I’m Going to Suck this Piano into My Lungs

Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time with my dated music tastes at Wolfgang’s Vault. I’ve been hooked since late 2006, when I found out about the Web site in an article in Rolling Stone. Launched in 2006, its concert vault features more that 1043 concert recordings available for download at $9.98 or for free in streaming audio. 

Many of the concerts are from the personal archive of the late Bill Graham, concert promoter and owner of the famed Fillmore and Winterland concert halls in New York and San Francisco. The majority of the concerts were recorded between the mid 60s and early 80s, so you won’t find any rare live material from any of today’s acts. But its wealth of material from rock ‘n’ roll’s past provides many exciting moments.

Check out either of the Led Zeppelin shows from the Fillmore West in 1969. The 4/27 show features a take on “How Many More Times” that is so spine shattering, you’ll forget that the song clocks in at a mind-numbingly excessive 22 minutes. Other highlights include a raucous Boz Scaggs performance (with guest spots from Elvin Bishop and Taj Mahal) on the first of a five-night celebration/mourning of the closing of the Fillmore West, and a Bruce Springsteen show from 1973 at the legendary Max’s Kansas City nightclub in New York.

But, the recordings on the site aren’t merely limited to the giants (some might say dinosaurs) of 1970s rock. Listeners can find shows from The Cure, The Clash, Elvis Costello and more.  Even Culture Club and A Flock Of Seagulls have recordings in the vault. If you want my recommendations, check out all of The Who’s shows for blistering performances of their rock operas Tommy and Quadrophenia.

On Monday, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will induct its 23^rd class into pop music immortality. Leonard Cohen, John Mellencamp, The Ventures, The Dave Clark Five and Madonna will be honored, joining the ranks of legends such as Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, The Beatles and the Rolling Stones. It’s a pretty solid class, but the upcoming induction ceremony got me thinking about bands I’d like to see in the Rock Hall that, for some reason or other, have been continually left off the ballot. Here are my top three:

The MC5 – Despite having released only three albums between their debut in 1968 and breakup in 1972, the mark this quintet left on rock music is immeasurable. Their blistering proto-punk crunch and incendiary “fuck-you” attitude helped define the Detroit rock scene in the late 1960s.  In 1968, the hype surrounding them was so great that they made the cover of Rolling Stone before they even released their first album.  Listen to their debut, Kick Out The Jams, and decide if the hype was justified.  If your spine doesn’t feel as if it’s been shattered, something is wrong.

Grand Funk Railroad – It’s hard not to ignore the impact this power-trio had from 1970-1971, critics be damned.  While Grand Funk was disparaged in the music press for being derivative, sloppy and unmelodic, their fans ate up the band’s mix of working-class sweat and garage band punch. Mark Farner was never a great lyricist, but the simple lyrics of party anthems such as “Footstompin’ Music” and reflective message songs such as “I’m Your Captain” spoke to his audience of working-class teenagers in their language. Listen to the fuzz-soaked guitar and wailing vocals on any cut from Closer To Home and E Pluribus Funk and you’ll understand how Grand Funk sold out Shea Stadium in only 72 hours in 1971.

Yes – The Rock Hall seems to have a bias against progressive rock groups (Pink Floyd has been the only one inducted), but Yes is as deserving as any.  Yes’ music goes beyond the bloated song forms and indulgent solos that typified many prog-rock acts. There are plenty of solos, to be sure, but they rarely disrupt the progression of the music, as lengthy solos in progressive rock often do. That’s not to mention that these guys could also rock when they wanted to.  Listen to “Sound Chaser,” from Relayer, or any cut from The Yes Album. The interplay between the aggressive bass of Chris Squire and Steve Howe’s classically tinged guitar is exhilarating.

Midway through a Jan. 5 performance by the Dr. Lonnie Smith Trio at Iridium Jazz Club, Smith stood up at his organ, calmly stepped to the side and turned his back to the audience as drummer Herlin Riley took off and furiously pounded a funky Brazilian rhythm on a drum kit that was shaking so violently it could have toppled over.

Throughout the trio’s five-song set, Riley was poised to steal the show from organist Smith and guitarist Russell Malone.  His aggressive polyrhythms and sledgehammer attack pushed and pulled the trio in and out of virtuosic solo passages.  He complimented Malone’s and Smith’s every move, anticipating by milliseconds the growing ferocity of their playing. As Malone’s bluesy, dissonant solos grew louder and faster, Riley provided explosions of cymbal crashes and snare shots.  As the churn of Smith’s organ grew more intense, he maniacally swung his arms as he produced fills on his tom-toms with John Henry-like power.

But Riley’s playing never overpowered Malone and Smith.  In fact, his energy and confidence behind the drum kit only made them appear more comfortable as the set continued.  Malone’s solos grew more ambitious.  During the set closer “Come Together,” he interrupted his dissonant melodies with a sudden burst of Hendrix’s “Foxey Lady” that nearly brought him off of the stool he was glued to throughout the set.

And Smith, at 65, attacked the organ with the fervor of a man half his age.  He swayed back and forth, beginning his solos in a dirge-like fashion before slowly building his intensity, playing faster and looser as the songs drew on, periodically grunting and growling into the microphone as he drew squelches and squeals from his Hammond.

It was all complimented perfectly by Riley’s rhythmic anticipation, his seeming ability to read Smith’s and Russell’s minds as they explored both inside and outside the song forms.  Dr. Lonnie Smith’s name may have been topping the bill, but his show’s electricity and tightness wouldn’t have been possible without Riley.

Marked by a mix of west coast cool and New York hard bop sensibility, the Swedish Peter Asplund Quartet took the stage at Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola on Jan. 7 with a set that called to mind the styles of jazz greats such as McCoy Tyner and Miles Davis.  The music ebbed and flowed as the players moved back and forth between subdued, mellow melodies and furious runs at high tempos that obscured the song form.

Throughout the show—the first of 2008 in Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Upstarts! series—Asplund and his quartet were laid back, bobbing their heads and slowly swaying side to side as they played.  But their near stoicism belied the aggressiveness of their improvisations.

At its best moments, the music was fast and loose.  Trumpeter Asplund and pianist Jacob Karlzon played wild melodies, at times completely disregarding rhythm and tempo, blowing and tinkering through scales at breakneck speeds.  At one point, during a “The 26 Steps,” Asplund unleashed a fury of notes that evoked the saxophone playing of John Coltrane.  The explosion appeared to inspire drummer Johan Lofcrantz Ramsay, whose playing, until that point, had been rather stiff.  His movements became more fluid and his approach loosened.  He structured his rhythmic patterns around the beat, but not directly on it, instead allowing the meter to be carried by bassist Hans Andersson’s bluesy, walking patterns.

And the energy of the music never shook the band out of their calm demeanor. They oozed cool, merely bobbing their heads and smiling, even as the closing song of the set, “Falling In Love With Love,” built to a furious crescendo.  But perhaps it was Asplund who provided the greatest image of cool as the set closed.  As the cacophony grew around him, he remained poised, leaning backwards with his back to the band, bent at the knees and blowing on his Flugelhorn, eyes closed as he played.  

Bruce Springsteen has gone back to the 1970s with Magic, his latest album.  As soon as you hear the E Street Band invoking “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out” in “Livin’ In The Future,” and “Jungleland” in “I’ll Work For Your Love,” you’ll feel like you’re back in the epic days of Born to Run.

In addition to similarities to Born to Run, Magic features loud guitars, yearning vocals and wall-of-sound production.  Springsteen hasn’t sounded this overblown in a long time, but surprisingly, the heavily layered arrangements only make the album rock harder.

On many of the tracks on Magic, Springsteen overdubs guitars as if he hasn’t used them on an album in years (listen to the freight-train punch of “Radio Nowhere”), and it lights a fire under the rest of the E Street Band.  They sound invigorated and impassioned on “Gypsy Biker,” invoking a sense of the brooding danger felt on 1978’s Darkness on the Edge of Town.  The song begins with a lone acoustic guitar and a crying harmonica before the rest of the instruments explode after the first verse, encircling and elevating Springsteen’s yearning vocal melody.

Springsteen’s lyrical style on Magic also harkens back to an earlier period in his career.  The lyrics on Magic sound more romanticized than lyrics on other recent releases.  Springsteen still talks about the problems facing America—mainly, the Iraq War—but his commentary is often veiled in lyrics that make Springsteen appear as if he is singing about love lost and small-town angst.

And while Springsteen might seem beyond the age of writing about watching “Girls In Their Summer Clothes,” his lyrics, along with Magic’s passionate and ornate arrangements, evoke an image of a young Springsteen writhing onstage as his band gives it all they’ve got on a late night in a dark New Jersey bar.  It might make you wish every year was 1975.