The 500 - #246 - Freak Out! - The Mothers of Invention

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #246
Album Title: Freak Out!
Artist: The Mothers of Invention
Genre: Experimental Rock
Recorded: TTG Studios, Hollywood, California 
Released: June, 1966
My age at release: 1
How familiar was I with it before this week: A little

Is it on the 2020 list? No
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Trouble Every Day

Preparing for my weekly blog, I like to listen to the featured record as often as I am able. This frequently means arriving at my classroom early to listen to the album while organizing the day’s lessons.

The last two weeks, the records have been unusual, dissonant and experimental ventures from jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman to acid rock legends Grateful Dead. Coincidentally, a Teacher Candidate from Western University who has been working with our class, politely put up with my cacophonic approach to education reverberating through our portable classroom.

In fairness, I encouraged her to play some of her favourite music, too. The happy byproduct was that my appreciation of Taylor Swift expanded. I also encountered the music of folk-pop artist Noah Kahan, who is worth checking out. His sound reminds me of the Denver alternative rock band, The Lumineers.

Folk-Pop artist Noah Kahan.

I hoped to give her a break from challenging music, but this week's selection of #246 on The 500 is perhaps the most bizarre sounding record on the entire list. Freak Out! was the debut album of The Mothers of Invention, featuring the legendary Frank Zappa. It presented a collage of blues, psychedelia and a variety of rock styles, filled with intelligently used parody, tinged with black humour and loaded with social commentary. Ironically, beneath the comedic weirdness of many tracks are lyrics that tackle important issues such as depression, alienation and love.

It is the second of two records on The 500 list from "The Mothers". In October, 2022, I wrote about their third record, We're Only In It For The Money. In that post, I share a brief history of the band's formation and sound as well as some biographical information on Zappa.

I am always fascinated by the quirky collaborative nature of art. One artist can inspire another's art and, later, that art can then inspire the work of the former. For example, We're Only In It For The Money was composed, in part, as a satirical commentary on The Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (#1 on The 500). Interestingly, The Beatles’ Paul McCartney has made it clear that Sgt. Pepper took inspiration from Freak Out!.

Zappa has eluded description. Many simply see him as a weird, novelty musician. However, to those who know him better he is a composer who dabbled in everything from rock to classical music, a guitar virtuoso, a band leader, a political commentator and a razor sharp satirist. As I’ve mentioned previously, I embraced his music as a teen because it hit the same absurdist funny bone that was the hallmark of Monty Python's Flying Circus, Steve Martin stand-up, and Mel Brooks movies.

In high school, my friends Paul Dawson and Steve Mackison were also fans of Zappa and The Mothers. Steve introduced me to one of my favourite Mothers’ records, Over'Nite Sensation and Bongo Fury. However, it was with Paul that my appreciation of Zappa grew. Paul had a significant collection of the group’s records, including Zoot Allures, which truly floored me because of the superb guitar work on the album.

I finally got a chance to watch the excellent 2020 documentary Zappa from director Alex Winter (See the Trailer here). Most people would recognize Winter from his acting career -- particularly his role as the titular slacker Bill in the ‘80s teen comedy, Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure. However, Winter has become a powerhouse documentarian tackling a wide range of topics, including the dark web, child actors and the perilous impact of YouTube on our society.

As I watched Winter's documentary and heard the accounts of Zappa's dismissive, self-centred behaviour with his bandmates it would be easy to dismiss him as an egotistical jerk. However, Ruth Underwood, who played with Zappa from 1967-1976, frames the relationship differently. She surmised he was just single-mindedly obsessed with his music. As with some other music geniuses (Mozart), music was constantly being composed in his head. Mozart had to remember it; Zappa was desperate to get it recorded. In his short life, he released 62 studio records, but also recorded hundreds of live shows and jam sessions at the studio and in his home.

Ruth Underwood playing with Zappa's band.

Zappa painstakingly collected and preserved everything he recorded. His output was kept in a massive, temperature-controlled room, dubbed The Vault, beneath his Laurel Canyon home. When the home was sold in 2016 to Lady Gaga for a reported US $5.5 million, the vault was emptied and moved to a storage facility owned by the Zappa family. In 2020, Winters worked with Zappa's son, Ahmet, to launch a crowd-funding campaign to digitally preserve the material  before time degraded the analog recordings. Their efforts were successful and the vault has been moved to a digital cloud -- something I am sure would have fascinated and amused Frank. In 2021, Gaga sold the home to Mick Jagger's daughter, Lizzy, for US$6.45 million -- a tidy profit after only five years.

My teacher candidate is working with our class for two more weeks and, no doubt to her relief, a little less musical weirdness is on The 500 agenda. Upcoming next week is more conventional rock and roll standards from Jerry Lee Lewis. Album #245 is All Killer, No Filler: The Anthology.

The 500 - #247 - Live Dead - Grateful Dead

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #247
Album Title: Live Dead
Artist: Grateful Dead
Genre: Acid Rock, Psychedelic Rock, Jam Rock
Recorded: Two venues, the Fillmore West and The Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco, California 
Released: November, 1969
My age at release: 4
How familiar was I with it before this week: Not at all

Is it on the 2020 list? No
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Death Don't Have No Mercy 

Live Dead is the fourth of four records from American rock legends Grateful Dead appearing on the 2012 edition of The 500. Previously, I have written about Anthem Of The Sun (#288) and American Beauty (#261). My pal Joram guest blogged for me in May, 2023, for Workingman's Dead (#264). In his terrific post, he shares his introduction to the music of "The Dead" and his trip to see them perform in Buffalo, New York, in 1993.

Joram at Grateful Dead - Orchard Park (Buffalo), New York (1993).

This week, I recruited another chum to help me with this post. Jason Marshall is a friend I met in the late '90s at the same London, Ontario, tavern where I met Joram -- The Brunswick Hotel. The three of us, and many mutual friends, often gathered at this historic London watering hole on weekends to hear live music.

Ice being delivered to the Brunswick Hotel in 1922.

Jason, like Joram, is a "Deadhead" -- the moniker of devoted fans of the Grateful Dead. He currently resides in Quebec, but returned to London this summer and we met over coffee to catch-up about the influential psychedelic jam band from San Francisco. He agreed to our conversation, and subsequent online discussions, being the basis for this blog. I mean, how could I not talk to the guy who has the title of this album on his knuckles?

Me: Okay, what's the origin story? How did you become a fan of "The Dead"?

Jason: "How did I "get on the bus"?  Well, I was doing a lot of acid (lysergic acid diethylamide - aka LSD) in high school and was trippin' all the time. During that time, I met some cool friends who were at  Cawthra Park Secondary, an arts school in Mississauga, Ontario. One of them was already a Deadhead and he played me a recording of a Grateful Dead concert on a car stereo system. It was like nothing else I had ever heard and the acid just elevated it to a new level. It was like a musical orgasm".

Cawartha Park Secondary School - Mississuga (2021).

The first song that really locked me in was St. Stephen. It was apocalyptic. It's the same version that's on the Live Dead album you're writing about. Actually, it was St. Stephen and the way it flows into the next track, The Eleven. They were recorded at two locations in San Francisco, the Fillmore West and the Avalon Ballroom, but they came together so well, and that experience instantly made me a Deadhead.

Jason and his brother Dana at a Dead show in
Hamilton. (March, 1990)

Me: So, that made you a Deadhead? I know that "following the Dead" to multiple concerts on the same tour is pretty common for Deadheads like you. How many times have you seen them?

Jason: I've seen 70 Grateful Dead shows and three with the Jerry Garcia Band. (Garcia is one of the group's founding members, guitarist, songwriter and singer). I've actually been at well over 100 Dead shows but sometimes you don’t have a ticket to get in. That doesn’t matter, though. That is just the way a Dead tour rolls. The party in the parking lot or campground is sometimes so awesome that some fans skip the show and stay to party there.

Deadheads camping at Oxford Speedway in Maine, July, 1988.

Me: So, I know Dead shows are an experience. The band allows audience members to record them because every show features a different set of songs often determined on stage, in the moment. The arrangement of each song is also unique to that show. The group plays in a "jam style", with musicians improvising and taking solos extemporaneously, as the mood strikes them. Live Dead captures one of those performances, can you share some thoughts on it?

Jason: Live Dead is considered Acid or Psychedelic Rock. It was made by musicians who enjoyed LSD and other psychedelics and it was the first Acid Rock record I heard while on acid. The first, and longest track, Dark Star, comes in at 23 minutes. It is a mind-bending, psychedelic trip. I love the lyrics, penned by the late poet and musician Robert Hunter who wrote many verses for The Dead.

"Dark Star crashes, pouring its light into ashes. Reason tatters. Forces pull loose from their axis. Shall we go, you and I, while we can through the transitive nightfall of diamonds?"

Now, that's what I call lyrics!!

Robert Hunter (2013)

I already mentioned St. Stephen and Eleven, the first songs that hooked me. The Eleven has become iconic and I think you'll find that many Deadheads will also list it as their "first fling", if you will. The song gets its name because the time signature is a bit of a rhythmic oddity. It is written in 11/8 (11 beats to the bar with an eighth note getting one beat). The beats are subdivided in each bar as three triplets and one group of two. So it goes 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2, with those last two eighth notes emphasized, creating sort of a wonky shuffle. My favourite part is the transition between St. Stephen and Eleven and, if you listen closely, you can hear the moment where the beat switches. It is magical.

The next song is also an fan favourite. It is Turn On Your Love Light and it is sung by Pigpen (aka: Ron McKernan who is the organ player and occasional singer for The Dead). He's completely in charge of the 15-minute epic. You can hear the electricity of the crowd on this one.

Me: I looked into that one. It was originally recorded in Nashville by an American blues singer named Bobby Bland. It was a minor hit for him and has been re-recorded by other artists including Van Morrison, Grand Funk Railroad, Conway Twitty and The Blues Brothers. 

Label on the 45 RPM record for Turn On Your Love Light.

Jason: Side Four on this amazing record opens with Death Don't Have No Mercy which is an old gospel-blues tune. I love it. It is so stripped down and raw and features Garcia's guitar and vocals at their best. Garcia was a huge fan of the blues and he incorporated this song into many of the Dead's setlists over the years.

Me: Yea, this became my favourite track on the record and I am putting it on The 500 playlist I am compiling on Spotify. I did some research and discovered it was written and originally recorded by American singer and guitarist Blind Gary Davis.  Born in 1896, he was still alive when The Dead released their version on this record in 1969.

Blind Gary Davis (1960)

Jason: The final long track is called Feedback. That track is a precursor of things to come for The Dead. Later in their career they began to incorporate instrumental breaks during their concerts which they called Space. Space always occurs in the middle of the group's second set, often after a drum solo, and it can last five minutes or longer. Feedback captures the spirit of this improvisational, instrumental jam session.

The album closes with And We Bid You Goodnight, a traditional gospel tune that the Dead do acapella. It's only about 30 seconds long and the band often used it to close out shows. 

Me: Thanks so much. I appreciate all of your insights. Anything else you'd like to share?

Jason: Although they became more popular in the '70s, this was a double album and few artists had released double records. This record was among the first. It was recorded using 16-track recording technology, which was also new. Only Blood, Sweat & Tears used in, on their second record in December, 1968. The Dead used it when recording this record a month later. 

It is an amazing record and I encourage you to "take a trip", listen to the album and when you get it, you're "on the bus"!

Jason in San Francisco while following a Dead tour. 

He is shown outside the door of 710 Ashbury

where the Grateful Dead lived in the ‘60s.

710 Ashbury (2020)

The 500 - #248 - The Shape Of Jazz To Come - Ornette Coleman

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #248
Album Title: The Shape Of Jazz To Come
Artist: Ornette Coleman
Genre: Free Jazz, Avant-Garde Jazz
Recorded: Radio Recorders, Hollywood, CA
Released: November, 1959
My age at release: Not born
How familiar was I with it before this week: Not at all

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #417, down 169 spots from 248 since 2012
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Lonely Woman

As the 20th century girded for the hippies and the topsy turvy Swinging Sixties, the year 1959, marked a seismic shift in the world of jazz. In fact, In 2009, the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) released a one-hour documentary, entitled 1959: The Year That Changed Jazz. It focused on the changes happening to jazz music at the time and how the genre was impacted and influenced by societal change. It is available on YouTube and is well worth the watch.

Between August and November of that pivotal year, four monumental jazz records were released: Kind Of Blue by Miles Davis; Time Out from The Dave Brubeck Quartet; Mingus Ah Um by Charles Mingus; and this week's record, The Shape Of Jazz To Come, by Ornette Coleman.

Four of the important and influential jazz records released in 1959.

I knew the music of Brubeck and Davis and was familiar with some of Mingus’ work. Kind Of Blue was the first jazz compact disc I purchased on the recommendation of a long-forgotten university classmate. Not only is it a personal Top Twenty record for me, it sits at position #12 on The 500 list. Time Out from Dave Brubeck's Quartet is also a record I have owned. It features the well-known jazz standard Take Five, which became a hit single on pop record charts in the 1960s and remains the biggest selling jazz single of all time. If I was going to introduce someone to Jazz, those two records would be worthy examples of the genre and safe bets for the uninitiated.

Single for Take Five by Dave Brubeck Quartet

Ornette Coleman is new to me. I knew nothing about him or his music but was delighted to learn of his powerful impact. Coleman helped develop the sub-genre of avant-garde, or free, jazz which eschews established conventions that include tempo, tone and traditional chord changes. Converts to the emerging style believed more improvisation would enhance the sounds of bebop and modal jazz established in the 1940s and 1950s. Following a move to California in 1958, Coleman connected with like-minded musicians willing to embark on his spontaneous form of music-making, and his first album, Something Else, was released.

It is now lauded as groundbreaking, but was poorly received at the time, with critics calling it "freakishly structured" and "dissonant". Established jazz heavyweight Miles Davis even questioned Coleman's sanity and felt he was "all screwed up inside." Davis, like many others, would come around to the genius of Coleman.

Legendary jazz musician, Miles Davis.

I've been thinking a lot lately about improvisation and risk-taking. I am currently part of a community theatre group that is in the "dress-rehearsal" stage of our preparation for eight Autumn performances. Right now, each rehearsal is a full run-through. If a player makes a mistake, such as flubbing a line, he, or she, is expected to keep going, improvising as necessary to get the scene back on track.

Poster for the upcoming theatre production I am in.

On several occasions I have tripped up only to find the recovery is both terrifying and exhilarating – terrifying to realize your error, then exhilarating at an extemporaneous recovery. A bonus is the euphoric rush of endorphins at the end of the scene. Phew! I imagine Coleman and his bandmates felt much the same as they pushed their musical experiments to the limit.

Coleman (right) with one iteration of his quartet.

An interesting aside to this evolution in jazz is that the trumpet player who worked with Coleman for many years, including the recording of this record, was the legendary Don Cherry. (NOTE: not to be confused with the Canadian hockey broadcaster Don Cherry, -- although, the idea of the blunt, brash, politically-incorrect former hockey player playing free jazz trumpet in his garishly loud suits and high collars makes me chuckle).

Canadian former broadcaster Don Cherry

I discovered trumpeter Don Cherry in 1997 through the music of his son, Eagle-Eye Cherry, and his debut record Desireless.

Desireless, the debut record from Eagle-Eye Cherry (1997)

Years ago, I bought Eagle-Eye's compact disc for his hit song, Save Tonight, and my wife and I fell in love with the entire album. It includes the title track, Desireless, an extended performance built from a hauntingly beautiful trumpet motif showcased originally by his father on his 1973 free jazz record, Relativity Suite.

Relativity Suite, from Don Cherry (1973)

Coleman died in June, 2015, at the age of 85. His pioneering work is now revered among jazz critics and fans as groundbreaking and seminal. It turns out his improvisational experiment paid off and, during the final decades of his life, he was lauded by his peers. Honours included a Pulitzer Prize for Music and a Lifetime Grammy Award. In 2009, he was accorded the prestigious Miles Davis Award at the Montreal Jazz Festival. Not bad for someone who was once considered "screwed up inside.”

The 500 - #249 - Automatic For The People - R.E.M.

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #249
Album Title: Automatic For The People
Artist: R.E.M.
Genre: Post-Punk, Alternative Rock, Baroque Pop, Rock
Recorded: Three Studios - Woodstock, NY; Athens GA; New Orleans, LA.
Released: October, 1992
My age at release: 27
How familiar was I with it before this week: Very

Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #96, up 153 spots from 249 since 2012
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Try Not To Breathe

In September, 2019, I wrote a blog post about Document, the fifth record from American rock band R.E.M. In that post, I wrote:

"I went through a heavy R.E.M. phase in 1992 when the commercially successful juggernaut record Automatic For The People was released. Soon, the entire R.E.M. catalogue was in my collection -- even more obscure releases, such as the live acoustic record Blue."

Needless to say, I was excited to get a chance to revisit and write about Automatic For The People, the eighth studio release from the influential quartet from Athens, Georgia.

R.E.M. (1983) are (l-r) Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Michael Stipe.

If you were a friend of mine between 1983 and 2000, I probably made a mixed cassette for you. If it was after 1993, I guarantee the updated cassette would contain at least one track from R.E.M. Likely something from either Automatic For The People or R.E.M. Blue, the acoustic record released following the group's appearance on MTV's Unplugged television program.

In 1992, I upgraded most of my stereo system which included the purchase of a JVC XL-M415TN CD Player. Back then, this gorgeous, buffed, black-silver chunk of audio hardware was the latest in hi-fi electronics. The user was able to pre-load a cartridge containing six compact discs. However...and hold onto your hat with this one...one could also swap an additional seventh disc (on the fly no less), through a CD port conveniently located on the front of the unit. To top it off, there was a remote control that allowed you to switch discs or tracks from a distance!

Promotional poster for XL-M415TN CD Player from JVC.

In this day of "on-demand", streaming music services and voice-activated speakers, that technology is archaic. However, at the time, it was an impressive upgrade and many of my friends were duly impressed. I would even use it when mixing music for parties, including several events at a  Kelsey's restaurant where I worked. Switching between discs and songs wasn't seamless, but fairly quick...for the time.

Working the tables near the upstairs bar at Kelsey's - London, Ontario (1994)

At home, I had  a handful of compact discs that never left that player, and Automatic For The People was one of them. It is one of those albums that I call "all killer, no filler" and I love every track and the order in which they are presented. Listening to it again this week felt like getting a warm hug from the early-’90s -- a time when, flush with cash from bartending, I enjoyed the wonderful, chaotic madness that comes with twenty-something independence.

Me (left) serving tequila shots at the bar. (1994).

In 2017, R.E.M. released a 25th Anniversary version of their multi-platinum record. Remastered from the original analog tapes, it sounds incredible through my Spotify account and Sonos speakers. However, if you purchase the boxset  presented in Dolby Atmos Sound, you will enjoy an even higher quality sound that provides a rich, three-dimensional  spacious surround experience. Unfortunately, I don't have access to the boxset, yet. I am eagerly looking forward to hearing the lush string orchestrations that were arranged by the legendary John Paul Jones, best known as the bass and keyboard player for Led Zeppelin.  

Automatic For The People 25th Anniversary boxset (2017).

The boxset also contains 13 live tracks from a November, 1992, performance at the iconic venue, The 40 Watt Club. Located in their hometown of Athens, Georgia, it, along with CBGB's in New York and the Whiskey a Go Go in Los Angeles, was instrumental in launching the punk rock and new wave scene of the late ‘70s in America.

Front of the iconic 40-Watt Club in Athens, Georgia

As you might imagine, it was difficult to pick only one  single track for my own playlist of The 500. Eventually I settled on Try Not Breathe, the second track on the first side. In part, this was because of an episode of the Song Exploder podcast I listened to several years ago. On that 2017 installment of the short, weekly podcast, creator and host, Hrishikesh Hirway talked with R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe and guitarist Mike Mills about creating the song.

Mills revealed that the opening melody was originally crafted by guitarist Peter Buck on the Appalachian dulcimer, a stringed instrument played on the lap with a history that goes back to the Scottish/Irish immigrants to North America in the early19th century. The vibrato and "twang" of this unusual instrument gives the song a beautiful, but hauntingly ethereal quality.

An Appalachian Dulcimer.

In the same podcast, singer Stipe revealed that the lyric, "I have seen things that you will never see" was inspired by the final, tragic and beautiful 42-word monologue of the android Roy Batty in my favourite film, Blade Runner. The correlation between the lyric and the movie  was something I had long suspected and I was thrilled to learn I was right.

Rutger Hauer as the ill-fated replicant, Roy Batty.

There is so much I could write about I could write about Automatic For The People.  It is certainly my favourite from R.E.M. and likely in my top twenty of all time. Perhaps I’ll get around to cataloguing my Top 20 in my final post when I finish my epic commentary on The 500 list.  Thanks for reading and do yourself a favour...go listen to this incredible record again.