Legendary producer/engineer Glyn Johns has worked with many of the biggies (The Beatles, Led Zep, The Stones, The Who), but arguably his most important task was putting together the Action for Research into Multiple Sclerosis (ARMS) concerts on Ronnie Lane’s behalf.
For the London iteration – taking place at the Royal Albert Hall on 20th September 1983 – Johns opened his address book and assembled a tremendous lineup of Brit greats: Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Steve Winwood, John Paul Jones, Andy Fairweather-Low, Bill Wyman, Kenney Jones, Charlie Watts.
The whole concert is worth watching and occasionally superb (check out Clapton’s versions of ‘Lay Down Sally’ and ‘Cocaine’), but Beck’s set is particularly fascinating. It was three years since his (superb) last studio album There And Backand he hadn’t played a major gig for almost that long. A clearly under-rehearsed band did their best with the RAH’s famously dodgy ‘rock’ sound (despite Beck’s gorgeous stereo delay, if you’re listening on headphones/speakers), not helped by drummer Simon Phillips being set up about 20 yards behind the rest of the group!
But it’s a great success, mainly through the musicians’ sheer force of will and Beck’s outrageous playing (check out his solo on ‘Led Boots’). The Tony Hymas/Fernando Sanders/Phillips rhythm section is terrific, and there’s even a funny version of ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’ featuring Beck’s reluctant vocals alongside Winwood and Fairthweather-Low.
Just over 20 years later, on 24th June 2004, Beck was back at the Albert Hall for his 60th birthday gig, and I had a good seat. His live outings were much more common at this point; recently he’d played Hyde Park and also celebrated 40 years in the music biz at the Royal Festival Hall with John McLaughlin and The White Stripes.
But this concert was particularly notable for featuring enigmatic keyboard genius Jan Hammer, one-time Mahavishnu member and chief collaborator with Beck on Wired and There And Back. Making up the numbers were the phenomenal Mondesir brothers: Mike on bass, Mark on drums.
Beck hardly seemed to have aged. Wearing black jeans and black vest, he stalked the stage like a born showman, exchanging grins and winks with Hammer, occasionally punching the air to emphasise a musical flourish. However, things started a little uncertainly; ‘Freeway Jam’ and ‘Star Cycle seemed leaden. But by the time Beck roared into ‘Big Block’, the energy level of the band had gone up two or three notches.
Old favourites ‘Goodbye Pork Pie Hat’, ‘Where Were You’ and ‘Blue Wind’ seemed to mean little to the Albert Hall audience but the long-hairs reacted more positively to Beck’s most recent work from albums like You Had It Coming and Who Else?. There were some unintentionally amusing Tap-esque moments too, like the big-screen footage of Jeff’s souped-up hot rods during ‘Big Block’ and the cloud of dry ice which almost engulfed him during ‘Goodbye Pork Pie Hat’.
For the encore, Ronnie Wood sauntered on to play a charmingly ramshackle version of The Meters’ ‘Cissy Strut‘. Two old rockers from Surrey playing a funky New Orleans anthem? That’s the majesty of fusion!
So, while they’re still around, let’s cherish El Becko and the best of British. (And I can’t believe this is the first time I’ve featured Jeff – one of my all-time musical heroes – on this website. Better late than never, I suppose…)
Lou’s gallows humour has been giving me a lift recently, a tonic for these troubled times. There’s just something very apt about his cast of characters ‘that just squeak by’, with no hope of salvation.
His marriage of rock’n’roll music with the language of Burroughs, Ginsberg, Chandler and Tennessee Williams also seems totally timeless, and it’s barely believable that we’re approaching seven years since his death.
The predictable critical narrative is that Reed had a dodgy 1980s, not releasing a decent album until New York. But I’d throw in ’82’s The Blue Mask and ’84’s New Sensations too; by my reckoning, his only dog of the decade is 1986’s Mistrial. He also seemed to develop, slowly leaving behind the drugs/booze and moving towards higher climes by ’89.
Here’s a selection of the good stuff, often featuring such quality players as Robert Quine, Fernando Sanders, Fred Maher and L Shankar. He put a lot out there, addressing jealousy, addiction, violence, ecological issues. A cliché though it may be, it’s hard to imagine anyone ‘getting away’ with some of this these days.
Check out the playlist here and lyrics below. Keep calm and listen to Lou…
‘The Power Of Positive Drinking’ (1980)
Some like wine and some like hops But what I really love is my scotch It’s the power, the power of positive drinking
Some people ruin their drinks with ice And then they ask you for advice They tell you, I’ve never told anyone else before
They say, candy is dandy but liquor makes quipsters And I don’t like mixers, sippers or sob sisters You know, you have to be real careful where you sit down in a bar these days
And then some people drink to unleash their libidos And other people drink to prop up their egos It’s my burden, man People say I have the kind of face you can trust
Some people say alcohol makes you less lucid And I think that’s true if you’re kind of stupid I’m not the kind that gets himself burned twice
And some say liquor kills the cells in your head And for that matter so does getting out of bed When I exit, I’ll go out gracefully, shot in my hand
The pow-pow-pow-pow-power of positive drinking
‘Average Guy’ (1982)
I ain’t no Christian or no born-again saint I ain’t no cowboy or a Marxist DA I ain’t no criminal or Reverend Cripple from the right I am just your average guy, trying to do what’s right
I’m just your average guy, an average guy I’m average looking and I’m average inside
I’m an average lover and I live in an average place You wouldn’t know me if you met me face to face
I worry about money and taxes and such I worry that my liver’s big and it hurts to the touch I worry about my health and bowels And the crimewaves in the street
I’m really just your average guy Trying to stand on his own two feet Average looks, average taste, average height, average waist Average in everything I do My temperature is 98.2
‘Turn To Me’ (1984)
If you gave up major vices You’re between a hard place and a wall And your car breaks down in traffic on the street
Remember, I’m the one who loves you You can always give me a call Turn to me, turn to me, turn to me
If you father is freebasing and your mother turning tricks That’s still no reason that you should have a rip Remember, I’m the one who loves you You can always give me a call Turn to me, turn to me, turn to me
When your teeth are ground down to the bone And there’s nothing between your legs And some friend died of something that you can’t pronounce
Remember, I’m the one who loves you You can always give me a call Turn to me, turn to me, turn to me
You can’t pay your rent Your boss is an idiot Your apartment has no heat Your wife says maybe it’s time to have a child
Remember, I’m the one who loves you You can always give me a call Turn to me, turn to me, turn to me
When it’s all too much You turn the TV set on and light a cigarette Then a public service announcement comes creeping on You see a lung corroding or a fatal heart attack Turn to me, turn to me, turn to me
‘Doin’ The Things We Want To’ (1984)
The other night we went to see Sam’s play Doin’ the things that we want to It was very physical, it held you to the stage Doin’ the things that he want to The guy’s a cowboy from some rodeo Doin’ the things that we want to The girl had once loved him, but now she want to go Doin’ the things that we want to The man was bullish, the woman was a tease Doin’ the things that we want to They fought with their words, their bodies and their deeds Doin’ the things that we want to When they finished fighting, they excited the stage Doin’ the things that we want to I was firmly struck by the way they had behaved Doin’ the things that we want to … It reminds me of the movies Marty made about New York Doin’ the things that we want to Those frank and brutal movies that are so brilliant Doin’ the things that we want to ‘Fool For Love’ meet ‘The Raging Bull’ Doin’ the things that we want to They’re very inspirational, I love the things they do Doin’ the things that we want to There’s not much you hear on the radio today Doin’ the things that we want to But you still can see a movie or a play Doin’ the things that we want to Here’s to Travis Bickle and here’s to Johnny Boy Doin’ the things that we want to Growing up in the mean streets of New York Doin’ the things that we want to I wrote this song ’cause I’d like to shake your hand Doin’ the things that we want to In a way you guys are the best friends I ever had Doin’ the things that we want to
‘The Last Great American Whale’ (1989)
They say he didn’t have an enemy His was a greatness to behold He was the last surviving progeny The last one on this side of the world
He measured half a mile from tip to tail Silver and black with powerful fins They say he could split a mountain in two That’s how we got the Grand Canyon
Some say they saw him at the Great Lakes Some say they saw him off the coast of Florida My mother said she saw him in Chinatown But you can’t always trust your mother
Off the Carolinas the sun shines brightly in the day The lighthouse glows ghostly there at night The chief of a local tribe had killed a racist mayor’s son And he’d been on death row since 1958
The mayor’s kid was a rowdy pig Spit on Indians and lots worse The old chief buried a hatchet in his head Life compared to death for him seemed worse
The tribal brothers gathered in the lighthouse to sing And tried to conjure up a storm or rain The harbour parted and the great whale sprang full up And caused a huge tidal wave The wave crushed the jail and freed the chief The tribe let out a roar
The whites were drowned The browns and reds set free But sadly one thing more Some local yokel member of the NRA Kept a bazooka in his living room And thinking he had the chief in his sights Blew the whale’s brains out with a lead harpoon
Well Americans don’t care for much of anything Land and water the least And animal life is low on the totem pole With human life not worth much more than infected yeast Americans don’t care too much for beauty They’ll shit in a river, dump battery acid in a stream They’ll watch dead rats wash up on the beach And complain if they can’t swim
They say things are done for the majority Don’t believe half of what you see And none of what you hear It’s a lot like what my painter friend Donald said to me: ‘Stick a fork in their ass and turn ’em over, they’re done’
Humour: it’s not something often associated with Lou Reed, even though he filled up much of 1978’s Live: Take No Prisoners with breakneck Lenny Bruce-style banter. But a listen to ‘The Gun’, ‘Underneath The Bottle’ or ‘Waves Of Fear’ from The Blue Mask always cheers me up; there’s just something so uncensored, unapologetic and even cathartic about his worldview, and of course an element of ‘there but for the grace of God…’
Newly married to Sylvia Morales (who also designed the striking album cover), recently clean and apparently the happiest he’d ever been, the more extreme cuts from the album seem to point towards some of the sacrifices Reed had made for this new life, and/or the fears that it could all go pear-shaped at any moment. Maybe falling in love scared the hell out of him.
He had put together possibly the finest band of his career (Robert Quine on guitar, Fernando Sanders on bass, Doane Perry on drums). Gone were the perky, ‘funky’ tones of 1980’s Growing Up In Public – now it was time to return to two guitars, panned hard-left and hard-right, voice, bass and drums. The whole album has a gorgeous, ambient mix – Rudy Van Gelder would have approved.
‘Women’ is just magnificent – Sanders plays some great countermelodies on fretless while Lou eulogises: ‘A woman’s love can lift you up, and women can inspire/I feel like buying flowers and hiring a celestial choir/A choir of castratis to serenade my love/They’d sing a little Bach for us and then we’d make love.’
‘Waves Of Fear’, a coruscating portrait of alcohol DTs, plays out like a deleted scene from ‘The Lost Weekend’. In the extended outro, as Reed riffs viciously, Quine’s manic solo quivers and flaps around like a dying fish. ‘Underneath The Bottle’ also focuses on the booze to gripping and sometimes amusing effect: ‘Things are never good, things go from bad to weird/Hey, gimme another scotch with my beer.’
The title track is a Burroughsian jaunt through torture, pain and self-loathing, while ‘The Gun’ seems to represent the worst possible situation between a man and woman: ‘A man…carrying a gun/And he knows how to use it/Nine millimetre Browning/Let’s see what it can do/Tell the lady to lie down/I want you to be sure to see this,’ croaks Lou over a gentle two-chord vamp and superb Sanders bass.
‘Average Guy’ brings back the lightness, a mock-heroic look at Lou’s new life: ‘Average in everything I do/My temperature is 98.2.’ ‘The Day John Kennedy Died’ is a classic piece of modern Americana, a fable of lost innocence: ‘I dreamed I was young and smart and it was not a waste/I dreamed that there was a point to life and to the human race.’
‘No redemption, no salvation… My characters just squeeze by’, Reed told the NME in 1983. Dylan rates him as one of the great lyricists and The Blue Mask offers many reasons why. The band sounds pretty damn great too but was sadly short-lived – apparently Lou couldn’t stand Perry who fled to Jethro Tull pretty soon after the recording. Quine lasted a little longer but was also soon on his way.
The Blue Mask only reached number 167 on the US album chart and didn’t even register in the UK – a pretty dire state of affairs for such an influential artist. The ’80s were not going to be easy on Lou.
Legendary producer/engineer Glyn Johns has worked with many of the biggies (The Beatles, Led Zep, The Stones, The Who), but arguably his most important task was putting together the Action for Research into Multiple Sclerosis (ARMS) concerts on Ronnie Lane’s behalf. 
Lou’s gallows humour has been giving me a lift recently, a tonic for these troubled times. There’s just something very apt about his cast of characters ‘that just squeak by’, with no hope of salvation. 
