I’m long overdue for another blog post, so I think it’s time for another entry elaborating on one of my best rock books of all time (for the full list check my entry for Feb. 18, 2009).

This time around it’s Chuck Eddy, Stairway to Hell: The 500 Best Heavy Metal Albums in the Universe. I’m talking about the original 1991 edition, not the updated edition released a few years later that had an additional 100 entries on best metal of the ‘90s. I’m sure that one’s good too, but I wasn’t going to spend another round of cash for another 100 reviews.


Besides, part of what made the first edition of Stairway to Hell so great was precisely its focus on metal in the 1970s and 1980s. These were metal’s key years after all, the years when metal recreated the terms according to which rock existed as a form of mass culture. From the early 1990s forward, however great metal has remained musically, it has fundamentally changed in the breadth of its appeal, having been segmented into increasingly specialized micro-genres that hang together loosely under the rubric of extreme metal. While some good metal histories have been written that link the different phases of the genre’s development together from beginning to end (Ian Christe’s Sound of the Beast probably being the current standard-bearer in this regard), post-1990 metal really occupies its own sphere, whereas the 1970s and 1980s contain a more continuous thread between them.

Disguised as one of the most tried and true of rock critic conceits – an extensive “best of” list, the likes of which have become the bread-and-butter of VH1’s musical programming, of various Rolling Stone special issues, my own list of best rock books ever written, etc. – Stairway to Hell is actually a series of overlapping arguments put forward in the form of a series of record reviews. Eddy says as much, in a characteristically sardonic way, in the last line of his acknowledgments: “Read closely, and you’ll be able to tear my thesis all to hell. If you can find it, that is.”

Well, I think I found it, and here’s what I think it is:

1. Heavy metal is best when it’s good time rave-up party music. All those bands that wear black leather and display an infatuation with symbols of power and darkness are really boring and have pretensions that don’t belong in heavy metal, and that drag the genre down. Yes, Chuck Eddy is talking to you, Judas Priest, and you, Iron Maiden (both of whom I actually really like, but Eddy makes a point of excluding both bands from his list).

2. Following from the above, heavy metal has the hidden potential to be great dance music, which a few select artists have recognized over the years and that will be the genre’s great salvation. How else to explain the inclusion of Teena Marie and Jimmy Castor albums among Eddy’s top ten heavy metal records of all time? Or all those Funkadelic albums strewn throughout the book? But hey, Eddy is open about this one. One of the final sections of the book is entitled, “Reasons Disco-Metal Fusion Is Inevitable in the Nineties.”

3. Heavy metal may have achieved its greatest commercial successes in the 1980s, but its artistic peak came in the 1970s. As he says in the books introductory overview: “1970-73 were the Years of Sludge … This was a time of snowplow quagmires and speed-freak excesses, with major labels snatching up every trio of un-haircut degenerates whose stink they could sniff out … By the time I entered high school in late ’73, metal was kinda sorta already over.” Of course, it wasn’t actually over at all, but Eddy’s celebration of the early 1970s as a key era of musical creativity went a long way towards reclaiming the significance of that previously much-maligned period.

4. Perhaps most importantly, heavy metal mattered way more than people thought it did, and punk conversely didn’t matter as much as people thought it did. Eddy messes with musical categories throughout his book, but one of the primary streams of thought running through the reviews is that the best metal did everything that punk was supposed to have done and more. Thus, the following from his review of Aerosmith’s Toys in the Attic, which ranks at #4 on his list: “Five skinny guys speed off New England’s streets with the sleaziest and sassiest set of sex-swagger ever assembled, hauling in almost a million dollars a month in the process. From the startgate the frustration and fury dash so dang fast; after this, punk couldn’t possibly have mattered, no way.” That Eddy places several albums by punk or proto-punk bands high up on his list (New York Dolls, Adverts, Dictators, MC5, Stooges, Sex Pistols all appear in the top 30) suggests that his vision of metal isn’t shared by all, but it also suggests that the boundaries between metal and punk are far more porous than many would like to acknowledge.

I rate this book so highly for two main reasons. First, I’ve bought a ton of great music based on Eddy’s reviews in this book, music I probably wouldn’t have discovered so readily otherwise (it’s Eddy who led me to the Dictators after all). Second, while I disagree with quite a lot of what Eddy says, no book I know demonstrates so well that music genres are subject to all varieties of interpretation, and that it’s precisely the capacity of a genre like “heavy metal” to encompass so many different sounds and definitions that makes it something worth caring about.

(And if you want a good laugh, check out the reviews of Eddy's book on Amazon, where angry metalheads rant about his rankings.)

This summer will be the fortieth anniversary of Woodstock. I've put together some thoughts about the anniversary which the folks at Smith are planning to send out as a press release, to try to stir up some further attention for This Ain't the Summer of Love. Given the book's preoccupation with the end of the '60s and what it meant for rock, and given how much time I spend thinking about rock in general, I think I'm in a good position to hold forth. In the spirit of sharing, here's the text of the press release. It's only the beginning of a conversation on the subject - anyone with some thoughts on the matter should feel free to share them here.


1) What is the meaning of the anniversary?

The anniversary is an occasion to look back on the connection between rock music and the counterculture of the 1960s. In part, it’s an opportunity to recall a lot of great music and musicians, some of whom are no longer with us anymore, such as Jimi Hendrix, and some of whom are still very much with us, such as Carlos Santana and Neil Young. But it’s also an opportunity to think about the ways in which rock music, or any form of music, can create a sense of collective purpose. To what extent did the roughly half a million people who attended Woodstock share a common social or political vision? To what extent was their connection grounded in something more than rock music itself? These are questions about which it’s easy to be either nostalgic (“We were all one, man!”) or cynical (“Just a bunch of hippies getting high and listening to rock!”). The real answer to those questions, though, is not a simple one, and it’s something to take seriously, because it has a lot to tell us about how music shapes our values and maybe makes it possible for us to relate to each other in ways we wouldn’t otherwise.

2) What was the significance of Woodstock?

The late cultural critic Ellen Willis described Woodstock as the culmination of a dream of mass freedom that had arisen in the years after World War II and was connected to rock and roll. Mass freedom meant that people believed they could best achieve their fullest freedom in the context of a group, rather than isolated, as individuals. At Woodstock, it was precisely the coming together of so many thousands of young people that gave the event its power, and that power was at once symbolic and real. People there felt a sense of connection, and felt that the connection was tied to something bigger than the fact that there was a big rock festival going on. It was tied to youth, above all, but it was tied to a particular image of youth as a part of the population who could transform the existing cultural and political order, could potentially create the basis for a culture in which peace was valued over war, in which pleasure was valued over productivity, and in which rules and conventions were not to be followed if they were found to be corrupt.

At the same time, Woodstock also showed, in a less utopian vein, that one could gather enormous crowds of young people together at once and not have a catastrophe follow. This was an important lesson for the music industry, which at the end of the 1960s was still trying to figure out how best to capitalize on the enormous audience that existed for rock. After Woodstock, rock concerts grew larger and larger in size; there was less need for festivals after a certain point, because concerts were routinely happening in arenas and stadiums that held thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people. So Woodstock also contributed to the further incorporation of rock into the profit-making structures of the music industry.

3) What happened to rock music in the years that followed?

Well, most immediately, about four months after Woodstock came Altamont, the large festival outside San Francisco organized by the Rolling Stones, which was marked by some bad vibes due to the presence of a row of Hell’s Angels in front of the stage, and culminated in the widely publicized death of a young black man, Meredith Hunter. Altamont made the achievement of Woodstock seem to many a fluke, and made crowds of young people seem dangerous again. The shift from festivals to arena and stadium concerts that occurred in the 1970s was in many ways driven by concerns over crowd control as much as by concerns over profit. It’s easier to maintain order in a space that’s enclosed and has clear boundaries around it, where people sit in rows.

More broadly, rock’s connection to its young audience changed. This was partly because some of rock’s audience was no longer so young; people who had come of age through the countercultural years of the late 1960s were now entering their twenties and were looking for music that was still rock but that was more “mature.” Meanwhile, younger fans were looking for something they could call their own, and so a generation gap of sorts began to emerge within rock rather than between rock and other styles of popular music. This is where new genres like heavy metal and punk come into play, as forms of rock that are still very much concerned with the relationship between rock and youth, and that try to reimagine what kinds of communal or collective identity rock might create in the wake of the sixties counterculture. That, in effect, is what my new book, This Ain’t the Summer of Love, is about.

***

My reading last night was awesome - great turnout, great vibe, many books sold. Thanks to all who came, and thanks to Ronnie at Dynamite for allowing it to happen there. I hope to have some pictures to post soon.

My reading is tomorrow, and I'm still trying to figure out what parts of the book to read. Holly says I shouldn't try to show off by playing guitar during the reading, and I guess she's right although it's still a tempting thought to throw a little "Eruption"-style finger tapping into the mix. But, doing so would mean having to drag my guitar and amp to Dynamite Records, and that's not something I want to try to deal with, so I'll probably keep things a little less demonstrative.

Today in class I had one of those odd moments that only happens when you teach a History of Rock course at a school like Smith. One of the college's big benefactors, who has donated a lot of money to the music department, was visiting campus today, and I had been told that she might be coming to my class. I don't know this woman, except that I gather that she's a classical pianist, and also presumably quite wealthy, two things that don't immediately suggest someone who's going to find a session of rock history the most amusing pastime (excuse me for generalizing). Sure enough, just as class was starting, in walks the benefactor, accompanied by a man whose connection to her I didn't catch and someone from Smith's advancement office, leading them on their tour of campus.

All of this is fine, but today happened to be the day that I was teaching about disco. That means I spent most of the first half hour of class talking about gay liberation in NYC in the late 1960s and early 1970s and how early dance clubs in the city were tied to the sexual politics of that moment, and similar such things. I have no idea what the visiting benefactor and her posse thought, but I know they left after only half an hour. I was relieved they left, though, especially since I was poised to play the full 17 minute version of Donna Summer's "Love to Love You Baby," the song during which Summer spends half of her vocal simulating orgasm (I actually only played 11 minutes, much to the students' relief).

NEWS FLASH! For those who might be paying attention, my reading previously announced for Friday, March 27, has been postponed a week to Friday, April 3. Location remains Dynamite Records, 33 Main St., Northampton. Start time: meet and greet begins at 6:30, reading starts at 7 pm. I'll be reading a few choice excerpts from the book and also probably playing some musical selections.

Meanwhile, here's my favorite music quote that I've run across of late, from the January issue of The Wire. Briefly praising the most recent album by Athens, GA heavy rockers Harvey Milk (which I just bought today, haven't yet listened to), the writer Joseph Stannard calls the record "a persuasive restatement of the idea that, while the riff belongs to everyone, it's perhaps safest in the hands of disheveled, hirsute males in plaid shirts."

I suddenly feel so validated.

This past Saturday I gave the keynote talk at a graduate student music conference at McGill University in Montreal. I was speaking on material from This Ain't the Summer of Love, and even though my talk wasn't until the afternoon, I dutifully showed up at the conference at 9:30 am to catch the first session of the day.

When I arrived, one of the conference organizers told me that she wasn't sure if I knew, but that Sandy Pearlman was a visiting professor at McGill, and he was really looking forward to my talk.

Holy crap!

For those who don't know, Sandy Pearlman is one of the great, largely unsung figures in 1970s rock. He was mainly a behind-the-scenes guy, but as behind-the-scenes guys go he was in the middle of some pretty great stuff. A full list of his credits would go way beyond the scope of this modest little blog, but some highlights should put things in perspective:

Pearlman was one of the first generation of bona fide rock critics, a regular contributor to Crawdaddy, and friend/partner in crime with the more celebrated Richard Meltzer.

Along with Murray Krugman, Pearlman managed and produced pretty much everything released by Blue Öyster Cult until 1978's Some Enchanted Evening and continued to work with the band in later years. He also co-wrote a number of their best songs, including such awesome tracks as "The Red and the Black" and "Dominance and Submission."

Still partnering with Krugman, Pearlman also produced all three studio albums that the Dictators made in their 1970s prime.

In 1978 Pearlman produced the second Clash album, Give 'Em Enough Rope, which is usually not considered at the top of Clash albums but was nonetheless pretty great.

In 1980, Pearlman produced a great lost classic by the weirdo French hard rock band Shakin' Street, for which he recruited Dictators guitarist Ross the Boss.

Add it up. My book is titled after a Blue Öyster Cult song, and it devotes the better part of a long chapter to the Dictators. Needless to say, I was psyched that Pearlman was going to be at my talk, and a little intimidated.

I should add as a side note, that I've never made a habit of getting to know the people that I write about. I don't do oral history or ethnography, so I don't have much cause to do interviews, and quite frankly, I've always been kinda shy about meeting people whose work I admire (this mainly applies to musicians; I have no trouble meeting academic folks whose work I admire). So the rare occasions when I happen to meet or otherwise talk with someone whose work I've pored over are fairly few and far between.

That said, I wasn't going to let the opportunity slip by. I didn't have a great idea of what Pearlman looked like, but I spotted him as soon as he came into the room where I was speaking, and I didn't hesitate to go over and introduce myself. He was very cool, gracious even, when I briefly told him about my book and how much I admired his work with the Dictators. "Second best album I ever worked on," he said of the awesome first Dics' album, Go Girl Crazy! Later he said the best was BOC's Tyranny and Mutation. I'd have to agree on both counts.

I have a book reading coming up on March 27, at Dynamite Records here in Northampton. It's the first one I've done in a long time, and may be the only one I'll be doing for the new book - it's not like university presses have lots of money to throw around for publicity, after all. Anyone reading this who's in or near the Northampton area, please come down.

Last week I went to a very cool book event at the APE gallery in downtown Northampton. It was supposed to be Thurston Moore and Byron Coley talking about their recent book on the New York No Wave scene of the late 1970s-early 1980s. I have the book, haven't yet had time to really sit down with it, so I thought it would be cool to hear the authors give their version of how it came about.

(A sidenote: yes, Thurston Moore is a local resident, as any good indie rock acolyte should know. I've not had the chance to strike up a real connection with him but chances to see him around the area are not rare.)

Unfortunately, Thurston was apparently laid up with the early stages of the flu, and so the evening was left to Byron alone to hold the floor. Of course, Byron had to joke that Thurston was feigning illness to save face because he'd just played a pretty mediocre show at the Bookmill, a used bookstore in nearby Montague that hosts the occasional adventurous music show. Jokes aside, though, Byron alone was enough to hold the attention of anyone with an interest in that musical moment in time.

What followed was a brief reading from the introduction to the book, and then Byron offering his own first person narrative of what it was like to be in NYC in the late 70s and early 80s. As he said at one point (and I paraphrase): "If there's anything worth being nostalgic for, it's how cheap the rents were in New York at that time." And cheap rents in damaged but stimulating neighborhoods, of course, are a godsend to the creation of interesting art.

What I most enjoyed hearing Byron talk about was the incredible amount of cross-pollination that existed in the New York art and music world of that time. Visual artists were also musicians, filmmakers were also musicians or were having their films screened between sets at some of the main music venues. Of course this could give rise to a certain overbearing pretentiousness, or a sense of carefully guarded exclusivity, and from Byron's account it did, fed in part by some of the fucked up but powerful egos that inhabited the scene of the time. But it also was the mark of a scene in which experimentation was taken for granted, where musical genres were things to be deconstructed and reassembled at will, where audiences were to be provoked and prodded, not just pleased. I've always found the recorded output of no wave bands like DNA and the Contortions to be more interesting in theory than as things to listen to (although I think Teenage Jesus and the Jerks are pretty great on record). But I'm sure I would have loved seeing these bands play live, soaking up the scuzzy atmosphere and not knowing quite what to expect.

For the curious:

www.hnabooks.com/product/show/31109

In my last post I put forward my list for the best books ever published about rock music. Since a list only says so much, I'm going write at greater length about some of the titles on the list in this and upcoming posts.

To start, some thoughts about Charles Shaar Murray's great book on Jimi Hendrix, Crosstown Traffic. This one's a logical place to start, since I just got through teaching it in my rock history course at Smith. It also holds a special place in my own intellectual development, for reasons I'll explain below. I don't know if it's my absolute favorite rock book of all time but it's certain up there in the top 5.

For those who don't know, Murray is a British critic who has been publishing since the 1960s. When he first came on the scene as a journalist he was something of a boy wonder, still a teenager but with a lot of musical knowledge and an especial interest in varieties of black music. As far as I know, he got his start with Oz magazine, a great oddball publication that also featured a lot of early writing by Germaine Greer, but really rose to prominence when he joined the staff of New Musical Express in the early 1970s, where he wrote some great articles on Bowie, Alice Cooper and a host of other rock luminaries of the time.

I didn't know all of this when I first read Crosstown Traffic. At that time, I was in my first or second year of graduate school at University of North Carolina, Chapel (somewhere around 1990 or '91; the book was published in '89), was working on a master's thesis on - get this - representations of masculinity in 1970s pornographic film. Nice work if you can get it, huh? But doing research on porn was getting tiresome – after watching something like forty films in the span of a month or two I couldn’t see pursuing this much further – and I was looking for a different topic to write about for my dissertation.

Music had long been my abiding passion at that point, and I’d done some music research as an undergrad, having written an honor’s thesis on Ornette Coleman, pioneer of free jazz. I was reading around, brainstorming, trying to grasp onto a topic that I thought could hold my interest for the next several years.

Somewhere amidst all this, I picked up a copy of Crosstown Traffic at the campus bookstore. I’d read books on Hendrix before – most notably David Henderson’s great bio, ‘Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky – but even just looking at Murray’s book in the bookstore it seemed different. This was clearly not just a bio. It was more an attempt to interpret Hendrix and his place in the cultural history of the 1960s. I was hooked.

Murray’s book is so good because it’s one of the few books out there that successfully takes a single figure and uses him to recast the whole history of twentieth century popular music. Through Murray’s eyes and ears, Hendrix becomes a key figure in sorting through a wide range of compelling issues: the lingering significance of the 1960s and battles over the meaning of that decade in the years that followed; the difference between expressions of masculinity among black bluesmen and white rockers; the overarching importance of race in the history of rock and popular music; and the importance of the electric guitar as perhaps the major musical instrument of the twentieth century.

Murray also writes about Hendrix’s music really well, making a powerful case in the book’s final three chapters for the ways in which Hendrix is tied to the three major strains of black music running through the 1960s – blues, soul, and jazz. In Crosstown Traffic Hendrix comes across as not just a great innovator but a great musical synthesist, who assembled a complex hybrid African American identity through a roving musical imagination.

When I read Crosstown Traffic, it opened the way for me to think about the music I loved in a new light. Murray invested Hendrix with the larger cultural significance I knew he had but had not yet developed the vocabulary for expressing. From there, it was just a few steps further before I decided to embark on my dissertation on the history of the electric guitar, which later became my first book, Instruments of Desire.