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

I’ve fallen deep into the rabbit hole of this podcast, & since it looks like there are a number of other ILXors on board, I thought maybe it deserves its own thread.

A few random thoughts:

- I like the approach: no guests, no co-host, just a guy drawing connections and building a portrait of a music.

- He speaks so slowly that I have to listen on accelerated speed, even though this causes the music clips to go breakneck. (With some of the songs, I quite like the effect — especially with the rockabilly stuff! — but it generally doesn’t make for the most seamless experience.)

- The Patreon bonus episodes, I’ve discovered, are essential, & I highly recommend signing up if you like the main show.

- As the show moves into the 60s, I find myself missing the vibe of the early blues & jump stuff, & I’d love to see a similarly well researched podcast devoted to pre-R&R music (you could call it “Before Elvis There Was Everything”)

- Hickey does, I think, a really good job of acknowledging the problematic aspects of a lot of the figures involved without getting bogged down in analysis of those same aspects.

- Now I’m gonna end up searching for and probably buying a lot of 78s :(

I was very interested by the way he talked about category in the Q&A episode since it was something I had come across in a George Lakoff book Women, Fire & Dangerous things while Lakoff was talking about i think Lotfi Zadeh a thinker who I think was a Palestinian academic.
The way he was talking about the subject as pertained to birds where a sparrow is close to the central birdy bird idea and an ostrich is way out of centre to something much fuzzier seemed to come without introduction so I wondered if it was a subject that other people were familiar with since it is a model that I think does apply to a lot of categories. A central archetypal grouping and a gradual fade within the category to things that didn't seem to exemplify that category to people who weren't familiar with the contents of the category.
So did wonder if other people did hear that and get what he was talking about and if it is a more widespread understanding particularly since he didn't seem to need to explain it. May have been something he had talked about elsewhere to introduce it better.

- He speaks so slowly that I have to listen on accelerated speed, even though this causes the music clips to go breakneck. (With some of the songs, I quite like the effect — especially with the rockabilly stuff! — but it generally doesn’t make for the most seamless experience.)

I personally don't feel like he speaks too slowly. I do recall a very early episode or two that sounded self-consciously slow, like a friend had told him, "Hey, maybe slow down a bit?" But none of the episodes since have sounded like that to me. I can't listen at anything other than 1x, partly because of the music, but mainly because of his dramatic pauses (e.g., "Lieber and Stoller were reluctant to take on this young musician...but we'll talk about Phil Spector in later episodes"), asides, and occasional jokes. And also, even listening at 1x I find myself rewinding -- "Hey, wait, who was that? Gaynel Hodge? Hm, I should look him up" -- because of how much information he packs into each episode.

- Hickey does, I think, a really good job of acknowledging the problematic aspects of a lot of the figures involved without getting bogged down in analysis of those same aspects.

Agreed. I very much appreciate his content and trigger warnings.

- Now I’m gonna end up searching for and probably buying a lot of 78s :(

I mentioned this on the podcasts thread, but his recommendations on the best CD compilations of some of the earlier artists -- I picked up ones by Ruth Brown, Johnny Otis, Johnny Ace, Roy Orbison, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe -- are stellar. But his recommendations sometimes lean toward compilations more comprehensive than a casual listener might want -- I like the Everly Brothers, but do I need a boxed set of five of their albums?

The discussion of approach to category seemed to proceed quite naturally from whatever the question was, I didn't feel there was a need for background on it as a school of thought or anything.

I was briefly hung up on the example of a robin as central to the category of birds cos red breasts are atypical and they're pretty darn mousey as birds go. But I get the principle and I'm down with it ;-)

In the category of things that should get a thread on ILM this podcast is dead centre though. Thanks for starting the thread in time for its return.

I _like_ the Everly Brothers, but do I need a boxed set of five of their albums?

I think the big thing with that description of category he was using is the fuzzier less archetypal part. Like there is a rippling edge of things tat fuzzily fit into the category that are not so immediately close to the middle which at closer inspection does have a connection that is just not as immediate. & has caused people on chatlists to try to make out the only things that fit into a category are those things that are more interchangeable with the archetype to the point of things needing to be almost clones of that archetype, Whereas I would think the more interesting things would be those that had some originality meaning they were absolutely not clone but still had a connection in influence/evolution/whatever.
Like all categories are artificial to start with but I do think that idea of a category with a semi obvious core radiating outwards with more fuzzy outliers included is more interesting. Fuzzy outliers may have venn overlap with other radiated categories too. & that overlap is a point of interest too.

I've known Andrew on a number of internet music places for the best part of two decades now*, including FT, so am surprised that he isn't on here too. Maybe he checked it out in the late 2000s when everyone was apparently doing their best to be as unpleasant as possible. Anyway, this is a fantastic project and he has been very supportive to my own much less successful project, so I'm happy to see he has his own thread, even though he isn't here.

*originally on Livejournal over a shared love of The Beiderbecke Affair, iirc.

Well great show and one that I hope continues. Going to take me a while to get through everything up to date. Have listened to several over last few weeks. So will continue to listen through them but am listening through a load of podcasts all the time. Eventually I will catch up witth everything, but i still think I will have caught up with the books i have as a backlog too.
& all the tv shows I've been finding out about.

That Q&A edition was quite interesting anyway. How he works through things, works out what does need to be covered in depth and what as a transient thing inside another discussion.
I'm surprised that Fontella Bass doesn't have more written about her though. Does she need to be rescued like?

Are you guys listening to these in order? I have just started randomly listening here and there, seems like it’s an embarrassment of riches.

I’ve been listening in order. Learned tons about 40s and 50s music. Up to #58 on the Bobettes. My 17 year old son got a kick out of the Billy Lee Riley ep with “Flying Saucers RnR” and has asked to hear more !? I’d call that success.

I think it was in one of these that I heard that Booker T & The MGs recorded Green Onions in what was scheduled as a Billy Riley recording session.
Heard that his band became the Sun house band in the late 50s a few years ago too.
Picked up a Charly cd of his r'n'r years about a decade ago that is pretty great. & had me wondering if it was his version of Baby Please Don't Go that a few bands in the 60s were starting from when covering the song. Pretty primal anyway.

Oh, perfectly timed thread - I started bingeing about a week ago after someone on an Eggpod Twitter Space mentioned it in connection with the Beatles.

I listened to the one for She Loves You then went back to the beginning. I love that it’s opened up new horizons for me in listening - I knew I was ignorant about the early history and prehistory of rock but after this it feels like a world I want to live in for a while.

He’s very impressive, though I can see that his delivery might put a few people off. And he could probably lighten up a bit on all the disclaimers.

even listening at 1x I find myself rewinding -- "Hey, wait, who was that? Gaynel Hodge? Hm, I should look him up" -- because of how much information he packs into each episode.

I'm completely addicted to this podcast. Currently on episode #36 (forced myself to start at the beginning after binging the Beatles episodes).

Favorites episodes:

Rosetta Tharpe - "This Train"
Les Paul and Mary Ford - "How High The Moon"
Johnny Otis, Little Esther - "Double Crossing' Blues"
Lloyd Price - "Lady Miss Clawdy"
Ruth Brown - "Mama He Treats Your Daughter Mean"
The Chords - "Sh-Boom"
Johnny Ace - "Pledging My Love"
All of the Chess Record Episodes (Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry and The Moonglows)
Little Richard - "Tutti Frutti"

In case anyone isn't familiar with Ruth Brown (I wasn't) should watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqmGZRGvKC8

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"

^ 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!

yeah it's been a long time in gestation, understandably. quite the piece of work! supporters in patreon have had it for a week now so I've already heard it. can't say I am any more a fan of the dead than I was before, but it goes some fascinating places, they turn out to be very important in a number of ways, though "musical influence" isn't one of them.

Is it fitting that the longest show he's done so far is on a band that specialised in expansive stretching out? & filled with extra tidbits that i hope people aren't seeing as noodling.
I see he excerpts teh Eleven which has to be one of my all time favourite songs too.
Glad he is conscious of how long the episodes have been getting and hope taht si going to mean he cuts back a bit. Thought he was pretty ill recently so hope this keeps coming and he can keep up to to 500. Got to be a lifetime project like.
I was thinking it was a shame he'd got to 1969 cos it meant he was moving out of one of my favourite eras and hadn't covered absolutely everything in it. Though maybe he has in passing.
Think I need to read some of his books now.

yeah, he has been ill, mostly from the effort of putting this thing together. the grateful dead being fundamentally a live act, with songs developing over decades, and not really overlapping with the scenes / musicians he's covered- this breaks the chronological arc of the show, meaning he had to do a lot of extra research, just for the one episode. also his usual editor is ill, so he had to edit it himself. don't think we will see another episode of anything like this length for quite a while, he has sworn he won't anyway.

I think he's still in 1968 since "Dark Star" was originally on a single in April ''68

was wondering if this was single or lp version. So cool, maybe some more on the era then. & I do like the next few years just want loads on psych like.

yeah he is still at the start of 1968, though the year only takes up about 10 minutes of this episode

I think its the live version that is better known and possibly more significant though. But yeah good to know he's got the rest of the year to cover etc.
Is Astral Weeks or Gris Gris going to get a showing? Pentangle before Basket of light?

There are only two points in time where it makes sense to do a podcast episode on the Grateful Dead — late 1967 and early 1968, when the San Francisco scene they were part of was at its most culturally relevant, and 1988 when they had their only top ten hit and gained their largest audience. I can’t realistically leave them out of the story until 1988, so it has to be 1968. But the songs they are most remembered for are those they wrote between 1970 and 1972, and those songs are influenced by artists and events we haven’t yet covered in the podcast, who will be getting their own episodes in the future.  I can’t explain those things in this episode, because they need whole episodes of their own. I can’t not explain them without leaving out important context for the Grateful Dead.

he had to do a lot of extra research, just for the one episode.

And frustratingly, pretty much all the books on the Dead are either oral histories, or stuffed with half-remembered anecdotes that may or may not have happened, and can only be verified by cross-referencing other Dead books with the same half-remembered anecdotes misremembered slightly differently. So, for instance, when Hart says he was hanging out with Sonny Payne after a Count Basie show in 1967, it turns out Payne wasn’t in the Basie band at that time. And while every Dead book says Donna Jean sang on “Suspicious Minds” recorded at Muscle Shoals, Hickey went, “OK, that’s not right” — it was recorded at American in Memphis. Six weeks of that kind of research must have been (and sounds like it was) insanely trying. The Grateful Dead did not have a Mark Lewisohn.

Is Astral Weeks or Gris Gris going to get a showing? Pentangle before Basket of light?

One of the Patreon episodes is on “I Walk On Guilded Splinters.” I assume Astral Weeks will be covered — he already did a Them episode — but I don’t know if a song from it will get its own episode or if it’ll be covered in an episode about a later Van song. He didn’t do a Velvets episode until “White Light/White Heat” (which caused a bit of consternation among some of his fans; “IT’S 1967! WHERE’S THE VELVETS?!”) but it covered their entire career.

And the song is often a device for telling the larger story. The one on “San Francisco” isn’t two solid hours on Scott MacKenzie, but a way to tell the story of the focal point of the California scene shifting from LA to the Bay Area.

damn, i know what i'm doing next week. i still haven't gotten around to those oral history podcasts... i have "the making of vs", "the making of song cycle", and "the making of neu!" in my backlog. such a backlog.