Earthtones Are Overrated

A Quiet Thing

2005-11-16T14:22:00.000-08:00

There is much to be said. Stay tuned.

Barbra, Can You Hear Me?

2005-09-07T10:06:00.000-07:00

Dear Barbra Streisand,

I think you’re great. In the words of the trashy celebrity bios I absorb so eagerly, I think you are one of the most original, influential performers of the 20th century. More importantly, I have been a fan of yours since 7th grade and I can generally be counted on to buy anything you touch. This is the problem: while you have retained a stunning voice and, I’m sure, every ounce of your talent, your music as of late has been unoriginal, uninteresting and pretty much lame. This saddens me as I am no longer able to enjoy the albums you put out or support your efforts by purchasing your music. Perhaps I should be more specific about what I find so off-putting.

1) The children’s chorus throughout the rendition of “People” at the Timeless concert. Though I appreciate the fact that you would like to unite people of all colors and creeds, a children’s chorus almost always contributes to the lameness of a song and this effect is, ultimately, divisive. I know you must be tired of singing “People”. Really, it’s not that great of a song. But you made it a standard through good old-fashioned acting and your untouchable knack for phrasing. Somehow, I no longer believe you are acting when you sing “People.” It’s more like you’re leading a sing-a-long. But it used to be like you were yearning with every ounce of your being to be with another person who needs people because you were a person who needed people and didn’t have any people or person and somehow I think the bittersweet nature of that predicament was what made the song good.

2) Guilty Pleasures. And The Movie Album. And Christmas Memories. And A Love Like Ours. All have been distinctly unmemorable. Again, it’s not because you’re not good. You’re fabulous. The choice of music and the heavy-handed, synth-laden, easy-listening production just do not do you justice. The songs have been mediocre, predictable and utterly disposable pop nuggets totally unworthy of your attention. The few interesting songs you have taken on, such as the re-recording of “The Music That Makes Me Dance”, have been diluted by the aforementioned tendency towards overproduction which drowns out your voice and all dramatic force. You may by Celine Dion’s hero, but she doesn’t have to be yours.

3) If you’re gonna go retro on yourself (i.e. Guilty Pleasures), go really retro. Instead of the Bee Gees, go Peter Matz. I know Peter Matz, sadly, has passed, but the man was onto something. You + bongos + electric guitar = GREATNESS. Think “Gotta Move”. Now that’s a performance. A stunningly simple, yet undeniably funky arrangement with your voice and biting diction front and center. Maybe you feel too vulnerable these days to venture such vocal and emotional exposure, but Barbra, you’re still the greatest star. Give yourself some credit.

4) You used to be the Queen of Irony. Not in the smartass hipster sense, but in the way you could take any song that belonged to Donna Reed goyishe culture and twist its pale white arm into a ball-busting anthem of righteous anguish. Like “Happy Days Are Here Again”, some bullshit ditty made to pacify people in breadlines into thinking the Depression was over: you took that silly song, slowed the tempo and used your vibrato like a violin in a Chagall painting to expose the sweet, sad strains of what you revealed to be a truly heartbreaking lament about the decidedly unhappy state of things. I think Barbra: The Concert, though a truly solid group of performances, was a harbinger of sappier things to come. It was there that you sped up “Happy Days Are Here Again” and applied it to another line of bullshit designed to pacify people, aka the Clinton administration (I, too, am a dedicated Democrat), and the performance lost all heart, soul and impact.

Barbra Streisand, I say these things not to be cruel, but because I love you. Please consider a second look at your bad-ass beginnings and learn a little something from your former self. In On A Clear Day You Can See Forever you sing, “Wouldn’t I be the late, great me if I knew how?” Barbra, you do know how. You’ve fought so hard for your individuality, now all you have to do is trust it.

With devotion and respect,
A Fan

I love my roommate

2005-08-15T15:56:00.000-07:00

Did I mention that I love my roomie? Look at us. We're cute.

All of Us Are in the Gutter, But Some of Us Saw Stevie Nicks

2005-08-07T20:23:00.000-07:00

I am a Stevie Nicks fan. Let’s get that out in the open. If you’re looking for an impartial review, this ain’t it. If you’re looking for an informed opinion, here it is. I have seen Stevie both solo and with Fleetwood Mac several times. Her concert Tuesday night (August 2, 2005) was different.

You should know that the Albuquerque crowd at the Journal Pavilion was lame. Traditionally, no one sits at a Stevie Nicks concert. If you want to sit, please purchase your James Taylor tickets through Ticketmaster. Apparently, there were a few people who would have been better off following this advice. Though the majority of the crowd seated front and center were enthusiastic, even the people from the third row back on the sides were hissing at those of us who were here to rock.

While it’s true that classic rock concerts have gotten impossibly bloated and impersonal, part of the reason Ms. Nicks inspires such devotion is that she can take an arena and fill it with her peculiarly intimate power. That’s not to say that her style is confessional. She’s not in the mold of so many members of the next generation who think that an emotional connection with an audience can best be established by the particulars of your own dirty laundry list set to music. Nicks’s lyrics are vague, evocative and a little like mass spoken in Latin instead of English: so much more stirring if only because they tremble on the brink of comprehension instead of withering in its merciless glare.

And yet the key to her brand of rock theater is that we do know the dirt. Who hasn’t salivated over the undeniably juicy items of her personal life like her relationships with bandmates, drug abuse, breakdowns and comebacks so lasciviously documented in episodes of Behind the Music? What makes it all so personal is not songs that detail clear narratives of her life, but that we know the stories behind the songs. We know the climate of heartbreak and insanity in which Rumours was written, so that when she performs a song, she performs an era. And when Stevie takes you back, you follow.
Normally the Stevie Nicks who takes the stage solo is more fun than the Stevie Nicks who is part of Fleetwood Mac. All those ex-lovers seem to make her a little nervous, a little less willing to be her endearingly goofy self. But she was not in the mood for silliness Tuesday night. Which isn’t to say she didn’t rock.

The opening bars of her legendary “Edge of Seventeen (Just Like the White-Winged Dove)”pumped up the audience then bled into Destiny Child’s famous sampling of the tune in their “Bootylicious”. The medley continued with a techno remix of “Dreams” and the crowd knew it was on: the canned tunes stopped and the fast, hard-rocking drumbeat of “Enchanted” took the arena by storm as Stevie walked purposefully to the mic and we took to our feet. She sang the hell out of her 1983 track and launched into the next, “Outside the Rain”, a deep cut from her first solo album, Bella Donna, and her traditional opener. The song is ominous with big, loud chords and lots of space between phrases. It’s one of those epic-sounding things that Stevie works so well. She doesn’t overdo it, but gives just enough gravity to the lines to make you feel the emotional weight and expansiveness of her writing. And we were even treated to one of her famous incantations, sometimes improvised, often rehearsed and known only to those who see her live on multiple occasions. Amidst the back-up singers’ chants of “only a dream” Stevie bent back her head, closed her eyes, and declared, “Well Mick says Stevie this is just one more link in the chain, you cannot break the chain. And I say… I know I have to believe him.” If you don’t know who “Mick” is, any fan or loser on the street can tell you it’s Mick Fleetwood, drummer, co-founder of Fleetwood Mac and Stevie’s former lover.

“Outside the Rain” bleeds into “Dreams (Thunder Only Happens When It’s Raining)”, which I never initially think will work live, such is its crystalline perfection on Rumours, but which never fails to hypnotize me none the less. Stevie doesn’t risk the high notes any more, but her voice is mature and strong and even more moving than the gravel-meets-helium of her early years. All of the repetitive eight notes should be deadly boring, but work to vibrate on your heartstrings in such a way that the chorus cannot help but get under your skin and you feel your blood rise and fall with each predicted repetition.

And then you’re calm enough to finally get a look at her. If you’ve seen 1997’s Fleetwood Mac reunion concert, The Dance, you’ll be happy to know that Stevie looks exactly the same now as she did 10 years ago. She’s kept her weight down to a reasonable number, her waist-length blonde hair is straight and combed into a glossy mane with chunky bangs in the front. Her wardrobe is appropriately black and sequined, a beaded bodice on top, several layers of chiffon on the bottom and her trademark platform boots have been replaced by some rather humorous black, rhinestoned Reeboks. And don’t think she’s afraid to wear those leg warmers. They are black velvet and scrunchy. Her skin and hair are impossibly radiant and healthy for a woman of 57 and her nails are long and red.

She then launched into her 1981 duet with Tom Petty, “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around”, a solid rock number that she performed with longtime guitarist and one-time lover, Waddy Wachtel. The first real treat of the evening came with a reworked favorite. The huge face of a girl appeared on the background screen that took up practically the whole stage. It was a close-up of a painting by Sulamith Wulfing, Stevie’s favorite artist whose work has been the inspiration for some of Stevie’s album covers, among other things. This was something for the fans, as was the re-tooled piano intro, played sensitively by [I’ll find out soon]. As the evening breeze wafted over the fans at the Journal Pavilion, a small figure emerged, dripping with wispy black chiffon that floated on the wind and created a ghostly impression as the figure paused, back to the audience. She turned and approached the mic with a distant look in her eyes. This was not the Stevie of the previous four songs, this woman could not even see the audience. This was one of those few songs that Stevie inhabits as another character. Now she was Rhiannon, not the goddess of Welsh mythology, but a specter of her own making and perhaps the first discernable foundation of her legend. “Rhiannon” was Stevie’s first hit single and her most identifiable performance. In the early days, Mick Fleetwood said that her “Rhiannon” was “like an exorcism” with all the Janis Joplin-inspired wailing and frantic motions. It’s still just as mystical, more mournful than violent and she’s stuck with the slow and soulful piano intro she added in the mid-1990s. She adds another element to the story as she sings, “And he says, Rhiannon… don’t go. And he says, Rhiannon… stay. And he says, I still cry out for you… don’t leave me.” There was a moment of silence before the famous guitar riff kicked in and the crowd rose to a roar. Stevie turned her back again and came back fierce for the rock verses and the screaming cries of, “Dream on, silly dreamer. Try hard, you can’t leave her” for the foot-stomping ending. The ceremony had begun and the faithful were ready to receive the next offering.

And then it came, one transformation fast on the heels of the last. After the airy mysticism of Rhiannon, the band brings us down to earth with the molten beat of doom that kicks off “Gold Dust Woman.” An ode to drugs and the ravages of fame, “GDW” starts out with a slow bass beat and several widely-spaced strums on the guitar. Stevie came forward, hunched over in her Gold Dust shawl, a beautiful vintage piano covering, and declared angrily, “Rock on, Gold Dust Woman. Take your silver spoon and dig your grave.” This song benefits from her stillness, control and slow-burning ‘tude. She takes the verses easy but driving and then erupts into the inevitable wail as the bass drum beats out a pow-wow foundation and Stevie starts her incantations of “running in the shadows…”, etc. And this is when she really began to scare me.

Donning the mantle of those dark, self-destructive years, Stevie began chanting a new mantra of “Baby, baby, baby you can’t save me now” as a huge moth zoomed to close-up on the screen. For the fairy princess of rock ‘n roll who, even in her darkest songs, finds something hopeful or at least morbidly attractive, the big ass moth was unexpected and downright frightening. She was in a trance now, unreachable and, for the moment, we couldn’t save her.

But the next song saved us from the bad place. Starting with a drum solo straight from the jungle and into the desert, the crowd rocked as the familiar synthesizer chords of the almost completely nonsensical “Stand Back” started up and Stevie entered, twirling, in the signature “Stand Back” shawl, complete with glittery polka-dots. The words make no goddamn sense (“Stand back, stand back. In the middle of my room I did not hear from you, it’s alright, alright to be standing in a line. Oh you could be standing in a line. I would…”) and no one cares because it works so well live. The tune was created as counterpoint to Prince’s “Little Red Corvette” (the Artist himself laid down the famous synth chords on the album) and proves that rock ‘n roll is all about attitude, not cohesive narrative structure. The drums, the anger, the high kicks. That’s what we came for and that’s what we got.

Next came a cover of Bonnie Raitt’s “Circle Dance”, a mellow tune that could have been saved if it featured the loving acoustic attention Stevie could give it had she been alone with a guitar, but instead it relied upon an unfortunate, overdone whole band/ synth arrangement. Most of the audience took this as a cue to get some beer.
And they best have hurried back because the next song was a deep cut from 2001’s Trouble in Shangri-La and one of my personal favorites. “Fall From Grace” is a fast-paced, frenzied challenge to a former lover that Stevie is desperately trying to save, all the while falling apart herself. Though most of the audience was unfamiliar with the words, screams rose from the hardcore fans with the line, “High priestess, she’s the keeper of the peace in this, twice as much intensified. What people will do to get this high.”

Then our girl trotted out another gem. Bella Donna’s late-night, bluesy “How Still My Love” was a Stevie concert staple throughout the 80s and one of her sexiest songs. It’s been retired from her repertoire for the past 10 years or so and this fan was glad to see it back in action. With a straight face and a little swagger in her hips, Stevie let “How Still My Love” groove over the audience, insinuating a so-wrong-it’s right, humid affair with the lyrics “Doin’ all you can for me, they say you’re not the man for me. Oh, don’t make it easy in the still of the night…”

Lulled into a sense of security by the moon-blue strains of the previous song, I was jolted into heart-pounding hysteria by the first dribble on the drum marking the beginning of the epic “Edge of Seventeen.” Earlier in the evening I had approached the security guards with a request. Toting an enormous bouquet as a tribute to La Nicks, I deployed all the wide-eyed innocence I could muster to persuade the kindly gentleman that I should be allowed into the inner circle (Stevie’s friends and record company types) to present my flowers to Stevie herself. They said they’d see what they could do, then approached me with the news that I could come up during “Edge of Seventeen” (you know, “Just like the white-winged dove, sings a song, sounds like she’s singin' whoo baby whoo said whoo”). So I was up with the downbeat and centered almost directly under her mic as Waddy Wachtel, her longtime guitarist (whom she introduced previously as “The love of my life, but he married someone else. What can you do?”) busted out the deadly sixteenth notes that kick off Stevie’s most energizing anthem. The lady next to me was possibly a little disturbed as she turned to me with a crazy look in her eyes and warned me that, “You’ll never get my space.” As I was nowhere near her, I ignored the outburst and focused my attention on Waddy. Then she sized up my flowers and declared, “My bouquet is bigger than yours” (it wasn’t), and again I let Mrs. Freud alone, all the while thinking that if Schizo Sue managed to finagle her way up here, maybe I wasn’t so special after all. Can’t security spot a nutball when they see one?

Anyway, Stevie gets sad about this song. She came on without the traditional Edge 17 shawl (a white and sparkly number…like a dove, get it?) and the corners of her mouth were turned down. She sang the song with depth and power and didn’t disappoint at the bleeting goat/speaking-in-tongues moment that we fans look so forward to before the “up the stairs and down the hall” verse. The lyrics were culled from several dark nights of the soul that Stevie experienced in the early 80s. From John Lennon’s death to her uncle’s passing (where she and her brother were the only ones present in the house) to god knows what else, the song details the flights of souls in the forms of various winged creatures and when the back-up singers begin to sing, “I hear the call of a nightbird,” Stevie is by then usually near tears. When I first saw her live as a teenager in Chicago on the Enchanted tour, her makeup was streaked and her eyes red as she reached into the crowd to shake hands. Though times have changed and her security has multiplied with the number of schizophrenics claiming that her magical powers can save them, she still takes time to gather her rosebuds and shake a few hands.

With the aforementioned nutjob right next to me, I had few hopes that Stevie would notice me. She accepted crazy lady’s flowers, but wouldn’t look her in the face or acknowledge her screams. I was next and I vowed to myself that all I would say was, “Thank you” and hand my bouquet to her as a simple tribute for the simple fact that I am very grateful to have had the music of Stevie Nicks in my life all these years. As my proximity to crazy lady was so disturbing, she almost passed me by, but after she scooped up my flowers, I reached out my hand and she shook it, then she looked me in the eye, softened and said, “Thank you.” She gave me such a genuine, sweet smile that I couldn’t help but loosen my resolve and declare, “I love you!” So I’m a dork.

In my state of utter nerdiness, I was not prepared for the shock of the impossible sight that greeted my wide eyes: Stevie in pants. That’s right, folks, for an unforgettable cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Rock ‘N Roll”, Miss Nicks sported tight leather pants with silver circles on the sides and an oversized top hat with a ginormous multicolored feather coming out of it and she looked sensational! For those of you who don’t know, Stevie Nicks has not worn pants in concert since, like 1975, and to witness such an event is like being caught in the middle of a crop circle: unexpected, magnetic and oh-so-right on some sort of cosmic level. Looking like a bad-ass and knowing it, Stevie delivered the rager like a woman who’d been to hell and back and lived to tell about it, in other words, like a rock star.

Now at fever pitch, the audience could not be sufficiently calmed for the intake of the truly haunting performance that was to end the concert. There are always the annoying fans who think that the purpose of a concert is to get the star to acknowledge them in some way, not to listen to what made them fans in the first place. (Let me take this moment to confess that, stirred beyond reason by the Streisand-esque rendering of “Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You”, I have been known to shout, “You have!”) Of course, I had my doubts that music was what this particular group had in mind. A pocket of rowdy ladies persisted in shouting Stevie’s name and declaring her “hot” during the delicate strains of “Beauty and the Beast’s” piano intro.

Every fan knows that this song was inspired by the Cocteau film (and Stevie’s romance with Mick Fleetwood). The resurrected number has now evolved into something truly spectacular. With scenes from the newly re-mastered Criterion edition of the film playing in the background, Stevie emerged in an enormous black off-the-shoulder gown, hair piled atop her head.

So we’re back to the difference I mentioned at the beginning of this maddeningly long review. Stevie Nicks has graduated. She took the stage with a touching dignity in place of the little-girl vulnerability with which she attacked the song in earlier years. Her dark eyes looked past the Journal Pavilion and into the night as she ignored the screams of fans and caressed the first words, “You’re not a stranger to me” with her specific vocal mixture of raspiness and rock-solid foundation. She used her hands and red-lacquered nails with such grace and unfailing instinct for drama that it made you wish she had pursued a career in opera, or at least acting. They alternately hid her face, implored the gods and begged the audience for understanding. Her 5’2” frame filled the atmosphere with grandeur and pathos as the climax broke the night with the words, “My love lives in a world of false pleasure and pain,” and people began to realize what was going on here.

I remained with my mouth open, utterly stunned by the mature artistry of this woman who took such a musically simple song and turned it into a timeless aria. If it sounds over-the-top, it probably was. If it sounds trite, you weren’t there. Stevie Nicks has taken all her mileage and hope and transformed it from semi-adolescent longing to a fully-embroidered statement on life and love and it was something magical to watch.

Mission Statement

2005-08-06T14:37:00.000-07:00

This blog has been created as a forum for my thoughts and observations and as a way to communicate with those of like minds and those who are wrong. It is a place where my musings on various topics from Stevie Nicks to La Traviata can come to rest without having to bore real, live people with them. Thank you for your visit.