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

45 minutes in and he’s still reading off content warnings.

J/k this was good. I sensed he was tiptoeing around the Todd Haynes documentary trying not to duplicate info from it. But I feel as if he gave a good framework for understanding what the group chose to do at each turning point in their lifetime.

This episode gave more time — and respect — to Yule than Haynes’s film did.

Man, I need to find 2.5 hours to listen to this pronto.

Haynes bio shoehorned Yule in near the end like the after-rehab coda of a Behind the Music episode.

Damn, if I listen to this along with the Jokerman podcast that's been going through every VU and Lou Reed, John Cale, and Nico album, I'll have listened to far more hours of podcasts about this band than albums (tbh I never really listened to any of it until the last year).

Interesting episode but yeah time consuming. Does give some interesting background on the avant garde that Cale came out of. Still need to get more Lamonte Young.
Does a beginner listener have the stamina to listen through 3+ hours of the history behind the band history or do they need to tune in a couple of hours in.
Pretty in depth, like.

Haven't listened to this one yet, but for the longer episodes he tends to spend a majority of the time building context and setting the scene, and then gives a reasonable condensed summary of the band. I often find the tangential stuff more engaging than the main act. For instance, in the Byrds episode it felt like he spent more time discussing Coltrane and the history of modal jazz than he did discussing the Byrds, which worked just fine for me.

Just wanted to drop by and say that after listening to the first ~25 episodes and losing a bit of interest (more so found I didn't have time to give it the attention it needed) I bought the books and am loving them. Super readable and rich; I've picked up a ton of detail I missed in podcast form.

I had a similar reaction -- I was too impatient to listen, but I've read all the episode transcripts on his website. The VU episode is great.

This is a good tip, thanks.

What is this weird cover of Bowie’s “Andy Warhol”?

^ Sounded like a demo of Dana Gillespie's version

Yep, it’s on the Bowie Divine Symmetry box. If I hadn’t heard it before, I woulda been pretty baffled.

The podcasts are extraordinary documents but I've only listened to maybe 10 as I find them hard work. Listened to the VU one on a long walk and, yeah, what I said in the first sentence: extraordinary, but was flagging madly by the end. I have no idea how he navigates so much research. Like, where one episode ends and another begins, or how to decide what to include, what to leave out. I can see why he's feeling pretty 'brittle' tbh.

Right. To me podcasts are like audiobooks. On the one hand I like to hear someone else speaking as a way to get something into my head. On the other hand it’s way too much information for me to retain coming through without the ability to constant vary the speed, to double back and reread or look ahead or any of the things that make physical books and to some extent ebooks such an amazing technology.

I really liked his Monkees book. I assume I will eventually buy these books but may get the one about The Kinks first.

I’ve been trying to listen to some of a Twin Peaks podcast by a guy whose writing I really like, and they’re interesting, but so insanely detailed… like he’ll spend almost 2 hrs. 15 mins. dissecting even one of the weaker eps. in the depths of S2. The folks who do these podcasts are so obsessive that unless you’re a fellow super-obsessive, I don’t know how you can have the stamina for them.

I, too, find this podcast to be overwhelming in the amount of detail. I usually listening while running or dog walking or driving but I can never devote 100% of my attention and miss out on long stretches of info.

That said, he provides more detail than I really need in my life so it’s no big deal. I wish he didn’t spend quite so much time on the context/background stuff and spent more time on the song in question.

A fair criticism of this latest episode, which is also a fair criticism of the Haynes doc, is that it doesn’t give enough credit to the influence of free jazz/NYC loft jazz on the VU, even though it includes a Lou Reed quote saying he was inspired by Ornette Coleman and some other progressive jazz guys

Yeah, he had a college radio show, named for its theme song by Cecil Taylor---ilxor tylerw, of bootleg blog Doomandgloomfromthetomb and Aquarium Drunkard, mentions it while intro'ing a later Lou radio guest host marathon, still linked in here:

Had he not been a genius songwriter and musician, it’s easy to imagine Lou finding his calling as a disc jockey. And indeed, as an English major at Syracuse University in the early 60s, he hosted a radio show, Excursions On A Wobbly Rail, playing what was surely an adventurous blend of jazz, rock and doo wop for his fellow Oranges.

Alas, there are no known tapes of Lou’s college radio days. The closest we’ll probably get to it is this guest DJ stint on New York City’s WPIX in early 1979. Lou is in fine, fighting form here, peppering his commentary with scathing diatribes against Robert Christgau, Rolling Stone magazine, Jimmy Carter and NYC taxi drivers. He even takes some calls – witness the hilarious, surreal moment when Lou “Take No Prisoners” Reed admonishes a caller for using foul language. The music he plays is fantastic, too, with some classic doo wop, tracks from his then-unreleased The Bells LP, and a truly bizarro segue from Al Green to Nico. Lou even comes out in favor of disco.

And if that’s not enough, none other than John Cale pops up towards the end of the tape. Even though these dudes spent plenty of time at odds with one another over the years, they just sound like old buddies here. The whole thing closes out with a trio of killer live recordings (otherwise unreleased?) from Cale, featuring the Blue Oyster Cult’s Allen Lanier! What an embarrassment of riches.

And herrre's, Cecil:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNL2CyHQMh4

Also, Ornette was on The Raven, and Reed later posted some other things they did, still around here and there---hope the regular Lou-Laurie-Zorn get-togethers find a good home on the Web, or maybe they already have?

A fair criticism of this latest episode, which is also a fair criticism of the Haynes doc, is that it doesn’t give enough credit to the influence of free jazz/NYC loft jazz on the VU, even though it includes a Lou Reed quote saying he was inspired by Ornette Coleman and some other progressive jazz guys

iirc, the Haynes film didn’t mention the new music (Cecil, Ornette, Dixon, Ayler) at all, not even in passing. I was surprised that Hickey didn’t talk more about it. I’ve been wondering if there’ll be an episode that talks about the new music as much as the one on “Eight Miles High” talked about bebop; I assumed/hoped it would be this episode.

Was thinking last night that it might just have added another hour which might have just been too much for a lot of people. Having a straight 3hrs 20 whatever was hard enough I would think.
But do want to hear what he would have to say about the New Thing. Still need to read about the Loft Scene too.

Need to hear what he says about the Downliner Sect. have loved that track and the lp it's on since I was like 14 and found the Charly lp version for like 60p on Walthamstow High St.

Since he's now in 1968 and rock is meeting jazz and things do wonder what else he will cover that will have the option to look into the freer elements of jazz. Is he going to look at crossovers with non Western music much deeper too.
Pretty great research and collation of information so do wonder what else he will look into. 70s and 80s ought to be good if he gets that far.

Ok I'm an hour and a half into this episode and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. Lol @ the description of Cale's festival he organized after graduating (banging on the piano with his forearms until audience members tried to wheel it away, crawling after them and continuing the performance).

I've been listening sequentially, and I'm up to 1960 now. The level of detail is just right for me- really wonderful getting me to re-listen to all these 50 r'n'b compilations from the 80s that I bought in the 90s as vinyl was getting unloaded. The only context I had for a lot of that were the liner notes, which assumed a "you were there" knowledge. Hickey really makes the connections and fills in the gaps. So while I knew exactly how Sam Phillips connected things together, I only half understood Lieber and Stoller, and Johnny Otis was just a name I'd heard. Also, understanding how r'n'r took hold in Britain haltingly but steadily coalesced. Fascinating that Gene Vincents British TV appearances were what codified the black leather rocker look after he was out of the spotlight in the US.

I, too, find this podcast to be overwhelming in the amount of detail. I usually listening while running or dog walking or driving but I can never devote 100% of my attention and miss out on long stretches of info.

That said, he provides more detail than I really need in my life so it’s no big deal. I wish he didn’t spend quite so much time on the context/background stuff and spent more time on the song in question.

― tobo73, Wednesday, April 5, 2023 9:08 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

There are a lot of times where he'll say something like "To understand this song, we have to start with Person X. Person X was discovered by Person Y. Person Y worked for Label Z. Label Z was a competitor to Label A. Label A had big Song B." and that chain of connections would be totally lost on me because I was listening in the car and distracted for 10 seconds by a bad driver. I'm not advising anyone to stop listening to the podcast but definitely recommend getting the books and/or re-reading the transcripts. There's a ton of rich detail that I've internalized on review.

I do appreciate hearing the musical excerpts though.

xp The abundance of detail is one reason I can't get into listening -- I'm afraid I'll lose the thread and get frustrated because I missed some vital esoteric connection.

For even more obscure and detailed information, I recommend one of Hickey's favorite sources, Larry Birnbaum's Before Elvis: The Prehistory of Rock 'n' Roll. I've been reading it on and off for a few months and am still less than halfway through.

That book is intriguing but expensive. How long is it exactly?

461 pages including the notes and index, in font sizes that require bifocals

Ah, thanks. That shouldn’t be a problem in eformat.

I listen when doing dishes, not driving!

Here's a playlist inspired by listening, along with associated favorites of mine from the era and revivals.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2w4TXIRBx0XqzFmujeyxrA?si=c9c3db9bac444c84

Since he's now in 1968 and rock is meeting jazz and things do wonder what else he will cover that will have the option to look into the freer elements of jazz. Is he going to look at crossovers with non Western music much deeper too.
Pretty great research and collation of information so do wonder what else he will look into. 70s and 80s ought to be good if he gets that far.

― Stevo, Thursday, April 6, 2023 9:10 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Along these lines, I'm wondering if Miles will get an episode. We're a couple years away from Bitches Brew, which certainly won't go unmentioned, but I wonder if Hickey will devote an episode to it (or something from In A Silent Way).

Hickey definitely seems to be a Coltrane fan, as he's shoehorned Trane into a number of episodes where I didn't expect him to turn up. I just relistened to the "I Was Made To Love Her" episode, and while I've loved Jamerson and Coltrane for decades, I never made the explicit "sheets of sound" connection between the two -- that Jamerson was essentially trying to do that on bass while (as Hickey put it) still playing something you could tap your foot to.

As a casual Coltrane fan, I was completely surprised about all his work with Ravi Shankar. The Eight Miles High episode was fantastic.

I was much more into the early avant garde history than the VU stuff, but it was cool to hear the commercial rock & roll/r&b soundalike tracks that Lou worked on early on (still not done with the episode obv, only two hours in).

How is the Otis Redding one?

Redding episode is great and (obviously) sad. But honestly — and I’m on my third listen to the whole series, gearing up for a fourth — there isn’t a single episode that either misses the mark or has any glaring (or not-so-glaring) omissions.

I’m on my third listen to the whole series, gearing up for a fourth

Wow!

I love Stax of course, but should listen if only because I go past the fateful lake every single day.

I was a little disappointed that the Otis episode was only the third one on Stax (counting “In The Midnight Hour”) but he’s done Patreon episodes on “Sweet Soul Music,” “Hold On, I’m Comin’,” and “Knock On Wood.” One thing I liked about the Otis episode was how it fleshed-out long-heard stories. That is, there’s far more to the story of how he ended up at Stax than “he was the driver for another band and insisted on singing at the end of the session” — very little (if any) of that was happenstance.

For more on Reed’s Pickwick years and how he went from staff songwriter to sometimes performer to touring band to Cale being in the band to the VU (an almost untold story up til now) I can highly recommend Ugly Things magazine issue #60 and the accompanying 2-part podcast, which goes into just about as much depth as possible on the subject.

One of my favourite details from the VU episode was Cale finding out the particular institute he was working at (I forget which) had 88 pianos, obviously the same number of keys on a single piano. His idea was to put each piano on a different boat, send them out onto a lake and record the sound as each boat sank into the water.

Budgeting might be a bit of a problem?

And 88 dead pianists. We mustn't let our conservative instincts stand in the way of the avant-garde!

I can highly recommend Ugly Things magazine issue #60 and the accompanying 2-part podcast, which goes into just about as much depth as possible on the subject.

Jeez, apparently I only listen to podcasts about the VU now despite not even being that big of a fan. :)

But I'm starting out with their episode about Gabor Szabo, which is great so far, and I've never gone deep on him.

Johnny Echols one is pretty good too. In fact the entire series has been good.

xpost speaking of Szabo, I posted this several years ago on Rolling Jazz, re an intriguing first glimpse ov him:

Looking for Charles Lloyd on Bandcamp, found Manhattan Stories (2014), comprised of
Two 1965 New York Concerts, Disc 1 recorded at Judson Hall & Disc 2 recorded at Slugs' Saloon.
A remarkable and previously unrecorded quartet featuring three jazz giants: guitarist Gábor Szabó, bassist Ron Carter and drummer Pete La Roca.
'It was a specific time and place,' Lloyd told Manhattan Stories annotator Don Heckman. 'We all felt like the boundaries were being dissolved and we could do or try anything. This is a music of freedom and wonder -- we were young and on the move.' Which is just what the sample track, "Sweet Georgia Brown," sounds like (17' 49", but quite spritely). Especially digging the interplay of guitar and sax, bass and cymbals, also succinct solos, esp. PLR's and Szabo's---the latter bright and brittle, autumn leaves, but def not drifting. What other Szabo should I check? Used to see his LPs...
https://charleslloyd.bandcamp.com/

I was delighted to learn in the Sounds of Silence episode that when Simon premiered the song in Greenwich Village folk clubs, the audience thought it was hilarious, and people started greeting each other with “hello darkness my old friend.”

and a lulz meme it remains!

Also Rick James's greeting, just about, to Charlie Murphy, according to Charlie Murphy on Chappelle Show (CM being dark-skinned as perceived by RJ) "Old friend" wasn't part of it though!

4.5 hour episode on Dark Star just landed. Holy shit!