The Byrds: Classic Or Dud

Sad about the latest feud.

Does anyone else like THE PREFLYTE SESSIONS?

I do!

also like this---Dennis Hopper could be a really good photog, at least as good as actor or director:

Hey kids - that’s the Byrds playing at Jane Fonda’s Fourth of July party 1965 - photo by Dennis Hopper. pic.twitter.com/M5l4E26YTl

— Pat Thomas (@PatThomas1964) July 4, 2022

I'm not buying the photo book - way out of my price range - but those photos really are awesome. For whatever reason, the Byrds hit a nostalgic sweet spot for me more than anyone else, at least for the '60s. For the 50th anniversary tour for Sweetheart of the Rodeo, they did a handful of classics beyond that album, and as soon as McGuinn played the opening notes to "Mr. Tambourine Man" on his 12-string, it was mana.

Yes that's one super photo.

Pat Thomas's tweets are always worth seeing and reading (says the Judee Sills doc, which he worked on, is almost ready, btw):
http://twitter.com/PatThomas1964?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1544105578821140480%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ilxor.com%2FILX%2FThreadSelectedControllerServlet%3Fboardid%3D41threadid%3D1002unread

Hopper’s photographs are great. He had a real eye. I’ve always been surprised this aspect of the man was always so overlooked.

Had no idea Roger McGuinn and Harrison Ford were both born on the same day in the same city. They both turn 80 today.

Hopper’s photographs are great. He had a real eye. I’ve always been surprised this aspect of the man was always so overlooked.

"Eight Miles High" is so incredible I can't even believe it exists

Then you’ll probably enjoy this:

https://500songs.com/podcast/episode-139-eight-miles-high-by-the-byrds/

(xpost) As is this, which for some reason always gets buried as the 20th or so search result on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3eWX0aYXjo

wow that is great, what a snapshot

keep meaning to check out that 500 songs podcast, probably should now

Just wish sound and image were a lot clearer--I think that's something that was commercially released at some point?

I love this band, and "Eight Miles High" is my favorite of their singles. (Hüsker Dü's cover is also a huge favorite, as is Hüsker Dü in general.)

That BBC/WGBH series with Robert Palmer as its chief consultant spotlighted "Eight Miles High" in its episode on psychedelia. (The BBC actually titled that episode "Eight Miles High" whereas WGBH's PBS broadcast called it "Blues in Technicolor.")

The show has been uploaded to YouTube many times over the years - it usually gets flagged and taken down at some point - but at the moment, most of the episode in question can be found here.

"Eight Miles High" is discussed from 1:48 to 5:03. McGuinn talks about the solo at 2:52 - that part really stuck out for me because he plays a small fragment of it. (I had never seen anyone perform it before even though I had heard that record many, many times.)

I feel like more and more critics have knocked the band in recent years - not dismissing them altogether but taking them down a few pegs in terms of their place in history, but I haven't found any of those arguments to be very convincing. The worst I can say about the Byrds is that 1) a handful of their classic albums were marred by filler (a fault that's diminished on the digital reissues - they all have enough top-notch bonus tracks to make up for the LP tracks that should've been left out), 2) their later, less-heralded albums were wildly uneven, but this doesn't change what they had already accomplished before, and 3) they weren't a great live band, but that doesn't feel all that relevant when I've mainly thought of them as recording artists. (I barely heard, much less saw, any live material until I had grown very familiar with their albums, and I think that was limited to the first disc of Untitled and what little was on their first box set.)

yeah the 1990s / early 2000s CD reissues are all worth grabbing just for the bonus tracks ... tons of great stuff there.

I haven't seen any of those recent-ish criticisms, but I can't imagine what the angle could be. They made great records, they were innovative and hugely influential, and their patchier albums never had much of a profile to begin with. Like birdistheword said, the relevance of the quality of their live shows is questionable given how little live material there is -- and the live disc on (untitled) is great.

That Robert Palmer series, though, has some major gaps, errors, omissions, and other things generally associated with such series (beyond the fact that the Who aren't even mentioned in passing). Listening to the 500 Songs podcast, there's been many, many moments where I think, "Yep, they got that wrong on the PBS series."

The Byrds Live at the Royal Albert Hall 1971 smokes, but that's not the classic lineup

yeah I love that one — as I've probably said on this very thread, sometimes Clarence White-era Byrds is my favorite Byrds.

They were certainly very good live!

Just wish sound and image were a lot clearer--I think that's something that was commercially released at some point?

I had to hunt around for this but found this short interview with McGuinn about it, and it includes a much better copy of the film. Not sure if it was ever officially released or where else this appeared. He filmed it himself on their second trip to England in 1967 and was influenced by the work Bruce Conner was doing, which totally makes sense. I had initially searched thinking Conner or Anthony Stern had filmed it, not sure who else was doing stuff like that at that time.

https://growingbolder.com/stories/eight-miles-high-historic-home/

yeah the 1990s / early 2000s CD reissues are all worth grabbing just for the bonus tracks ... tons of great stuff there.

― tylerw, Wednesday, May 31, 2023 11:09 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Liner notes are great, too.

I haven't seen any of those recent-ish criticisms, but I can't imagine what the angle could be.

Christgau knocked them recently, I think in an e-mail response to a reader that I'm too lazy to hunt down. Like you, couldn't disagree more; their best songs sound better and more miraculous than ever.

Ha, I was going to recommend The Complete Columbia Albums box set as a great, reasonably priced way to get all those with bonus tracks (though not the liner notes, I'm assuming), but uh... it's apparently now less "reasonably priced" - it's currently going for $170 on Amazon. I bought it for less than $40 a year or so ago. If you do come across one, it's a nice way to get those bonus tracks.

Didn't know xgau had turned against/complained about the Byrds---he was a stan in the 60s, leaving ancient evidence on his site, and most of their 60s albums are in his CG Basic Rock Library (although he never liked Younger Than Yesterday).
Dunno if Dr. Byrds and Mr. Hyde, which I've still never heard, quite made his pantheon, but he talked it up a couple of tymes back then. Gave The Ballad of Easy Rider a bittersweet B Plus, and that was about it for the positive side, although he did sort out McGuinn's solo albums more patiently than anybody else ever has or will, looks like.
This Xgau Sez response from last year may be the latest word:

[Q] Gram Parsons didn't take kindly to Roger McGuinn replacing his vocals on Sweetheart of the Rodeo; he said in an interview that McGuinn "erased it and did the vocals himself and fucked it up." Do you hear it that way or nah? -- Sebastian, Santiago

[A] First of all, I see where there's a mega-reissue of Sweetheart of the Radio, which I knew naught of, because I have just about zero interest in these everything-included retrospectives. They're the rawest kind of corporate profit-taking and collectoritis, plus I have more old music I love in my shelves than I'll ever hear again, plus I still enjoy a lot of new stuff. Second, the Byrds have not aged well. They were the true folk-rock, which means among other things devoid of groove--their drummer, Michael Clarke, was the most stationary of his time, and he had competition. And their best singer wasn't leader McGuinn but Lord help them David Crosby, who admittedly did end up making something of himself. They meant a lot in their time on the basis of "Eight Miles High" alone, I still like Notorious in particular, and Sweetheart is several tads more than OK, though if you want to hear somebody cover "You Ain't Going Nowhere" I suggest Maria Muldaur. Third, Gram Parsons was a genius and a superb singer and they weren't. If he says his vocals were better than McGuinn's I see no reason not to believe him because I'd be surprised if they weren't, though doing the compare-and-contrast mambo with a YouTube version of the mega-reissue got tiresome fast. The Flying Burrito Brothers' The Gilded Palace of Sin remains one of my favorite albums ever. In addition to being a genius, Parsons was clearly cursed, and I'm very sorry he's gone.

Although he didn't live to hear it, I think Parsons' vocals were very eventually discovered to have been mixed way way down, and brought back up on the Bryds box and same-era Sweetheart deluze CD, weren't they? And even before that, Australia's Raven Records did the same on a good Parsons overview, Warm Evenings, Pale Mornings, Bottled Blues (shoulda been "Bottle," but that's the only thing they got wrong).

(As for Michael Clark, pretty sure the Wrecking Crew played on the debut, as also eventually came out in the box, and I don't remember ever listening to the Byrds for drums anyway.)

(Although I haven't listened lately, since I've become such a drumhead, and maybe he would bother me now.)

Second, the Byrds have not aged well.

That's the comment I had in mind, yes. It's not that critical, and he does single out a song and a couple of albums.

Still...I don't know about "devoid of groove"; what's incredible about, for example, "She Don't Care About Time"--or some of the early drafts on Preflyte, which I love--I'm just not sure if groove is the most applicable criterion. As I once wrote about something else, to me it's like complaining that Willie Mays wasn't much of a soccer player. The Byrds were doing something else. (Although I'd also argue that they had their own kind of groove.)

bach sucks, devoid of groove

christgau sucks pt. 1080

Uh-oh turns out these are the only ones in his Basic Rock Library: TThe Byrds' Greatest Hits, The Notorious Byrd Brothers, Sweetheart of the Rodeo First published, I think in 1980, with his first Consumer Guide collection. But you couldn't have predicted such a drastic cut while reading this 1969 round-up, for instance: "The Byrds Have Flown--But Not Far":https://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/news/byrds-69.php

Robert Quine referenced the Byrds as a big early influence in a few interviews.

Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives put out a recent record that is a love letter to the Cali Cosmic Cowboy sound the Byrds pioneered.

Did not know that about Quine!
fact checking cuz caught one of those xpost Sweetheart 50th Anniversary shows that McGuinn and Hillman did with Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives, reported on back on Rolling Country, then pasted it to Sweetheart's own thread:

Just posted this on rolling country, but then realized this belongs on a proper sweetheart of the rodeo thread. so cutting & pasting:

roger mcguinn, chris hillman and marty stuart & his fabulous superlatives, sweetheart of the rodeo full album show, los angeles, tuesday night. opening night of a short-ish tour. it was ragged, loose, occasionally awkward and more than occasionally great. they did one set of truncated versions of hits and deep cuts, and then the sweetheart of the rodeo set, played in full but out of order. i got the sense that stuart and the superlatives rehearsed thoroughly on their own and mcguinn and hillman maybe not so much. they missed cues left and right, were looking down frequently for chords and lyrics, and while hillman's voice was in good form, mcguinn was having a little trouble cutting through. but their instincts for harmony are still dead-on, and stuart fit right into that. i felt like i was watching a band still working out its sound, and as a result, when something gelled, when they hit a sweet spot, it was magical. like watching a band discover itself in real time. and that second set was way better than the first. it felt like having a piece of my own dna read back to me. maybe they felt the same.

encore: two byrds classics and three tom petty classics. i was wondering if maybe they would be able to coax david crosby (who i assume still lives here though i have no idea) onto the stage for a song or two. instead we got mike campbell, who joined for "american girl" -- after which they kicked him off and, strangely, played more petty songs without him. marty stuart did a bluegrassy take on "runnin' down a dream" (thumbs up) and hillman did a fairly faithful "wildflowers," which apparently petty produced for him for an album he put out last year.

they also told some stories. they're not particularly good storytellers. damn those harmonies though.

― fact checking cuz, Thursday, 26 July 2018

The Wrecking Crew played on their debut single, but when it came time to record more songs to make their first LP, the band insisted on playing those tracks themselves. (For whatever reason, this rarely seems to get fact-checked whenever news or magazine articles mistakenly claim that the Wrecking Crew played on the whole album - it happened again with multiple outlets after Crosby died.)

Clarke is surprisingly underrated as a drummer. Listen to the drumming on “Eight Miles High,” it’s actually pretty complicated and impressive.

Here’s what Peter Lewis of Moby Grape once said to Craig Morrison about Clarke:

Peter Lewis: …to play with him was such a trip because he was this weird kind of drummer. He was so inventive.

Craig Morrison: I remember him doing something unusual: leaving out a hit that you were expecting in his rhythm, and you’d think, how does he do it ?

PL : Yeah! Right.

CM : But he got put down a fair bit for his drumming. People seemed to think he wasn’t good.

PL : Well, they’re fuckin’ crazy ! When you hear what he did on those songs like “She Don’t Care About Time” or “Set You Free This Time,” where the high hat would go off and it would be different every time. It was perfect. McGuinn was saying one time, “It takes that guy longer to learn a part than anybody I know but once he learns the fucking thing, it’s the perfect part.” It’s like Ringo Starr.

I like Stevenson like that too, ‘cause he was going to work on it. He had a funny little marching thing that he’d do that was unique and nobody else did. The “Hey Grandma” shuffles that Don played are cool. Drummers are all different. Playing folk rock with Michael was like—he’d go into some chord change and you could feel it four bars ahead of time. The whole thing would build, and you’d hit it and it would go swoosh, like taking off on another level. He could just do that so well, think of the song.

"Between the Velvet Underground, the Byrds and the jazz I was listening to, I sort of began to come up with my own style. Listening to Ascension, taking LSD (don't do this at home, kids). That's when I broke through and started hearing things on a certain level. That was pretty much how I was formed. There's also Elvis' Sun sessions, Fats Domino, Bo Diddley, James Burton, Mickey Baker and Little Richard."

https://www.furious.com/perfect/quine.html

Classic Quine quote and interview.

I’ve been dissing Michael Clarke forever. Perhaps it’s time for a relisten.

Classic Quine quote and interview.

I’ve been dissing Michael Clarke forever. Perhaps it’s time for a relisten.

Hmm. The Zing gods must be angry. Or crazy even.

As a friend says about Ringo, if you think Michael Clarke sucks, you think the Byrds suck. (see also: Nick Mason) Clarke was perfect for what they were doing, and I would be surprised if even the most skilled session drummer could've come up with what Clarke did on "Eight Miles High." I think some of the general negative feeling about Clarke comes from that session outtake -- can't remember which deluxe CD it's on -- where he threatens to quit and says stuff like, "I don't even like playing the drums!"

Negative comments about Clarke's abilities from fellow band members on this page:

http://die-augenweide.de/byrds/speak/aboutclarke.htm

The Notorious Byrd Brothers, I believe. Before David Crosby was replaced by a horse iirc.

i hate david crosby

that last letter on that page, jesus....

also checked out the new Marty Stuart record mentioned, very good stuff, not outright mimicry but definitely hits that spaced out country rock Byrds vibe very well, some great guitar playing

yeesh, yeah that letter!

people have such weird ideas about drummers — like it's more of a sport than music (see the recent drama over Meg White). Clarke certainly had his limitations, but he was awesome more often than not. It's interesting to have these guys during this period who were basically garage rock drummers being asked to really play beyond themselves. "Eight Miles High," totally — also "Why" ... Clarke pretty much lifts the entire band during the instrumental break.

that said, there's a few flying burrito bros. live things where Clarke is a total mess. (the whole band is a total mess, to be fair)

Speaking of Notorious, this is inessential but fun: "In honor of the passing of the great David Crosby, I offer this album reimagining: an alternate version of The Byrds’ classic psychedelic rock masterpiece The Notorious Byrd Brothers, which presumes David Crosby had not left the band, and is featured as an equal to Roger McGuinn. To do this, we will restructure the album to feature recordings made during the early sessions of the album, which actually featured Crosby."

tylerw otm re: the perception of drummers. I’ll often hear, “Oh, but could ____ have played with ____? Probably not!” as if that’s in any way relevant. Michael Clarke played with who he played with and sounded great with them and made them sound great. What difference does it make if he possibly couldn’t measure up to a hypothetical situation?

I usually like/love rock band drummers such as Ringo and Bill Berry, to name two favorites, but Michael Clarke always felt like where I drew the line. At least he has been replaced as least favorite Byrd by Skip Battin.

"well, everyone knows crosby got replaced by a horse. what this album presupposes is... maybe he didn't”

hahaha