and kill Hitler?

Emitt: (chortling) Oh, I’d kill Hitler, no prob! I’d kill Saddam Hussein. Show him to me, I’ll go for him. (drives his butter knife against table repeatedly)

Kim: Put the knife down.

Are you posting that to go with NTI's "lighter note" or...?

the things that count as "a lighter note" these days...

Well, I thought it was funny (like a Simpsons gag..."Dad, put the butter knife down...")

well, it wasn't funny when my wife said it to me this week.

Reading that interview (and remembering others with him), I get the feeling he had to have been an aspie. The stubbornness, the feel for perfectionism, going from zero to tmi so rapidly in conversation...

Ya think?

going from zero to tmi so rapidly in conversation...

― "...And the Gods Socially Distanced" (C. Grisso/McCain)

haha, now are you talking about rhodes or about me? :)

Relatedly, there was this in that interview:

Edwin: What other instruments do you play besides guitar, piano, bass and drums?

Emitt: Nothing. Is there anything?? For me it’s one-four-five. It’s Pythagorean Theorum. For me it’s mathematics. I love Pythagoras. Everybody else in rock and roll loves Pythagoras, too, even if they don’t know it. I’m just telling you that Pythagoras was a wonderful guy. He lived a long time ago, nobody knows him and nobody cares. He gave us do re mi fa sol la ti do. Without him… somebody else would have had to do it. I love math. I love science. I love that stuff.

Edwin: Yeah, math and music are pretty much synonymous.

Emitt: It’s Pythagoras. You split the string in half and you get an octave. You split it into thirds and you get a third.

the homophobic shit in those interviews is so heinous, and ER brings it up so abruptly, it's just really difficult to read.

That is really unpleasant, and the grandiose I Am A Scientist stuff doesn’t help any.

its always amusing to me when dudes in music learn like one scientific term or basic concept, and then immediately imagine themselves as a timeless polymath renaissance man. "I bring so many disciplines to bear on my music - art, history, science. For example, like Nicola Tesla, I too think outside the box when creating my music."