“I Hope We Passed the Audition”

Forty years ago on January 30th, on a chilly London morning, four increasingly scruffy lads from Liverpool put aside their differences and climbed to the roof to play a spirited set of new rock & roll to their lunch-hour fans below.

Though not their official farewell (that would be Abbey Road) The Beatles’ Rooftop Concert is a legendary coda to a career that seems more improbable and more astonishing with each day.

The rooftop show was the culmination of their Get Back project. The original concept of Get Back was a fine idea, documenting the band as they got back to their roots, writing, rehearsing and performing a new set of tunes while cameras rolled. But instead of chronicling the genius of creation, Get Back (which became Let It Be) sadly turned into a rock & roll reality show with bad vibes, what George Harrison called “the winter of our discontent.” Saddled with legal issues, diva issues and Yoko issues, The Beatles, justly celebrated for their amazing unity, were splintering before our eyes.

The original plan was for the documentary to culminate with a performance in a Roman amphitheater, but the boys were so at each other’s throats at this point that they couldn’t even go down the street to play, much less across Europe. So it was decided they would simply head up the stairs to the roof of their Apple Corps building on 3 Saville Row and play their new material there.

It was an inspired, poignant bit of simplicity. Today, a band on the skids would just say screw it and break up. But not our Beatles. From the second they plugged in and dug into “Get Back” (with Billy Preston on keyboards), their magic was back. And with the London sky as their backdrop, they banged out a spirited set including “I’ve Got a Feeling” “Don’t Let Me Down,” “Dig a Pony” and “One After 909,” an early ditty from their Liverpudlian youth.

The 40th anniversary of the rooftop show would have been a very gear occasion for a super-fab reissue of Let It Be on DVD. But I’ve got a feeling it won’t be happening any time soon.

Thanks to YouTube, we can now present the entire rooftop show in its entirety. Take it away, boys.

The Beatles Rooftop Concert,, part I of III (from Let it Be)


Part II


Part III

Mexican Radio And Other Delights

This past weekend I went away with a few friends for some bowling and male bonding in upstate New York, at the foothills of the Catskills. It's the land of Big Pink and seclusion-era, family-man Dylan, so how did we find ourselves haunted by the very-much-alive spirit of Stan Ridgway?

First was lunch at Mexican Radio, a fabulous Tex-Mex restaurant on the main drag in city-chic Hudson, NY. "Mexican Radio" as RT readers surely know, was the big hit for Stan Ridgway's band Wall of Voodoo. I'm no food critic, but the food did not make me wish I was in Tijuana, eating barbecued iguana.

"Mexican Radio"'s south-of-the-border quirkiness, humour and hooks made it one of the highlights of early MTV-era 80s rock. Call of the West, the 1983 album from which it hails, is a fine album from start to finish.

Wall of Voodoo, "Mexican Radio"


Back before it was cool to like Johnny Cash again, Wall of Voodoo also did a memorable cover of "Ring of Fire" - amazingly, I think i even heard this version on the great FM station WLIR before I ever heard Cash's original.

Wall of Voodoo, "Ring of Fire"


When we got back from lunch and bowling, a friend popped in his iPod and the third song we heard was "Don't Box Me In," a collaboration between Stan Ridgway and Stewart Copeland, of the then-recently-defunct Police. The song was a high-profile moment for Ridgway, as it was performed with a member of the biggest band on the planet at the time and a single from the soundtrack of the Francis Ford Coppola film Rumble Fish.

Stan Ridgway & Stewart Copeland, "Don't Box Me In"


Hearing this song led to talk of "Camouflage," Ridgway's single from 1987 or so. It was a big hit across the pond but remained relatively obscure in the States, though my group of friends spent many fun moments spinning the 12" single (remember those?). Like many Ridgway classics from the era, "Camouflage" has a nice country twang and bouncy melody. Maybe Johnny Cash should have returned the favor by putting it on one of his Rick Rubin-produced covers collections.

Stan Ridgeway, "Camouflage"


Ridgway has kept busy over the years making music with his own bands and artists including Frank Black, doing soundtrack work, multimedia collaborations and even children's music. To find out more, visit him here at StanRidgway.com

Best Rock Trio: The Votes Are In

The latest RT poll wherein we asked our legions of loyal readers to name their favorite rock trio, has closed, and the results, as always, are revelatory.

5th Place: ZZ Top. ZZ Top has been serving their tasty five-alarm Texas Boogie for decades. ZZ Top is also notable for the most ironic rock trivia factoid: In a band known largely for their beards, the one member without a beard is named Beard (drummer Frank Beard).

ZZ Top: "Cheap Sunglasses"Old Grey Whistle Test, 1980


4th Place: The Police. With their huge fan base and record-breaking tour last year, I thought The Police would have fared much better in the RT poll. Alas, they garnered a mere two votes. Nevertheless, they were a swingin' trio with an ingenious use of the trio format led by Steward Copeland's polyrhythmic ping and Andy Summers' juicy chords. Good singer too. Here's one of their swinginest, jazziest tracks, from their most interesting record.

The Police: "Demolition Man" Ghost in the Machine


3rd Place: Nirvana.Nirvana's truly awesome musical force, led by the drumming of David Grohl and the harrowing howl of Kurt Cobain, make them the preferred power trio of the RT editorial board. As someone who saw them come and go (and was lucky enough to see them live at the New York Colisseum in the fall of 1993), it's still hard to believe Kurt's been gone almost 15 years. One of my favorite Nirvana clips is from the 1992 MTV awards, when Kurt emerged from his most recent drug binge shorn and clean shaven to deliver a passionate version of "Lithium" and resident doofus Krist Novocelic knocked himself out by tossing his bass on his head.

Nirvana: "Lithium" 1992 MTV Music Video Awards


2nd Place: The Cream.At Rock Turtleneck, we call them not "Cream" but The Cream, 'cuz that's how they do it across the pond. Plus it makes sense as the name refers to members Jack Bruce, Eric "Slowhand" Clapton and Ginger Baker being the cream of the crop in terms of musical chops. The Cream was the original power trio and almost certainly the best of the 85 or so groups featuring Eric Clapton, who is much more interesting as a bend member than a solo artist. Here are the lads reuniting in 2005 with a powerful version of "We're Going Wrong," an Eastern-flavored gem from Disraeli Gears.

The Cream: "We're Going Wrong" Royal Albert Hall, 2005


1st Place: The Jimi Hendrix Experience.When Jimi Hendrix is your guitarist, a trio pretty much at that point becomes a sextet. But the Experience had a lot of other things going for it, cheifly the jazzy stylings of the recently departed drummer Mitch Mitchell. Here are the RT Best Rock Trio poll winners doing "Hey Joe," and to bring it all back home, "Sunshine of Your Love" - notice how Jimi calls them "the Cream." Hope you can dig it, baby.

Jimi Hendrix Experience: "Hey Joe/Sunshine of your Love" The Lulu Show

Hey W, Thanks For The Memories

Late Show with David Letterman: "Great Moments in Presidential Speeches" (Farewell edition)

Jackknife Juggernaut

Yesterday a US Airways plane sucked a couple flocks of geese into its fusilage and made an emergency landing into (onto?) the Hudson River in midtown New York City. In what is legitimately a miracle, all 155 passengers and crew members escaped without serious injury. It’s a testament to the power of cool, calm, collected behavior, a little divine intervention and just plain luck.

The advertising agency where I work overlooks the Hudson River and many of us watched in amazement as a flotilla of rescue boats, tugboats, water taxis, Circle Line tour boats and Coost Guard boats shepherd the plane as it drifted south down the Hudson, and helicopters whirled all around us.

As I watched news accounts at home last night, the refrain I saw from passengers was their amazement that they survived. As the pilot instructed them to prepare for a crash landing and as freezing water began to fill the plane, many assumed that this was the end of the line.



Hearing this, I kept thinking of Radiohead’s song “Airbag,” a tale of surviving not a plane crash but a car crash on the Autobahn:

In the next world war
In a jackknife juggernaut
I am born again

In the neon sign
Scrolling up and down
I am born again

In an interstellar burst
I am back to save the universe

In a deep deep sleep of the innocent
I am born again

In a fast german car
I'm amazed that I survived
An airbag saved my life

In an interstellar burst
I am back to save the universe

Road or river, "Airbag" perfectly captures the feelings of tension, release, amazement, shock, guilt and superhuman elation of survival against all odds. Kicking off their masterpiece OK Computer, “Airbag” heralded a new album for Radiohead and a new pre-millenial era for rock music. In the RT opinion, OK Computer is perhaps the best rock album since The Clash’s London Calling.

In celebration of the so-called Miracle on the Hudson, Radiohead doing “Airbag” at the Eurockeennes festival in 1997 and a lovely unreleased acoustic version.

Eurockeennes 97:


Acoustic version circa 1997

Neil And The Damage Done

As he has done consistently since at least the days of "Ohio" in 1970, Neil Young is looking under the hood of America, kicking the tires, and taking it to the people. This week, the biodiesel fueled Canadian import took his message to YouTube, posting "Fork in the Road" a funny, sardonic new song which is billed as "a fresh Neil Young track with a story and a swingin' beat - Fork In The Road...a sneak preview from the forthcoming album."

Neil Young, "Fork in the Road"


With a refrain of "There's a bailout comin'/But it's not for you," "Fork" is, as they say, ripped from today's headlines. Elsewhere, over a very Crazy Horse stomp, Neil weighs in on obesity, fuel consumption, Iraq and the dying music industry:

I'm a big rock star
But my sales have tanked
But I still got you
Thanks

The video is a hoot as well, as we see his flat screen TV being repo'd while he obliviously lip-synchs, fiddles with his iPod and plays air guitar to the camera.

With so much interesting subject matter in the world today, it's surprising that so few mainstream artists have embraced today's technology to write, record and release a song in days, as Mr. Young has here.

Though Neil played a lot of new material on his recent tour with Wilco, there's no word yet on when the forthcoming album will be released, or how it will affect his oft-delayed Archives project. Anyway, Neil, keep up the good work. You still got us.

Herewith, Neil and his erstwhile bandmates CSN takin' it to the people 70's style.

CSN&Y: "Ohio" Live 1974

Men On The Mountain

#1 in the RT Rolling Stones poll: Exile on Main St.

Though I'm not sure I completely agree, and as RT readers confirmed, Exile has become known as the de-facto best Stones album. The 1972 double LP's elegantly wasted sprawl and decadence was perhaps best captured by the so-called Dean of American Rock Critics Robert Christgau in his original review of Exile in the Village Voice:

"More than anything else this fagged-out masterpiece is difficult--how else describe music that takes weeks to understand? Weary and complicated, barely afloat in its own drudgery, it rocks with extra power and concentration as a result. More indecipherable than ever, submerging Mick's voice under layers of studio murk, it piles all the old themes--sex as power, sex as love, sex as pleasure, distance, craziness, release--on top of an obsession with time more than appropriate in over-thirties committed to what was once considered a youth music. Honking around sweet Virginia country and hipping through Slim Harpo, singing their ambiguous praises of Angela Davis, Jesus Christ, and the Butter Queen, they're just war babies with the bell bottom blues. A+"

And now, as befits our #1 vote-getter, some truly awesome clips from the Stone's 1972 tour rehearsals in Montreaux, Switzerland. Watching clips like these and the others featured in our countdown underscore the need for Mick to stop pretending that his new records are as interesting as the old ones and just pry open the vaults. Come on Mick, give the people what they want: previously unreleased Stones audio and video ala the Bob Dylan Bootleg Series. If nothing else, just think of all the money you could make.

"Loving Cup"


"Shake Your Hips/Tumbling Dice"

Hope You Guessed My Name

Without further ado, our next three finishers in RT's historic Rolling Stones album poll, with accompanying videos.

3rd place: Let it Bleed
A true transition album: the last to feature Brian Jones, the first to feature Mick Taylor, and it also features Ry Cooder. Great record, shitty cover.

"Gimme Shelter" 1969 English TV special


"You Can't Always Get What You Want" Rock & Roll Circus 1968


"Let it Bleed" 1997 Club Gig


2nd place (tie): Sticky Fingers


Full of post-Alatamont dread, Sticky Fingers is also a flawless record with uptempo rockers, slow blues, hauting ballads and extended jamming. Here are a couple amazing clips from a gig at the Marquee Club in 1971.

"Brown Sugar"


"I Got the Blues"


"Dead Flowers"


2nd Place (tie): Beggar's Banquet

Beggar's Banquet was a major step forward for the Stones, and, as the first Stones studio record I ever got, earned the vote of the RT in the poll. Keith Richards has said that whenever the Stones toured the US in the mid-60s he would pick up as many blues and country LPs as he could, but he'd never had a chance to listen to and absorb them until 1967 or so. Hence the country-honk sound of Beggar's Banquet. Here is some amazing footage of the Stones working on "Sympathy for the Devil" from the experimental Jon-Luc Godard film One Plus One:




"Parachute Woman/No Expectations" Rock & Roll Circus, 1968

Aftermath

Rock Turtleneck's historic poll wherein we asked our readers to name their favorite album by The Rolling Stones, has closed and now it is the time of reckoning or, in this case, Aftermath.

Actually, this poll is really an excuse to put up a few of the many amazing Stones clips available on YouTube.

Perhaps it's their longevity, perhaps it's their reluctance to release anything from their archives, or perhaps it's just because the Stones are/were an amazing band, but they have a remarkable amount of rarely seen, totally amazing archival footage. So over the next couple of days we shall count down our reader's favorite Stones albums with a dirty clip or two. (Dirty Work deservedly got 0 votes, so we will skip that one.)

4th place: Some Girls


The Stones had clearly been soaking up the energy and attitude of Punk and New Wave when they recorded this 1978 classic - their last truly great album. The original cover featured well known girls like Lucille Ball and Racquel Welch, but they sued to have their images removed, which inspired a new verse to the title track: "Some girls see their picture on my sleeve/And hit me with a legal dose."

"Respecatable"


"Far Away Eyes"


"Miss You"


4th place (tie): Aftermath

Aftermath is to the Stones what Rubber Soul is to the Beatles - the first flash of true genius with hints of what's to follow. The UK version of Aftermath opens not with "Paint It, Black" but the equally brilliant "Mother's Little Helper." The track "I Am Waiting" was used to great effect in Wes Anderson's 1999 film "Rushmore," as you can see below.

"Paint It, Black"


"I Am Waiting"

Happy Birthday Elvis!

Today is Elvis A(a)ron Presley's 74th birthday. Why is Elvis the King? Because while many have tried to capture the magic of Elvis, no one truly can. Nevertheless, here are a couple of fascinating attempts.

First we have Elvis's Sun Records contemporary Johnny Cash imitating "Elvis the Pelvis" back on a very old TV show about which I have no information. With all of the portrayal of Cash as a pill-popping, prison-playing Outlaw, it's easy to forget he could also be quite the goofball.


Next, we have Andy Kaufman, who does a hysterical, dead-on impersonation of the King in 1979 on, appropriately enough, The Johnny Cash Show. Kaufman's "goofing on Elvis" has been immortalized in the R.E.M. standard "Man on the Moon" and the film of the same name, but if you've never seen the real thing, it's well worth your while, lil' darlin'.



Kaufman was among the first Elvis impersonators, and according to Wikipedia, The King himself described Kaufman as his favorite. When Kaufman visited Graceland after Presley's death, it was discovered that the singer had several VHS tapes of Kaufman in his home. Here's Kaufman Taking Care of Business on The Midnight Special in 1981


Now here's the real Elvis to take it home with a 1956 appearance on the Milton Berle Show...


An electrifying performance of "Baby, Let's Play House" also from 1956...


... And a four-song medley from the amazing 1970 documentary "Elvis: That's The Way it Is." TCB & HB, EP.

Neighborhood Bully?

As someone who grew up in WASP-centric Darien, Connecticut, I am among the least knowledgeable, least qualified people to discuss the current Israel-Hamas situation.

In fact, when the bombing began to escalate in the Gaza Strip, my thoughts did not run to U.N. resolutions or whether Israel's relentless bombing was too much or not enough. It was "I need to give Bob Dylan's 'Neighborhood Bully' a spin."

Bob Dylan, "Neighborhood Bully"


After a trio of born-again gospel records (Slow Train Coming, Saved and Shot of Love), Bob Dylan set his sights on Judaism with his 1983 album Infidels. "Neighborhood Bully," with its pro-Israel agitprop and danceable rhythms, was one of the highlights. And as is the case with many a Dylan track, it's as relevant today as ever.

According to Zimmy's lyrics Israel is unfairly seen around the world as the bully of the Middle East:

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive,
He's criticized and condemned for being alive.
He's not supposed to fight back, he's supposed to have thick skin,
He's supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.
He's the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land,
He's wandered the earth an exiled man.
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn,
He's always on trial for just being born.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Some find the song right on the money, others find it racist. But few who listen to "Neighborhood Bully" find it boring.

With an all-star band including Mark Knopfler, ex-Stone Mick Taylor and riddim kings Sly & Robbie, Infidels was hailed as a major comeback by the Bard of Hibbing upon its release.

In retrospect, however, the albums that preceded it - Slow Train Coming, Saved and Shot of Love - have gained in stature and the term comeback no longer really fits. Plus, Knopfler's very 80s production has not aged particularly well. But like just about every Dylan album, Infidels is studded with great songs, including "Jokerman," "Sweetheart Like You" and "Licence to Kill."

These days, Infidels has become perhaps more well known for a song that was recorded for Infidels but left off: "Blind Willie McTell," arguably the single best Dylan track of the past 25 years. Knopfler was so angry that Dylan refused to put the song on Infidels, he vowed never to work with Dylan again. (The track was released eight years later on the first Bootleg Series box set.)

Bob Dylan, "Blind Willie McTell"


Infidels also led to one of Dylan's more underrated tours, his 1984 swing through Europe with Mick Taylor on lead guitar, which was captured on several excellent bootlegs, and the less excellent album Real Live. Perhaps most notable in these shows was his completely re-written version of "Tangled Up in Blue."

Equally notable, but lesser known, was Dylan's rambling, flirtatious interview with MTV cupcake Martha Quinn, filmed backstage before a show at Wembley Stadium. Clear your afternoon calendar and settle back for this one - it's a hoot.

Bob Dylan - Martha Quinn 1984 interview, part I:


Part II:


Part III:


Part IV:


Part V:

New Year's Day

U2, "October/New Year's Day" Live at Red Rocks


Sure it's obvious, but "New Year's Day" is the first U2 song I ever loved and still a great tune. The above clip is from the band's fabled June 5, 1983 show at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Denver. This concert, which was almost cancelled due to bad weather, showed U2 in a setting as dramatic as their music. And it was what got a lot of people into U2 in the first place; Live at Red Rocks was broadcast almost constantly on MTV in the summer of '83.

The concert has been unavailable for years but has finally seen the light in a smart Deluxe Edition reissue with the live companion EP Under a Blood Red Sky. The DVD is also available by itself. It's the ideal way to see U2 when they were still an up-and-coming act, with a singer named Bono Vox who waved a white flag and wore a gravity-defying mullet.

Herewith, a couple more highlights from this landmark concert. Happy New Year's Day.

U2, "Electric Co." Live at Red Rocks


U2, "Gloria" Live at Red Rocks