Deadly Serious Fun - Five Scenes From "The Kids Are Alright" You Will See In No Other Rock Documentary, Ever - by Ricki C.

For ten years, from 2000 to 2010, I served first as a roadie and then as road manager for Hamell On Trial: a solo acoustic force-of-nature whom I described – and at times introduced onstage – as “A four-man punk band rolled into one bald, sweaty guy.”  The very first rock & roll conversation Ed Hamell and I ever had when I opened for him at Little Bothers in 1998 was about how we saw The Who three weeks apart back in 1969 as high school boys – me a senior in Columbus, Ohio; him a  sophomore in Syracuse, New York.  We both agreed unequivocally that it was the greatest rock & roll show we had ever seen.  We both agreed unequivocally that The Who in 1969 was rock & roll’s most perfect organism EVER, and that all of our musical standards of professionalism were based on that band, and those four men: Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, John Entwistle & Keith Moon.

I stand by that assertion to this day.  The Who – from sometime in 1968 when Pete Townshend started to write Tommy, to sometime in 1973 before Quadrophenia came out – were, quite simply, the greatest rock & roll band of all time.  I say this with apologies to my dear friend Jim Johnson – The Rolling Stones have been a great band for a good many decades – and my good friend Chris Clinton – Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band have been the world’s greatest rock & roll band from 1978 until sometime last week – but neither of them of are as good as The Who were at their 1972 peak, when they wrote & recorded Who’s Next.

And this movie – The Kids Are Alright – is a true testament to that band.

Five scenes from The Kids Are Alright that you will see in no other rock documentary EVER:

1)    A little perspective: The opening segment in The Kids Are Alright, The Who’s appearance on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour on September 15th, 1967, came three months after the June 1st release of The Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” ruined the concept of FUN in rock & roll and made everything DEADLY SERIOUS.  The Smothers Brothers really had their hearts in the right place – attempting to bring a little bit of the counter-culture to white-bread Sunday night television – and this night, bringing The Who in all their anarchic, gear-smashing glory to National Commercial television when there were still only three channels, they succeeded.  Deadly serious fun.  Keith overloads his blast-powder in the bass drum and in the ensuing explosion Pete’s hair gets singed, he loses some of his hearing, you can hear the audience GASP, Bette Davis faints backstage, and Keith gets knocked cold.  I was literally stunned, staring open-mouthed at the TV as this performance transpired.  I had always kinda liked The Who, now it was Luv, L-U-V.
 
2)    The short segment of Keith throwing his “Pictures Of Lily” drum kit into the audience (and, by the way, the audience THROWING THEM BACK) took place not at the “My Generation” smashing-the-gear-at-the-end-of-the-show finale of the August 6th, 1968, appearance at the Boston Music Hall, it took place THREE SONGS INTO THE SET, when an obviously, let’s say “over-exuberant” Keith Moon lost track of where The Who were in the show and started to forcefully dismantle his kit.  The show had to be stopped, the roadies had to regain all of the gear and reassemble the drum kit so the show could resume.  Deadly serious fun.

3)    The grainy black & white footage from some British teen program in 1966 when Pete Townshend opines – apropos of the musical quality of The Beatles – “When you hear the backing tracks of The Beatles without their voices, they’re flippin’ lousy.”  Again, a little historical perspective for the rock & roll youngsters: If you were a rock musician in 1966, you didn’t go on English television and badmouth The Beatles.  Deadly serious fun.        

4)    The compendium of gear-smashing sequences that flows from the Monterey Pop Festival appearance by the boys in 1967.  This is not play-acting.  This is not Kiss smashing a plywood guitar at the end of “The Act” after they were raking in millions from The Rubes In The Cheap Seats in the 70’s.  This is at least three seriously pissed-off young men taking out their aggressions on their instruments, and doing a damn fine job of entertaining the audience while they’re at it.  This is the only time Art ever successfully mixed with Rock & Roll.  This was Deadly Serious Fun.

5)    My favorite scene in the entire movie and, sadly, the one that I think tells the entire Story Of The Who in one glorious 30-second segment: right after “A Quick One Whiles He’s Away” Pete Townshend is pontificating – as he so often has, indeed to this day in 2014 – about how “The Who can’t just remain a circus act, doing what the audience knows we can do, until we become a cabaret act.”  It’s pretentious as hell, as Townshend so often was/is, and in the midst of it Keith Moon – feigning agreement in the Lofty Pronouncements being Uttered – proceeds to do a circus-act headstand on his conference-room chair, forcing Pete out of his Painfully Serious Overly Intelligent Rock Star Stance into trying to balance a brandy on Keith’s boot-heel and totally derailing Pete’s pomposity.  

Keith Moon died September 7th, 1978, just over four months after the May 25th performance that yielded takes of “Baba O’Riley” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again” for this film.  The Kids Are Alright was released in May, 1979, and I think I knew even then that The Who without Keith Moon was never going to be the same again, that without Keith’s genius comic tempering of Pete’s pretentiousness, that everything was going to devolve to the Deadly Serious, and The Who would never be Fun again.  I was right.

In some ways this entire movie serves as a tribute to Keith Moon, and as a tribute to a simpler time in rock & roll: when guitars & drums, extreme volume, cool clothes, great songs and a cute blonde lead singer were enough for anybody.  In many ways, I have no problem with that.

If you think you’ve ever loved rock & roll music for even a single moment, you’ve gotta see this movie.  – Ricki C. / May 17th, 2014.

(So, Ricki C. has been on quite the Who bender this week, but if any rock & roll gluttons for punishment out there among you have a stomach for 2500 more words on the subject, check out Ricki's 2012 blog Shows I Saw In The 60's, part two - including his full account of the November 1st, 1969 Who appearance at Veteran's Memorial.  But first, a video.......) 

Alejandro Escovedo In-Store @ Elizabeth Records, Monday February 24th, 1 pm. CANCELLED CANCELLED CANCELLED

Hey gang - It's 11:40 am on Monday morning, February 24th, and Pencilstorm has just learned that today's signing session with Alejandro Escovedo has been cancelled for today, possibly rescheduled for April.  Alejandro has been battling a stomach flu the last couple of gigs and wanted to rest before tonight's Kent Stage show in Kent, Ohio.  That show (with Peter Buck of REM) is still on but the Elizabeth Records meet & greet is OFF.

Sorry to bring this news, but wanted to get the word out.  Thanks.

Hey folks, Pencilstorm fully realizes this is truly short notice, but we just found out that Alejandro Escovedo - whom many of us consider a truly legendary practitioner of the art of the rock & roll - will be doing an in-store "signing session" at Elizabeth Records, 3037 Indianola Avenue (right by Studio 35 Cinema) on Monday, February 24th, at 1 pm.  We talked briefly to somebody at the store and she indicated that Alejandro won't actually be playing at the store, it's more a "meet & greet" and Alejandro will be signing items fans bring in.

(The phone number at Elizabeth's is 569-6009.  It probably couldn't hurt to call Monday morning to make sure the in-store is still on.  It's taking place between shows Alejandro is doing with Peter Buck of REM on Sunday night at Stuart's Opera House in Nelsonville and Monday night at Kent, Ohio's truly great Kent Stage venue.  After doing in-stores with both Watershed and Hamell On Trial, I've learned it's always best to double-check.)  (IN LIGHT OF TODAY'S CANCELLATION, I'M GLAD THAT WE RAN THIS.  SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE.) 

Pencilstorm further fully realizes that some people have jobs and can't just fuck-off to the local neighborhood record store in the middle of the day to meet their rock & roll heroes, but COME ON, it's Alejandro Escovedo, for Chrissakes!  At any rate, Colin & Ricki C. will be there bothering Alejandro and trying to monopolize the conversation, so why don't you take your lunch hour late on Monday and drop by? 

(Following is a piece Ricki C. did on Escovedo in his Growing Old With Rock & Roll blog, March 16, 2012.)

Occasionally in my job as road manager for Hamell On Trial there were perks; genuine perks, epic perks, once-in-a-lifetime perks.  One of those took place in the summer of 2008 when I got to meet and hang out with Alejandro Escovedo.

For the uninitiated, I consider Alejandro Escovedo one of the five best singer-songwriters currently criss-crossing this great land of ours, trying to spread the gospel of rock & roll.  (The other four, for those of you scoring at home are, alphabetically; The Avett Brothers, Hamell On Trial, Richard Thompson, and Jack White.  Elliott Murphy would be listed here but he is normally found crisscrossing the European continent.)  I further consider Escovedo America’s answer to Ian Hunter, in that he combines the same superior intellect with a passion for rock & roll power and the ability to simultaneously break your heart with a ballad and pummel you with an all-out rock onslaught, sometimes within the same song.  (Regular readers of this blog will realize I do not throw comparisons to Mott The Hoople’s former frontman around lightly.)

That summer Hamell was playing an arts & music festival in Bowling Green, Ohio, at which Escovedo was also booked.  Ed and Alejandro were friends from way back.  When Ed first moved to Austin, Texas, in the 90’s he sought out Escovedo for advice, counsel and gigs, all three of which Alejandro was happy to provide.  A genuine friendship ensued.  Ed’s introduction of me to Alejandro backstage was, "This is my road manager, Ricki C., he saw The Stooges and The MC5 live when he was still in high school."  Alejandro fixed me with a gaze, shook my hand, and said, "We have to talk later."

And so it was that I wound up sitting at a picnic table at The Black Swamp Arts Festival in Bowling Green, Ohio, talking rock & roll with Alejandro Escovedo.

Now you’ve gotta understand – Alejandro Escovedo is one of my big rock & roll heroes, one of my favorite songwriters of the past 15 years.  Sitting and talking with him put me right back into my shy, quiet, 13-year old, eighth grade self (see The Transistor Radio blog entry, January 2012).  As we sat and talked on that warm evening I found myself really wanting to shout to the other performers and crew members who were eating & hanging out in the backstage canteen area, "HEY, LOOK YOU GUYS, I’M TALKING TO ALEJANDRO ESCOVEDO!!!"  Luckily for any sense of rock & roll cool or decorum I had managed to acquire as Hamell’s road manager, I didn’t shout.  (Out loud.)

We talked about Mott The Hoople and how the perfect mixture of deep feeling and loud guitars met right in the blood flowing through Ian Hunter’s heart.  We talked about The Kinks and the battles between brothers in rock & roll bands, including Alejandro’s and big brother Javier’s fights in their 1980’s band, The True Believers.  We talked about the aforementioned Stooges and MC5.  I told Alejandro about pissing next to a smacked-out & wasted Johnny Thunders in the bathroom of the Second Chance club in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1979 during a weekend road trip to see Fred Smith’s mighty Sonic’s Rendezvous Band.  Alejandro told me about offering a wasted Iggy Pop a ride in his car during one of Iggy’s down & out late 1970’s Los Angeles nights.  (Strange how often rock & roll conversations turn to the wasted.)  We talked about heroes for life, we talked about wins and losses, we talked about shared sonic love affairs.

I fully realize that there’s very little chance Alejandro would recall that late summer rock & roll conversation.  I also fully realize that I’ll never forget it.

Ricki C. / March 16th, 2012

The Perfect Age For Rock & Roll, part three by Ricki C.

I was The Perfect Age For Rock & Roll when punk-rock vinyl began to arrive in the Midwest in 1976.  I was 24 years old and had been buying records since I was 12 in 1964, half of my earthly existence.  I’d dabbled in punk earlier, sending away for Patti Smith’s “Hey Joe/Piss Factory” single back in 1974 when instructed to by my Rock & Roll Bible Of The Time – Creem magazine.  I don’t remember if it was Creem or Who Put The Bomp! Magazine that brought the pride of Boston, Massachusetts – Willie “Loco” Alexander – to my attention in 1975, but I was glad to send my hard-earned Service Merchandise warehouse cash eastward to get the “Kerouac/Mass. Ave.” single, and thus begin a love of Boston Rock & Roll that carried me right through the 1980’s.  (Willie Alexander begat DMZ who begat The Real Kids who begat The Nervous Eaters who begat The Neighborhoods who begat Scruffy The Cat who begat The Blackjacks, etc.)   

Make no mistake, though, up until 1976 I was a Mainstream Rocker West Side Boy: my heroes were Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, Blue Oyster Cult, Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band, etc.  But right about the time that Styx, Journey, Foreigner, Foghat, Boston, Peter Frampton (whom I had earlier loved when he was in Humble Pie with Steve Marriott), Rush, et al were making it impossible to live and love rock & roll I fell under the thunder of The Dictators, The Ramones, The Clash, The Pop!, Earthquake, The Jam, Elvis Costello and – maybe most of all – Nick Lowe.

I fully admit it, when I fell for punk-rock in 1976 and ’77, I fell hard.  Looking back, I think that was The Great Divide of The Rock & Roll: as a music fan you had the choice of making the leap to punk-rock and continuing to explore new music or you settled into a noxious haze of Allman Brothers, Pink Floyd and The Grateful Dead and now subsist on generous helpings of Q-FM 96.  (God help us.)

I think my first encounter with the Year Zero aspect of punk – that starting then, rock & roll was going to start ALL OVER NEW AGAIN, A WHOLE NEW BALL GAME – was a Joe Strummer interview in The New Musical Express, a great English rock weekly I would get approximately six weeks after the cover date at Little Professor Bookstore at the Lane Avenue shopping center.  The NME – along with Back Door Man fanzine, New York Rocker and the above-mentioned Bomp! Magazine – replaced Creem as my Holy Grail Journals of the Rock & Roll.  Indie labels Stiff Records and Beserkley Records became my new Capitol and Columbia. 

Accordingly, I started my own xeroxed fanzine – Teenage Rampage (read all about it over on Growing Old With Rock & Roll) – and, this is really important to the story, gave all of my acoustic-based records away.  All the Neil Young, all the Townes Van Zandt, all the Judee Sill, all the Joni Mitchell, all the Ian Matthews, all gone, given away to folkie friends of my first wife Pat.  I had always maintained a certain schizoid relationship with acoustic music: in the 60’s I simultaneously worshipped The Who and the folk-rock of The Beau Brummels and The Lovin’ Spoonful; later The MC5 and The Stooges peacefully coexisted with Crosby, Stills & Nash, James Taylor and Joni Mitchell; still later The New York Dolls and Mott The Hoople shared shelf space in my record collection with Van Morrison and Fairport Convention.  But at that point in 1976 I felt so strongly that punk was The Way Forward then & forever, all my Flying Burritto Brothers, Poco and Jesse Winchester records went bye-bye.

By 1982, of course, after punk ground into hardcore and devolved into synth-pop and New Wave, I wound up scouring the used record stores on campus to buy all those records back.  I never made the mistake of turning my back on an entire form of music again.

The 1980’s were, of course, The Wasteland, definitely the worst decade of rock & roll I have lived through.  Starting off with disco, moving through synth-pop and the continued dominance of radio-controlled corporate-rock, ending up at the end of the decade with hair metal, it just was not a good ten years.  (Synth-pop became so rampant that even Roy Bittan of the mighty E Street band had to deploy a Roland on his piano.  That wasn’t pretty.)  Plus MTV came along and started demystifying The Secret That Was Rock & Roll by blasting it into every genteel living room and wood-paneled basement that could afford basic cable.  Rock & roll was never intended to be just another segment of show business, it was supposed to be a Holy Rite of rebels, outcasts and losers.  The “culture” of People Magazine and rock & roll just do not mix.   MTV took away a central premise of the rock & roll Art Form – the listener being able to make up his own vision for a song – and replaced it with scantily-clad models & fire.  It somehow managed to take rock & roll BELOW The Lowest Common Denominator, something my third-grade math class taught me was impossible, but here we were.  

Putting aside woeful ephemera like A Flock Of Seagulls, A-Ha and The Human League and long-serving dreck-meisters such as Duran Duran and Depeche Mode, I know there were 80’s bands I should have liked – U2 or The Smiths, for example – but they were just so smug, so self-important, so English, just so fucking EARNEST, ya know?  Where was the fun factor?  Where was the simple joy?  Where were the groupies & blow?

In 1984 David Minehan of The Neighborhoods – easily my favorite Boston band, then and now – wrote, “Today’s bands are like a school of fish / When I see a star I’ll make my wish.”  I may have been The Perfect Age For Rock & Roll, but I found myself starting to long for 1966, when there were certainly less artists and fewer records in the bins, but the quality was SO MUCH HIGHER.  By 1984 the music business was firmly committed to the principle, “Let’s throw it all at the wall and see what sticks.”  (Or was it Styx?)  (“Mr. Roboto,” indeed.)  Quantity definitely did not equal quality.

I made do with New York City’s Del-Lords and Boston’s Del Fuegos, got briefly excited by REM and The Replacements, but had to constantly ask myself as I watched an out-of-control Bob Stinson lurch across the Stache’s stage drunk on his ass, clad only in a diaper, “Where is the next Rolling Stones?”  “Where is the next Bob Dylan?”  “For that matter, Where is the next Bruce Springsteen?”  I would have to say that Prince was the only mainstream million-selling rock act I had any love for in the entire decade of the 80’s.  Michael Jackson?  Please.

By 1992, when Sinead O’Connor and Nirvana – two of the biggest acts in rock – seemed to do nothing but complain and bellyache (quite literally in Curt Kobain’s case) about their rock & roll star status, I knew it was all over.

I hunkered down with my Lloyd Cole, Richard Thompson, Dave Alvin, Steve Earle and Alejandro Escovedo records and dedicated myself to a genre I dubbed “Adult Rock & Roll,” while watching out of the corner of my eye as the likes of Limp Bizkit, Stone Temple Pilots, Alice In Chains and others of their ilk became the mainstream of rock.

I’ve often said in recent years that I got fully involved in the rock & roll business just in time to watch it all fall apart.  In 1998 – 30 years after I sang in my first rock & roll band and 25 years after I started working in warehouses – I was able, courtesy of a small inheritance when my mom died, to take a job at Camelot Music.  I got that job at a record store just in time to watch – and be complicit in – The Backstreet Boys, ‘N Sync, Eminem and Britney Spears sell millions of records.  

At the dawn of a new century, year 2000, I became road manager of a solo rock act out of New York called Hamell On Trial, who I believed to my soul was going to be the next Clash.  I crisscrossed the United States with Hamell over the next few years, fulfilling a life-long dream to travel America with a rock & roll band.

By time I turned 50 in 2002 I believed that The Strokes, The White Stripes and The Hives were going to usher in A Whole New Era Of The Rock & Roll, and further believed I was The Perfect Age for that rock & roll resurgence.  I was wrong.

Today as I type this it’s 2014 and looking back I feel like I might have outlived rock & roll, that I might have witnessed its beginning, middle and end.   

At 61 years old I still play solo acoustic gigs, I still climb into a van with Watershed – whose road crew I joined in 2005 after watching them grow up literally before my eyes from 1990 on – I still wrangle guitars for Colin Gawel and occasionally roadie for Erica Blinn, whose FATHER, Jerry Blinn, I competed with for gigs in the 1970’s when he was in a band called Black Leather Touch and I was in The Twilight Kids.

I’m on my SECOND GENERATION of rockers.  I’m the Perfect Age For Rock & Roll. - Ricki C.

Click here for "Perfect Age For Rock n Roll"    Part 1   Part 2

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