Andrew Hickey’s History of Rock Music in 500 Songs podcast (& books) — discuss!

For those that cannot handle his voice (I can’t) and don’t want to read the transcripts in browser (I don’t) he does offer full transcripts arranged in ebook format for his Patreon subscribers and god they’re good. I’m not sure if he’s published the second yet as I’ve been checked out for a while but that first ebook made for an amazing companion piece to bob Stanley’s new pre-rock’n’roll one this summer

It’s a pretty extraordinary thing he’s doing here and I very much appreciate the lengths he goes to to mitigate against the shittiness of his subject matter . It doesn’t slow things down so much when you’re reading rather than listening, perhaps

Also <3 to you CaAL, I discovered your project and Andrew’s at roughly similar times and have followed them in tandem, and between the two of you you’ve completely blown away my previous conceptions about when 20th century popular music got “interesting” and I’ve found it extremely rewarding

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-lWQBjnFg

Doing this on phone so apologies if the tags fuck up. But that’s my fav entry. When the chorus kicks in and we go from old timey to rock’n’roll. It’s good stuff

I love this podcast.

I also found about it from ILM, specifically from a thread about Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, where someone linked to a transcript of an episode where Hickey discusses Jones's abuse of women. That episode contains his one effort to avoid causing offense that I found completely ridiculous:

You see, Brian Jones was a sadist, and not in a good way. There are people who engage in consensual BDSM, in which everyone involved is having a good time, and those people include some of my closest friends. This will never be a podcast that engages in kink-shaming of consensual kinks, and I want to make clear that what I have to say about Jones has nothing to do with that.

Because Jones was not into consent. He was into physically injuring non-consenting young women, and he got his sexual kicks from things like beating them with chains. Again, if everyone is involved is consenting, this is perfectly fine, but Jones didn’t care about anyone other than himself.

I can't imagine someone weird enough to be offended by this, but reasonable enough to be assuaged by the disclaimer.

In general, his efforts with this kind of thing strike me as both well-intentioned and pretentious. I think he sincerely wants to avoid causing pointless suffering, and to tell a version of rock history that sheds light on how various people have been unfairly sidelined. And I also think he's very invested in presenting himself as enlightened on these topics (which, of course, requires him to solemnly deny that he sees himself this way).

But that's a minor gripe, considering how good the show is. I've learned so much from it, and I'm beyond curious to see where it goes.

As another listener pointed out in the recent Q&A episode, he's rapidly approaching the point at which a lot of the most critically acclaimed rock music becomes stuff that was less commercially successful and therefore less immediately influential. I'm very interested to see how he'll handle that. I can imagine a version of this show that covers, say, the Eagles but not Minor Threat, and is justified on its own terms in doing so.

What is Camaraderie at Arms Length's project?

XP I don’t read his disclaimers as him being invested in seeming like anything at all … I read them more like “I’ve seen a thousand internet shitstorms and I want to be VERY VERY CLEAR about what I mean by what I’m about to say.”

JRN at 11:24 10 Aug 22

What is Camaraderie at Arms Length's project?

my attitude to the disclaimers is: I am fortunate enough not to have any form of PTSD and therefore these are not for me, but other people aren't so lucky.

I can imagine a version of this show that covers, say, the Eagles but not Minor Threat, and is justified on its own terms in doing so.

He's done Patreon bonus episodes (usually around 10-20 minutes) on a couple of songs that I was sure would be part of the regular 500, particularly Link Wray's "Rumble," and Tommy James And The Shondells' "Hanky Panky." And in his bonus episodes on the Walker Brothers' "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore" and Jackie Shane's "Any Other Way" he says that he tried to find a way to make them part of the 500, but wasn't able to. I'm still not 100% clear on the criteria for inclusion -- and he has stressed that it's not about personal preference, the aesthetic merits of the song itself, or establishing a canon -- but it could be because I wasn't listening closely enough to the episodes that may have laid out the criteria.

All that said, there hasn't been a single "main" episode where I thought, "Why is this here? What does this have to do with anything?" I have thought that before listening -- the one on "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" especially -- but not after.

Listening to the Q&A episodes he’s done, a big criterion is songs that give him a way to continue strands of the overall narrative. Sometimes several strands at once.

I've only listened to the James Brown episode, and it was really good even though he seems to be way more of a harmony person than a rhythm person. I probably would have picked a different tune to talk about the invention of funk, but he defended his thesis and I learned a lot of trivia despite being a JB nerd.

There's been a few episodes where he points out the differences between certain rhythms, and how certain rhythmic approaches evolved over the years. iirc, these were mostly in the earlier episodes.

Alba, yes, I do now remember how he's talked about the strands and connections and such.

Chiming in with a few thoughts. The podcast is one of my favorites of the past few years and there are so many similar shows that absolutely get this format wrong compared to Hickey... most "great record survey" type podcasts just gush over an album like a perfect 10 retrospective review and maybe offer a bit of "what was the band doing in the few months leading up to it" information. The approach here is light on the praise, and much more about putting the career of the artist into the context of the evolution of popular music. Excellent research and some great connections drawn between artists and songs I hadn't thought about.

I actually like his relaxed, bemused reading tone, and the writing isn't too cringe apart from the wallowing overmuch in salacious events wherever they crop up and the accompanying endless trigger warnings, and I can definitely quibble with Hickey's curious curatorial choices. He explains why he feels Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters don't belong in his survey but I think it doesn't make sense, really, since one of the big themes of his show appears to be the excellent point that "rock music and (black) soul music are basically contiguous and the musicians themselves listen to and operate across those boundaries, and it's only racist marketing / categorization that kept these two segregated on the radio and in record stores and in people's minds". So instead of some great electric blues episodes featuring what I think most critics would feel are far superior to yet sound right at home next to most 50s "rock and roll" songs, you get 2 Wanda Jackson and Eddie Cochran and Everly Brothers episodes, and full episodes on Tommy Steele, Manfred Mann and that LSD gimmicky surf song, and way too many episodes on Elvis, the Beatles and Beach Boys that betrays an overly "white oldies music fan" focus at odds with the aforementioned "segregation of soul music" theme. But this is quibbling; it's ok to have a point of view and go with it and the extremely high quality of the show speaks for itself.

My head canon I suppose would also have leaned a bit more international and focused less on telling just the story of the US and UK single and album charts. If you're going to say soul music and rock music are basically the same, you might as well include new york cuban-soul fusion bugalu (Joe Cuba) and maybe its precursor the conjunto sound of Arsenio Rodriguez; Jorge Ben and the Jovem Garda which was basically samba-rock fusion; Serge Gainsbourg evolving from chanson to latin jazz to full on 60s rock to writing a ye-ye anthem that wins the Eurovision; and I think the "Lion Sleeps Tonight" episode was fine but soul/latin/highlife hybrids happening in 60s west africa seems like a pretty big oversight to a history of rock music, it's basically some of the best electric guitar music ever made. And same goes for ska, I can see why Hickey went with "My Boy Lollipop" but geez that is just not the 60s ska track I would have picked. Just because it made the hit parade in the UK doesn't mean it's as important as the actual innovations that preceded it. There might be upcoming episodes on Hugh Masekela and Bob Marley and maybe a bonus episode on Mutantes or Veloso/Gil in exile.

Overall I like what Hickey's doing so much I've seriously considered basically copying the format and doing some seasons focusing on some of my sweet spots, like say doing 25 episodes on female 70s/80s post-punk, followed by a season on african musicians... but I think about the head start Hickey must have had owning hundreds of biographies and memoirs and the music I would want to cover, much of it doesn't even have a single biography, so the focus would have to be more on the music than on the biographical details of the artist... sounds like a ton of work.

25 episodes on female 70s/80s post-punk

Oooh, that is rich territory to mine. Au Pairs, Ari Up, Lora Logic, Danielle Dax, AC Marias, just to name a few...

He explains why he feels Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters don't belong in his survey but I think it doesn't make sense

That definitely raised an eyebrow for me, but I do think it makes sense. The early rock 'n' rollers came from Louis Jordan, the Moonglows, the Ink Spots, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Wynonie Harris...Hickey points out that the overt influence of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf didn't happen until Bo Diddley, and then not again until the Rolling Stones. He does point out that Waters influenced Chuck Berry, but has stressed that Waters was one among many of Berry's influences alongside Louis Jordan, Nat "King" Cole, and Charlie Christian.

I initially questioned some of his choices, but not after understanding that a) he's not out to create nor establish a canon; b) he's not choosing songs because they're good (or not); and c) each episode is more about the story than the song. An obvious example of the latter is his most recent episode on "All You Need Is Love." In the nearly 4-hour episode he doesn't get to that actual song until maybe 3 hours in. And when I saw that he'd chosen Peter, Paul & Mary's version of "Blowin' In The Wind" I thought, "What?! Not Dylan's version?!" But the story about PP&M's version is also the story about Dylan's version, and also broadens the scope to encompass the changes happening in the established popular music industry at the time (among other things). As counterintuitive as this sounds, an episode on Dylan's version would've been more narrowly focused, to its detriment.

In his recent Q&A episode, he says that he has done (and will do) episodes on songs that he absolutely despises. This isn't about "Hey, this is a great record! I'll do an episode on that!" And to his credit, the two episodes he's done so far on artists I intensely dislike were surprisingly -- shockingly, even -- engaging and informative.

And what I probably love most about this podcast is who unexpectedly turns up, and where. Sun Ra, Iannis Xenakis, Dexter Gordon, Coleman Hawkins, and Antonio Carlos Jobim are all mentioned, but not in the episodes you think they might be.

In the nearly 4-hour episode he doesn't get to that actual song until maybe 3 hours in

Re: rhythm. He spends a lot of time in the 40s/50s episodes pointing out rhythmic innovations and trying to explain their origins and influence. Also makes an interesting point that rhythmic innovations could not be copyrighted - so everyone could copy Bo Diddley without him getting paid.

Yeah, I found the Peter Paul and Mary episode interesting and all, but pretty tangential to the history of rock music per se, and again, I'm not sure we need quite as much Dylan in this series as we are going to wind up with. But like I say this is just a quibble. Personally I think the podcast would be better if it focused on the greatest and most innovative performances while maybe not having as much repeated focus on the very biggest names like Elvis, Beatles, Beach Boys, Dylan - and I think Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf absolutely recorded some of the best electrified stomping sing-along popular music that is basically rock and roll, although it gets pigeonholed or dismissed as just being blues music.

I have to imagine that by the time he gets to the 70s there will be less repeat artists, with glam, prog, metal, punk, funk, disco, new wave, etc. all in the mix.

In his recent Q&A episode, he says that he has done (and will do) episodes on songs that he absolutely despises

I've been trying to figure out which ones these are, think Louie, Louie is one, though his description of it just made me love it even more.

I'm still not 100% clear on the criteria for inclusion -- and he has stressed that it's not about personal preference, the aesthetic merits of the song itself, or establishing a canon -- but it could be because I wasn't listening closely enough to the episodes that may have laid out the criteria.

one of the big themes of his show appears to be the excellent point that "rock music and (black) soul music are basically contiguous and the musicians themselves listen to and operate across those boundaries, and it's only racist marketing / categorization that kept these two segregated on the radio and in record stores and in people's minds".

I might be wrong about this but I think I do remember him saying that at some point he would stop covering Soul music on the podcast as the genre becomes established as a separate thing from Rock - curious to see where he places this cut off, as I'd have probably placed it at the emergence of Motown and Stax.

The problem with just continuing to cover Soul and R&B imo is that while musicians listen to all sorts of music sure, as the story advances "Rock and Roll" becomes a term that is very much coded white and carries with it a whole lot of cultural baggage that simply wasn't there in the 50's. So while including Soul or, as per mig's post, MPB and Gainsbourg could be viewed as breaking down dumb marketing barriers, it's also doing so within the context of making it all a sub-genre of Rock & Roll, which I think ends up reinforcing some fucked up hierarchies, it's the same thing as Hip-Hop artists getting inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame. The way to sidestep that would be for it to be A History Of Pop Music, but of course that widens the scope to an absurd degree.

He's done eight Motown episodes, but only one (or two, if you count "In The Midnight Hour") on Stax so far. One of the more recent episodes was on Aretha's "Respect," which obviously talked about Otis Redding a fair amount (and he's said there'll be at least one Otis episode coming up). My guess is that if he stops covering soul, it'll be in the mid-'70s. He did say in an early episode -- one which led me to one of the most stunning recordings I've discovered in the last 15 years or so -- that he will be covering hip-hop to some degree in the future.

Ah, ok, this is what I was looking for (from episode 32 on Ray Charles's "I Got A Woman"):

...it’s worth talking about the musical boundaries we’re going to be using in this series, because while it’s called “A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs”, I am not planning on using a narrow definition of “rock music”, because what counts as rock tends to be retroactively redefined to exclude branches of music where black people predominate. So for example, there’s footage of Mohammed [sic] Ali calling Sam Cooke “the greatest rock and roll singer in the world”, and at the time absolutely nobody would have questioned Cooke being called “rock and roll”, but these days he would only be talked about as a soul singer.

And much of the music that we would now call “soul” was so influential on the music that we now call rock music that it’s completely ridiculous to even consider them separately until the late seventies at the earliest. So while we’re going to mostly look at music that has been labelled rock or rock and roll, don’t be surprised to find soul, funk, hip-hop, country, or any other genre that has influenced rock turning up. And especially don’t be surprised to see that happening if it was music that was thought of as rock and roll at the time, but has been retroactively relabelled.

Overall I like what Hickey's doing so much I've seriously considered basically copying the format and doing some seasons focusing on some of my sweet spots, like say doing 25 episodes on female 70s/80s post-punk, followed by a season on african musicians... but I think about the head start Hickey must have had owning hundreds of biographies and memoirs and the music I would want to cover, much of it doesn't even have a single biography, so the focus would have to be more on the music than on the biographical details of the artist... sounds like a ton of work.

― mig (guess that dreams always end), Thursday, August 11, 2022 6:32 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I put together this list of what the first 18 episodes of "A History of Jazz in 500 songs" would be, there is absolutely no way I'm ever making it, but if anyone wants to have a go then I would be very happy to help out.

Unique Quartette - Mama's Black Baby Boy
Vess L Ossman - A Bunch of Rags
Scott Joplin - Maple Leaf Rag
Arthur Pryor with Sousa's Band - The Patriot
Bert Williams - Nobody
Buddy Bolden Band - Funky Butt
Europe's Society Orchestra - Down Home Rag
Sophie Tucker - Some of These Days
Prince's Band - St Louis Blues
Collins & Harlan - That Funny Jas Band From Dixieland
Original Dixieland 'Jass' Band - Livery Stable Blues
Earl Fuller’s Rector Novelty Orchestra - Russian Rag
Wilbur Sweatman's Original Jazz Band - Dallas Blues
Marrion Harris - I Ain't Got Nobody
Art Hickman's Orchestra - Rose Room
Lieut. Jim Europe's 369th U. S. Infantry “Hell Fighters” Band - Memphis Blues
Joseph C Smith's Orchestra - Yellow Dog Blues
Mamie Smith and Her Jazz Hounds - Crazy Blues

David Wondrich is great on Europe’s “down home rag” in ‘stomp and swerve’, that was a real opener for me for with the super early stuff

New episode! And I strongly suspect this is less about the song itself -- unless Scott McKenzie really is somehow fascinating enough to warrant a 2 1/2 hour episode -- and more about the story: https://500songs.com/podcast/episode-151-san-francisco-by-scott-mckenzie/

wasn’t there some stuff with John Stewart as well?

just finished listening, the song itself is covered for only a few minutes- majority of the episode is the career of The Mamas & the Papas and The Monterey Pop Festival 1967.

I'm a bit baffled at how much Hickey shoehorned into this one. Enjoyable to listen to as always but not sure I needed 2.5 hours on the Mamas & the Papas w/ Scott McKenzie and Monterey Pop detours. I feel like I don't have a strong sense of who this John Phillips character really was, or why I should want to know him given what I know of how he turned out. I think the problem was me; I have always held California Dreamin' at arms' length, it's great of course, and moreover I'm intrigued by the hyper capitalist American go-getter make friends and influence your uncle attitude of putting easy listening ba-ba-da-da-da peanut butter in my chocolate rock but beyond Pet Sounds and the more marginal hipster crate digs like Free Design and Millenium, the whole field is kind of a blur to me and the big hits like Eloise and Windy kind of bore me. If I'm in the mood for interesting 60s easy listening I'll usually reach for something like Morricone or Esquivel, Swingle Singers, Peggy Lee, Scott Walker, Francoise Hardy. I think there's more for me to explore in the world of the big sunshine pop hits, "The Archies plus Bacharach" sounds appealing to me, but it's currently lost on me, even after this episode.

It seems there could be a way to use the moment of the summer of love to tie together sunshine pop of the Turtles/Association/5th Dimension and sophisticated adult-themed records of Bacharach and Webb, lounge precursors and the Beatles/Beach Boys/folk rock stuff he's already covered, and talk about California Dreamin' as a sort of happy-sad, beautiful-summation of this cultural moment, and how the band's Fleetwood Mac style internal drama is a presage of the sexual chaos of the dawning era.

I think he's big into that kinda stuff, possibly through being a huge Beach Boys fan. The comment on the LA/SF feud was interesting to me as I was totally unaware this had even been a thing.

Ditto. That strain of '60s California music -- Mamas & Papas, Association, much of the non-Spector/non-Beach Boys Wrecking Crew things like Gary Lewis & The Playboys -- isn't really my bag. And I can't stand the McKenzie song, but I thought it was the perfect fulcrum for this episode. What really struck me was learning that Monterey was set up to be a kind of battle of the bands between LA and San Francisco. As Hickey pointed out, most most of the LA bands either declined, didn't show, backed out, were missing key members, or (as with the Association) were seen as squaresville next to the Dead, Airplane, Moby Grape, Quicksilver, and Big Brother (and forget about comparing the Association to Hendrix or the Who...though Steve Miller is on record saying he despised the Who's set and loved the Association). So it's about how the slick LA scene came up with the McKenzie song -- representative of cynical showbiz appropriations of the new hippie culture -- that those on the SF scene not only laughed at, but made irrelevant overnight.

Latest episode is also California-centered, but is much more focused on the song itself ("For What It's Worth" -- and I had no idea about the somewhat hilarious origin story of the song's title). Not sure how much in this episode will be news to Neil fans (of which I am one, but I never got around to reading Shakey or his autobios), but a few things -- like Neil's love for Bobby Darin, which explains a fuck of a lot about how Neil went about his career -- were genuinely surprising to learn.

Thoroughly enjoying this podcast thanks to this thread. Thanks!

Neil briefly being a Motown artist was news to me!

also lol @ Stills description of Mike Love as "spooky"

i love this sort of thoughtful and in-depth analysis of music, one that takes a wide-ranging purview. the thing that sticks out to me most from the transcripts i read (podcast listening isn't something that comes easy to me so i'm glad the transcripts are there) is andrew pointing out that had little richard been born thirty years later he might have identified as some variety of genderqueer or trans. it's something i struggle with a lot personally - there's a particular really intense piece i've been working on about a particular famous musician, and it's an _extremely_ controversial topic within trans communities. the little richard story also _really_ gives me thoughts about the malign influence of christianity on queer people's lives.

I think about this with prince a lot too but it's obviously extremely sticky territory

I learned a lot esp from the early episodes (later ones are well done too but my interest wanes the closer we get to classic rock) I would love something like this that goes deeper into jazz/blues/proto-r&b and the the connections between the what-we-might-now-call queerness of little richard and sister rosetta sharpe and the what-we-might-now-call GNC/butch/trans/gay/bi/pan/queerness of early blues and jazz performers and the extremely complex intersections with race and religion... basically I'm asking for a different podcast which is no criticism of hickey - it's only that he's done such a good job that I want more

I do strongly approve of reclaiming soul/funk/doowop/vocal groups as rock and I'm v curious to see how far he'll go with this as we move into 70s and later

I think about this with prince a lot too but it's obviously extremely sticky territory

― Left

oh god yes, and with prince it's complicated even further by his being a pretty horrifically narcissistic and abusive person. did he spend most of his time around women because he could relate to them more in a gendered sense? or did he spend most of his time around women because due to their marginalized status it was easier for him to take advantage of them then it was for him to take advantage of men? given that the way he treated women is frankly a _lot_ more prevalent (and condoned) in cis men than it is in trans women, it's fucking hard to argue that his gender non-conforming behavior in any way played a role in his treatment of women, but TERFs have been making that argument for decades anyway, absent anything that even _resembles_ evidence.

i've been trying to read duane tudahl's day-by-day histories of prince in '85 and '86, but it's really harrowing reading, so i haven't gotten as far as the late '86 _camille_ sessions. hard to know what to make of _camille_. he adopted a female persona, altered his voice, and started singing songs like "if i was your girlfriend" under that persona. what sort of song is "if i was your girlfriend"? is it a song of trans lesbian yearning? or is it a song sung by a possessive, controlling abuser who wants to have total control over the person the song is addressed to? ("why not both?", as the answer to these questions generally goes.)

i mean, prince, the question that was always asked about him was "is he gay", and when wendy and lisa were asked that they would laugh and say "oh, no, he's not gay, he's a lesbian, he likes girls". but, you know. they didn't mean it in a _trans_ way or anything. and then complicating that is the influence of, specifically, christianity - a strongly queer-negative religion, but one which has historically served as one of the most major ways for Black people to survive collectively in a systemically racist society that denies them personhood. that's a very different experience with christianity than my own experience with it.

on top of that, there are his obvious conflicted feelings about his own gender and sexuality ("shockadelica", for instance, portrays camille as a basically _malevolent_ force. his songs are filled with these types - annie christian, anna stesia). and there's of course the family abuse and trauma prince went through. again, the idea of "victims" and "abusers" as separate people breaks down when you look at actual abusers. prince was both. the abuses he perpetrated recapitulated, in many ways, the abuses he suffered, the fucked up bullshit he was taught to think of as normal.

female sexuality? on _dirty mind_, prince sings about being sexually assaulted by his sister, and implies though does not openly state that this is what made him queer. this isn't a song i necessarily think of as "dirty" per se. even when he's trying to be positive about queerness, as when he describes the lesbian he names "vagina" (the original name he wanted to give to Vanity) as "half boy/half girl/best of both worlds", that's not really a _queer_ perspective so much as a _chaser_ perspective. he never is able to bring himself to _say_ that he is queer, only to drop double-entendres and perform in heavily queer-coded ways. so if you listen to "originals" you can hear him singing these explicit sapphic songs, but you know, those songs weren't meant to be sung in _his_ voice. they were for the _girls_ to sing, the girls he tried to control and treat as puppets.

and then of course there's prince's death being one of the twin shocks, for a lot of us, in 2016, along with bowie's death. bowie, like prince, was beloved, acclaimed, gender non-conforming, and an abuser. there's a fucking lot to process there.

yes yes all of that I couldn't put any of it better

idk if I read too much into the original camille album being scrapped but it seems pretty significant

obv his predatory behaviour and personal homophobia complicates everything even more same prob goes for little richard

Gone back to start from the beginning, picked up the Train Kept A Rolling episode along the way. Hadn't realised there was history prior to Tiny Grimes. A song written for Ella Fitzgerald apparently gets rewritten for that.
Like wow like.

Didn't mention Led Zeppelin doing the song on early tours but maybe you need to be familiar with bootleg stuff by them to know that.

idk if I read too much into the original camille album being scrapped but it seems pretty significant

― Left

hard to say, it's not as if scrapped albums were particularly rare for him haha - he did scrap three other planned albums in 1986 (dream factory, crystal ball, and the flesh)

There are two very different stories about how “Eve of Destruction” came to be written. To tell Sloan’s version, I’m going to read a few paragraphs from his autobiography:

“By late 1964, I had already written ‘Eve Of Destruction,’ ‘The Sins Of A Family,’ ‘This Mornin’,’ ‘Ain’t No Way I’m Gonna Change My Mind,’ and ‘What’s Exactly The Matter With Me?’ They all arrived on one cataclysmic evening, and nearly at the same time, as I worked on the lyrics almost simultaneously.

‘Eve Of Destruction’ came about from hearing a voice, perhaps an angel’s. The voice instructed me to place five pieces of paper and spread them out on my bed. I obeyed the voice.

The voice told me that the first song would be called ‘Eve Of Destruction,’ so I wrote the title at the top of the page. For the next few hours, the voice came and went as I was writing the lyric, as if this spirit—or whatever it was—stood over me like a teacher: ‘No, no … not think of all the hate there is in Red Russia … Red China!’

I didn’t understand. I thought the Soviet Union was the mortal threat to America, but the voice went on to reveal to me the future of the world until 2024. I was told the Soviet Union would fall, and that Red China would continue to be communist far into the future, but that communism was not going to be allowed to take over this Divine Planet—therefore, think of all the hate there is in Red China.

I argued and wrestled with the voice for hours, until I was exhausted but satisfied inside with my plea to God to either take me out of the world, as I could not live in such a hypocritical society, or to show me a way to make things better. When I was writing ‘Eve,’ I was on my hands and knees, pleading for an answer.”

Lou Adler’s story is that he gave Phil Sloan a copy of Bob Dylan’s Bringing it All Back Home album and told him to write a bunch of songs that sounded like that, and Sloan came back a week later as instructed with ten Dylan knock-offs. Adler said “It was a natural feel for him. He’s a great mimic.”

"I had a vision...of me paying my rent."

New "Heroes and Villians" episode just dropped.

Re: Prince and Little Richard, I think you have to consider how their world views were shaped by their religious upbringing. Ultimately tragic in both cases - it's speculated it may have indirectly led to Prince's early death (forgoing a double hip replacement that would require a blood transfusion, leading to further complications that required pain management) and in Little Richard's case, I can't even begin to fathom how much it would mess you up/torment you to believe your own sexuality is sinful and evil. I can't demonize them for their homophobia (in Prince's case, he even tried to get Wendy to renounce homosexuality) - they were flat out wrong, but I always felt sorry for them more than anything.

Actually Kate does touch on it briefly. But yeah, given how religious both men were - far more than most people I even grew up with who practiced their faiths regularly - I think what they still managed to do is surprising and impressive. It brings to mind the end of Silence but in reverse fashion. They were devout to the end, but some part of them seemed to remain free - there's some kind of transcendence in their work and what they left behind, and what they accomplished did so much for others even if it ultimately had a limited impact on themselves personally.

The final chapter of The Life And Times Of Little Richard — the authorized biography by Charles White — is a compilation of Richard’s largely anti-gay testimony. But the 2003 preface to this chapter says, “Richard was adamant this be included in early editions of this book, but has since repudiated his views on gays. ‘Jesus loved gays. He died for gays,’ he said recently.”

Booming post, bitw.

I was thinking recently that if the fictionalised character Jesus was based on an actual historical individual that original character was somebody who hung out with societal outcasts and assumed that included gays etc. I know that organised Christianity seems to have more to do with the individual filtered through the gaze/lens of Paul who seemed to be a far less tolerant individual and seemed to intentionally posit his own interpretation of who should and shouldn't be included.
Also hearing elsewhere that initial set of Christianity was more gender equal i.e. was open to having women in prominent roles which itself got stopped by reformation a few hundred years down the line.

Glad to hear Little Richard became more tolerant and accepting of people. I thought he swung that way himself so self-accepting?

Long bonus episode on Lee Scratch Perry today, can recommend.

Quite enjoyed learning that "Small Axe" was intended as a diss track for the competing Kingston studios, and not the political underdog anthem I always took it for.

Same! Was also surprised when John Martyn turned up. Really got to finish the Katz biography.

Apparently he has written a sitcom
with one of the ppl behind that powerfully unfunny “autism satire” website. God bless but oh no

lol out of the many qualities Hickey possesses, I really wouldn't have listed a gift for comedy.

he did mention once one of the projects he'd be doing if he wasn't doing this would be a history of British comedy, sometimes wish he'd done that instead (selfishly, due to knowing much less about it than the rock canon).

I haven’t read it, but David Stubbs has written Different Times: a History of British Comedy.

The only thing that ever drags this podcast down is when it attempts to do humour

That must be pretty rare, though? I can’t think of any times he’s done this.

Looks like we’re getting something from Tommy next.

That must be pretty rare, though? I can’t think of any times he’s done this.

it's been creeping in more and more and it SUCKS

He can raise a smile with like a dry aside sometimes

The stuff ppl are talking about is more like when he makes/discusses a corny double entendre and then hams it up going “what, that’s a perfectly INNOCENT turn of phrase, I don’t know what YOU can be thinking about”

Nice bonus episode on “My Pal Foot-Foot.” Sounds like something from Trout Mask Replica is in the works.

Finally finished Pinball Wizard. Holy crap that was a slog! And has he been taking guitar lessons or something?

yes he has. he used to have a band, and another band, quite a while ago though and he never seems to mention them these days.

bonus episodes continue to be more interesting than mains

To my knowledge, Pinball Wizard was the first episode where he went through an album song by song.

I feel like it's a bit of a cheat in that the story/episode really is about Tommy as a whole, and in his narrative the existence of Tommy as a "concept album" "rock opera" whatever is an important part of the story, so he should cover it like that. Just can't call the episode "Tommy" because that's not a song.

I do think he's done that a few other times, I may not be remembering correctly but maybe Revolver? Some of the Beatles albums around that time got a pretty full discussion.

I think Forever Changes too

Share the Land is one of those songs that I have heard sporadically throughout my whole life but never thought about who sang it. I never would have guessed the Guess Who!

always surprised about the length of their career and number of hits. I remember them showing up on the Exploiting Plastic Inevitable bootleg in the 90s.

That's the song where I learned that I have brothers and sisters who care.

And who thought the song would outlast the morning paper landing in your yard?

I've probably mentioned this before: for a year or two, a friend and I would always put some silly Guess Who lyric as the subject line when we emailed, the more obscure the better. "Car wash king is having beans today," "Don't want to listen to my telephone ring," "Helps the snow slowly melt away," etc. (I looked those three up; the idea was to come up with something from memory.)

Kind of a workmanlike telling of the Guess Who/BTO story, but they were honestly kind of a workmanlike band(s). As a Canadian, great to see some representation, and they deserve to be covered.

But this ep made me think about what kept them out of the top echelons, and I think the main thing is that they had talent and ambition, but no driving artistic vision. Bachman’s not shy about admitting they were often aping other artists or chasing trends. You get the sense that if — let’s say — Can had hit it big at the time they’d have gone through a Kraut phase.

Something else the telling clarified for me was what a blow to the band losing Bachman was — and how badly BTO could have used a singer as talented as Cummings. Randy tempered Burton’s schmaltzy tendencies and Burton brought a tunefulness. If they hadn’t been such weirdos they could have been one of the great second-tier bands of the 70s. Like not Zeppelin, but bigger and better than Foghat.

For what it's worth, the Guess Who's sound was the envy of the rock world in the early 70's. A big part of manager/supermensch Shep Gordon's master plan for the failing Alice Cooper group was to get them to at least sound as good on the radio as the Guess Who did. The Guess Who's producer Jack Richardson rebuffed Gordon but sent his underling, Bob Ezrin, to check them out, and the rest is history.

> aping other artists or chasing trends.

I can easily picture a 1984 reunion effort getting traction with a big 80s drum sound, some rippling Knight Rider synths under the power chords, and training-montage lyrics.

They strike me as a band who were just particularly interested in music per se, playing their instruments and being a band. Their evolution does seem to mirror larger trends, but I wouldn't imagine they were opportunistic about it so much as enjoying the developments along with everyone else.

that's a good way to put it - doing what it takes to keep in front of people. The bit where they were told to make another ballad before they could release a hard rock single stood out to me.

They chased and chased omnivorously--the Doors in 1969, reggae in 1972, even disco later on. But they planted their flag in the ground against...glam!

I'm on a Guess Who roll after defeating their nemeses Three Dog Night in the other thread.

they were often aping other artists or chasing trends

The compilation LP Track Record features a collage of band photos from the mid-60s to 1975, and drummer Garry Peterson is like a Rock 'n' Roll Ken doll dressed in the styles of the moment, Carnaby Street to hippie to fur-vested hard-rock barbarian to 70s slob to Truman Capote.

they could have been one of the great second-tier bands of the 70s. Like not Zeppelin, but bigger and better than Foghat.

Wait, you're saying you don't think they were already better than Foghat?!?

I can easily picture a 1984 reunion effort getting traction with a big 80s drum sound, some rippling Knight Rider synths under the power chords, and training-montage lyrics.

Will you settle for 1984-BTO?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gi1gj5ncXs

The aforementioned Garry Peterson is on drums here, content with his hardhat. This got shown on TV at least once, I was watching.

wait they tried reggae in 72? i love hearing early white reggae but couldn’t find any on a cursory pass through “rockin’”

Was off by a year--"Follow Your Daughter Home" is clearly their nod to reggae. I like it for other reasons, but as reggae, pretty inept.

I’d call it calypso, but on the same album they sing in a South African language, so they were clearly going for pan-cultural appeal.

I will settle for 1984 BTO!

That reminds me of Pittsburgh battle of the bands where I somehow ended up a judge, and had to vote for the mullety band with the song "Too Much Month at the End of my Money".

(xpost) Closer to calypso, you're right.