VIVA LA VIDA or DEATH AND ALL HIS FRIENDS

ON VIVA LA VIDA COLDPLAY REINVENTS THEMSELVES AND SHEDS THEIR ARENA ROCK SKIN, WITH ‘A LITTLE HELP FROM THEIR FRIEND’ (BRIAN ENO)! By John G. Kays

“All in all you`re just another brick in the wall.” -The Wall-Pink Floyd

Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends (Capitol) is a very, very clever, well-crafted, long-playing record. Coldplay employed Brian Eno, as a suggestion from Gwyneth Paltrow, to help them out of the sand trap they were mired in with their 2005 release, X & Y; namely repetitive melodies, lukewarm lyrics, and inordinate ‘borrowing’ from other bands. Brian Eno is a savior here, and acts as the Pied-Piper for Viva La Vida. He brings in his stalwart gimmicks, his rabbit-in-the-hat Oblique Strategies, where oracles on playing cards dictate where a song will go in terms of rhythm, melody, and lyrics. This worked superbly on this record-Viva La Vida is a meticulously woven patchwork quilt, a string of multi-colored mardi-gras beads of every size and shape imaginable, strung together with leery, museum-case precision.

Viva La Viva is a concept record, and as such it`s a good idea to listen to the whole in one sitting. When I say it`s a concept album, you must think of antecedents such as Tommy, Sergeant Pepper, but conspicuously Abbey Road (side two), a majestic model of seamless song fragments that bespeaks the daily life of ‘Swinging London’ in the `60s. Coldplay`s new studio is an old bakery in London that Chris Martin pegs as a “a beaten-up little place, down a drunken alleyway.” A new voice was found by Coldplay in this bakery with Brian Eno as their spiritual guide, acting as a George Martin surrogate-guru for the lads. Do not ever forget that The Beatles once saved EMI and made them profitable, and now Coldplay has the same task before them in this generation of entertainment!

The business angle for this new release is of the utmost importance for EMI (Electric and Musical Industries Limited), the struggling label that holds the contract for Coldplay. This is a British institution that retains the intellectual property of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and even Frank Sinatra. EMI was recently purchased by Terra Firma, and it seems as if the new boss, Guy Hands, is better versed in reviving pubs and gas stations, than making a proper go at the music business. Moreover, with the banking industry going south, he has been rubbing some big acts, such as The Stones and Radiohead, the wrong way.

Fortunately, Coldplay has seized control of their own marketing and promotion this go `round, and this certainly has been working for them. Their album is currently number one on the Billboard charts (today is July 12th ) and on iTunes also. So it appears to be exclusively the job of Coldplay to keep the aging giant EMI a float; it is exciting to track the sales of the album as they are reported. In an age when the music business is whistling pass the graveyard new heroes are welcome visitors!

Let`s take a stroll through this British bakery and inspect the enticing “Viva” tarts displayed in the dessert case! There`s a nice apple tart, “Life In Technicolor”! Let`s grab a piece of coconut fudge, “42”! A coffee dessert (“Violet Hill”) will lift you up from my patisserie of mixed metaphors (my life is a mixed metaphor). Hey there`s a creme tangerine and over there a montelimat. I hope George Harrison is not frownin` down on me as I raid the cub bards of “Savoy Truffle” from the White Album. Our satellite photos from NASA`s Messenger show Coldplay creating our Generation Y truffles to save EMI. Let`s study the ingredients of these saving songs from the new Mayan Lords that walk these jungles. The treble clef notes are cascading in swirls on our ears and harkenin` us back to the London bakery!

“Life In Technicolor” has a mercurial canticle that rolls through it; it is an instrumental that acts as an overture to the entire project. The bass gradually comes up in counter distinction to the high-frequency range of the round sampled through. The rhythm is peppy and marching (one two, one two), and the sphinx-like guiding hand of Brian Eno pushes the plastic `round on the turntable (think of the hand of God on the Sistine Chapel).

“Cemeteries Of London” is a haunting sea chantey with a wall of sound splashing echo and reverb at the end of each measure; a great monsoon wave of noise. Some characters, it seems, are hovering `round the streets of spirit-soaked London searching for lost souls, encountering ghosts and witches on the way, and even getting a few glimpses of God himself. “There are ghost towns in the ocean,” recalls the chilly mariner legend of The Flying Dutchman. This one has a Pogues bite to it, with a punchy, crunching pace to it, and is the best of the lot.

“Lost” has a slow 4/4 rhythm with it and is accented with hand claps at the end of each measure. It was partially recorded in a church and uses sweltering organs and piano that disguise the vocal of Chris Martin, who is “Waiting till the shine wears off.” Apparently, this means that you will shrink back down to size; this is idle wordplay that`s letting the air out of his ego. `Tis a seahorse-float shooting through the sky that then tumbles like Phaethon, son of Helios, in his chariot. “You might be a big fish in a little pond,” but I suppose a prominent flounder can come along and shuck you off in a wink of the eye! The mix of “Lost” sends you into outer space; as I hear it I think of Alan Shepard pickin` up genesis lunar rocks on a casual moonwalk.

“42” is two songs in one; the first half is reflective and recalls John Lennon`s two-handed piano chording with some witty word play: “Those who are dead are not dead they`re just living in my head,” a crackerjack sliver of limerick that suggests that the memory of the dead can keep them alive. The second section is faster and brighter with some Lewis Carroll, non-sensical verse about the existence of a ghost that nearly makes his way to the pearly gates. “You thought you might be a ghost (repeat), you didn`t get to heaven but you made it close (repeat).” The first time I heard this song (June 17th) I was channeling unstintingly back in time to Brian Eno`s 1973 premiere pop album Hear Come The Warm Jets, it was a breath of fresh air.

“Lovers In Japan” has a Martian sonic drone over a catchy, repeating organ-grinderish melody. These hypnotic spaceship effusions will make the dogs howl through a full-moon witching hour, and Martin`s vocals are slightly tucked in underneath these ‘close encounter’ shenanigans, and `tis interesting. The lyrics are muffled, and thus are lacking anything real, or pithy, or even subliminal for that matter; Chris merely randomly references some such lovers, runners, and soldiers, with no specifics. Is it pro-war or anti-war? Clouds hover o`er our blue skies here, but ambiguity is often the kinder, gentler yellow brick road to follow, and it`s better for sales too!

The B section of “Lovers In Japan” is about the fans of Coldplay analyzing the band for meaning and direction for their own lives. The poor Mister Martin is placed under a microscope by people all over the world and even by myself, for his rapturous revelations. Instead, all we`re getting is a few parrot beak banterings, some choice chipperings of Chris against a space-rock moon tune, a U2ish blast of high frequency Martian squeal with a ice cream truck ditty in sampled loop. “Reign Of Love” acts as a pillowy couplet to ‘Japan’ and has splashes or miniature flourishes of piano echo with a lullaby melody and lyrics `bout the slavery of love, me thinks.

The first half of the title, Viva La Vida, comes from a painting by Frida Kahlo which is just a still life of cheerful melons. The whole title, (Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends), I have heard, is inspired by Stanley Kubrick`s scathing satire on the Cold War, Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. This moniker suggests a kind of yin-yang dialectic, quarried from tipsy pipedreams of the I-Ching, where life and death is in balance. This would, of course, be symbolic for the good and bad vibes contained in the songs on the album. But it does seem that the bad vibes are mostly wimpy, and may be construed as whining or pouting on the part of Coldplay. Nonetheless and oddly enough, this has been a saving grace, an integral part of the band`s M.O. from the get go!

The cover itself is a Eugene Delacroix painting, Liberty Leading the People, executed in 1830, which has been whitewashed with graffiti plopped on the surface. The painting itself is a depiction from the French Revolution showing Lady Liberty leading Parisians on a zealous rampage for freedom. To tie this in with Coldplay, one has to study the lyrics of “Viva La Vida”; it appears that Coldplay is on the wrong side of the fence? “Revolutionaries wait for my head on a silver platter;” they are the bad guys, the ruling elite or kings disguised as bic-flickering arena rocker debutantes, if you get my drift. Not that they have really changed, but at least they are cognizant of their politically incorrect quagmires; their social standing of bigwiggedness. And it even looks as if Chris Martin is not going to make it to heaven-“I know Saint Peter won`t call my name.” Boy they really blew it!

The artwork in the CD booklet is mostly just homegrown doodles of lyrics from Coldplay with a bit of paint slapped on too. The center page has just a few lines of each song. It would have been preferable if they included the complete lyrics in the booklet. Hopefully they weren`t trying to hide anything, but simply were downplaying the importance of the words. The title, cover painting, and lyrics only come together cloudily in my head, but that`s perfectly legal in pop music. Just to be blunt, I will say, “the cover doesn`t mean nothing`, that`s what it means.” I can just picture Coldplay fans all around the world twistin` and turnin` the CD cover `bout and puttin` it under a magnifying glass just to glean an inner sanctum of pansophy from the cardboard. This is pure ballyhoo, my fair weathered friends, but is exactly the ritual that I practice in the solitude of my condo!

“Yes” opens with four bars of exotic Middle Eastern strings, provided by Davide Rossi; this suggested the aura of “# 9 Dream,” which is the best song on John Lennon`s Walls And Bridges, released in September of 1974. Chris Martin sings in a lower register here, talking in defiance to loneliness, but certainly under the spell of fleshly temptation. After two verses there`s a refreshing barrage of Jonny Buckland guitars that jump in like falling stars (or red-hot meteor metals) to spice it up a bit. Then after two further verses the violin and cello strings are rippling piquantly again.

The lyrics to “Yes,” are encoded with secrets, and address the issue of breaking out of the moldy doldrums that plagued Coldplay after X & Y, whereby jettisoning the old tortoise shell is in order and cooking up an original project can be a nice change of pace. “So, up they picked me by the big toe.” This is code for the thrashing that they`ve taken from the press. To be more specific, this is a grim reminder of Jon Pareles` scathing article, “The Case Against Coldplay,” that appeared in The New York Times on June 5, 2005, a brutal hack-job on X & Y.

“Chinese Sleep Chant,” a hidden track, is fully a blitzkrieg of treated guitars overdubbed superbly by Jonny Buckland. This put me in a trance as the Sandman be dappled my eyelids with blissful slumber. “Good Night,” the last song on The White Album, likewise cured me of insomnia some forty years ago. At this very moment my glassy eyeballs are peering out at you from your flat panel monitor, where you beady-eyed internet geeks are surfing my lines lazily in real time. I`m using a branding iron to burn these letters into this scroll, so watch out!

“Viva La Vida,” the main single from the album, begins with a gorgeous staccato string quartet provided by Davide Rossi, and tells the tale of fallen kings; these diminished lords are Zen-Masters of arena rock who are whittled down to size, and are now teeming with humility and self-degradation. The narrator hears some type of ineffable vocational calling, “I hear Jerusalem bells are ringing, Roman Cavalry choirs are singing, be my mirror my sword and shield.” I am envisioning this as a quasi-medieval Sir Lancelot, Knights of the Round Table beckoning, a return to virtue and Christian wholesomeness; furthermore, it`s a boomerang uturn to the Cinderella working-class bubble of street- sweeper magnanimity.

The abdication of power and the loss of the crown results in admission to the gates of heaven with the gift of the keys of Saint Peter. (You may want to give this a close listening, but sometimes it sounds like ‘Saint Peter won`t call my name.’) This song conceals such vagaries as a trip to the confession booth might do, which then lifts the storyteller (Chris Martin) back to his majestic position. After all he has confessed his sins and is ready to resume his throne in the stadium for another rock show. “Sexy Sadie, you`ll get yours yet, however big you think you are.” I`ll buy that; catchy little pop song?

“Violet Hill” has a pungent video single that you can get on iTunes. The boys are dressed in Salvation Army looking gear (or scruffy Sergeant Pepper threads), and are fooling around in a mansion and in some fields. This brings to mind the bleedin` Be-a-tles in an early version of music video, the castles in the air of “Strawberry Fields,” with band members rotating rapidly at an upright piano or hacking away on marching band instruments. The lyrics are frothy as usual, but seem to refer to a need for affection in the snowy settings of Violet Hill, a street in St John`s Wood, London. There are a few allusions (or illusions) here to the Crusades, God again, and how the future is carved by fools, “when the future`s architectured by a carnival of idiots on show.” Is this Coldplay themselves? As confusing as this is, the combination of music, words, and images makes perfect sense in a big picture, forest for trees (or maybe better yet icebergs for snow) kind of way!

“Strawberry Swing” is an ‘afternoon delight;’ just chugs along idly, a happy-go-lucky nursery rhyme that chimes like a `sicle truck amblin` down the lane in a slowpoke suburb of anywheresville. This is the “Yellow” of the record and is just the prescribed medicine to hatch another golden egg; `tis charged with feel-good positive ions. Golden lines (would you believe copper penny pennings?) roll off my fingertips like sausage through a meat-grinder!

“Death And All His Friends” starts out as an innocent, Mary Poppins` morsel of advice to not worry ; just do the Peter Pan thing and fly away o`er rooftops! Two minutes into the piece it takes a high-tempo uturn that morphs into a Pink Floydish chant about defying gloomy death; the Brian Eno inspired phrase is finally bleated out: “I don`t want to cycle a recycled revenge.” Okay, he wants things to be cheery, don`t we all!

The coda, “The Escapist” repeats the opening melody of the record, a calliope muzak loop, thus coming full circle. This was actually written by John Hopkins, a colleague of Brian Eno. The lyrics were written by Chris Martin, “In the end we dream of making our escape;” this is the main theme of the album, escaping the stigma of brainless arena rock! I couldn`t help but remember the coda to Abbey Road: “And in the end the love you make, is equal to the love you take.” I suspect that others are making this connection as well! Mister Bucks?

I caught a snap of Ringo extending the peace sign for his sixty-eighth birthday and was whiffed with a measure of muse to polish off these billows. I listened to all their old records and solidly concluded that “Vida” shows marked improvement over their three previous releases. “Parachutes” is really trudging; I speculated that Coldplay didn`t get enough coffee before they entered the studio. Chris Martin`s use of falsetto is not as good as Thorn Yorke`s of Radiohead who warbles like a Martian on a whoopee cushion! And the diadem of Art Rock still rests on the moptops of Radiohead. Coldplay sports the Arty Arena Rock crown! I barb in jest, Coldplay Curmudgeons! My measuring rods of rock were begot on another day. I must recalibrate for Generation Y!

I chip away at granite with chisel and hammer, the final inscriptions; Brian Eno`s Another Day On Earth wafts through the flat space! Surfin` for clues as his process unfolds. By the time I finish this moronic word puzzle the top of my head will be fried, my eyeballs will pop out of their sockets, coffee grinds will be oozing out of the side of my mouth, and the record itself will be lodged in my forehead, protruding out like a swordfish and won`t disengage, even with the jaws of life! “I`ve got blisters on my fingers.”


Half of what I wrote won`t see the light of day for fear of retribution! *(Two examples: Coldplay sounds more like the Archies in Jettson gear. Or: Much of this is the obligatory tears and flapdoodle [Mark Twain`s words] of Chris Martin. I better leave off on this squawkin` papyrus before I get tarred and feathered and run outta town by Coldplay groupies.) Newsblaze people, please listen to the record a few more times then come back to visit me (reread my review) one more time! Indignities ya utter, pasty brainies, Queen Mab on an agate stone, so why not split my skull one more time, I casually walk o`er the turntable with vinyl between fingers, so as not to smudge the plastic, put the record on the chasse, and hear Tibetan monks chanting between the grooves whilst Coldplay rises skyward on Stratocumulus perlucidus Grammy clouds!

*Thanks to Bertha for turning me on to Coldplay; I had never heard them before May of this year.

VIVA LA VIDA OR DEATH AND ALL HIS FRIENDS

*(I`m writing a review of Coldplay`s new one and these are my notes for the piece. I thought if I post the notes a bit of a fire will be lit underneath me and I`ll get the thing done! Let me know what you think of the record, & the controversial cover. I`ve been see-sawing on it a bit for your information.)

Until I get this new piece finished & hopefully published on NewsBlaze (about a week away), please continue to support my last piece, Raising Sand! It has entered the top 200 for July yet. Don`t want it to completely die out!


Coldplay-bic-flickering arena rock cast in a brand spanking new cellophane wrapper (bag) package (light). I ain`t saying this is candy-coated arena rock, but if I put that idea in your head, what can I do about it. Dumpster-diving the cut-out bins for last wonders. Coldplay-babeola magnets. I am using the measuring rods of rock. I`m aiming for a million reads on my new piece on Coldplay, but maybe I`m aiming a little high.Rock & Roll writing can still generate a lot more interest than can writing on movies. Maybe Coldplay is the current Archies, the current Bubblegum rock of this generation.
The cover is the famous painting of Eugene Delacroix, Lady Liberty, with Viva La Vida as whitewashed graffiti splashed on it. A French Revolution connection that I haven`t been able to make in the songs. The thing is Chris Martin got the idea for the title Viva La Vida from a still life by Frida Kaylo. How that painting is connected to the Delacroix painting, the wider themes of the record is undetermined.

The first song Life In Technicolor is a sorta overture to the album. I felt like I was on a rocket ship with a distant sound. I felt like I was on a ride at Six Flags Over Texas the first time I listened to whole album-the night of June 17th. Lost! Accented with handclaps. Synthesizers way up in mix. Can`t make out all the lyrics. “You might be a big fish in a small pond.” Slow 4/4 rhythm…waiting til the shine wears off…of the band. Sound is out there. Very distant, futuristic. 42 starts with just voice and piano…those who are dead are not dead, they`re just living in my head. Second section more eastern, pounding…you might be a ghost…you didn`t get to heaven but you made it close. Sounds like Here comes the warm jets…presence of Brian Eno very close…repeats opening line. Lovers In Japan very U2 big droning sound lots of synths…lovers keep on the road you`re on.

Cemeteries Of London is a sorta sea chantey with a cascading wall of sound…a paranoia trip a search for God…a pulsing churning echoing song. Singing la la la la la ehh…chantey-like. The wall of sound resounds and echoes with reverb splashing like monsoon waves at end of each measure. The Pogues have used such rhythms. Haunted vision of searching for lost souls. Strawberry Swing is an organ grinder soiree of innocence…afternoon fantasy of urban delight. No meaning (true grit) in the lyrics…whimsical. Commitment to lover. Death And All His Friends. Swept away by time and the seasons. Two songs in one. Theme comes in to break up two parts of song. Word play about countering death that spreads destruction wherever he goes. Okay, trilogy of parts. Last part back to light the love you make is equal to the love you take. Organ musak fades.

I`m having a little trouble detecting any skeleton bone in Viva La Vida. It is a bit dodgy in places. The whole project sounds like your grandstanding a shuttle lift off. Mechanical, ethereal. ET phone home! paranormal presence of Eno strong. Start to hit pay dirt on piece. Painful mode, into the piece, disguised inside the lines. My glassy eyeballs are peering out at you from your flat panel monitor where you slobski internet geeks are surfing my lines lazily.

42 has two sections. Second half really wails. Thought he was saying ghosts who are dead. You thought you might be a ghost means the downtime and possible demise of Coldplay, as I see it. Whole project has an undulating, running, grinding rhythm like a locomotion train. This reminds me of early Eno pop albums.

Death And All His Friends starts out as a lullaby/nursery rhyme, very innocent just a pastoral jingle that morphs into a Pink Floyd chant about fighting gloomy death. Then the calliope muzak riff of the beginning comes back in. Sorta like the ending to Abbey Road.

42 a raga rock rave-up “Those who are dead are just living in my head” the memory of the dead keeps them alive, in a sense. Coldplay has absorbed much of rock history-Viva La Vida is a concept album-all ten songs work in accord with one another. 42 has an upright piano and sounds very much like classic Pink Floyd. Song fragments piecemealed like Abbey Road-bits and pieces spliced together into pop-fruit cake-the suggestion of Brian Eno to break the mold. They have done just that. As I listened I found myself thinking of Gwyneth Paltrow a lot and channeling through some of her movies, like “Iron Man”, “Silvia Plath”, or . Colonel Critique here providing you with a review. I am using the measuring rods of Rock.

Throughout the record a monolithic wall of sound, spaceship rock, a volt of hurdy-gurdy blast of sound emanating from the jukebox (ipod box). Reign of Love uses acoustic guitar and is the softer part of Lovers of Japan, it`s the second portion of the song. Nuevo-art rock. From the paranormal presence of Brian Eno. More art-rock than parachutes, A Rush of Blood to the Head, or X & Y.

The skeleton bone of Viva La Vida is the carving out of a more original (authentic) bit of pop-music, & maybe whining about it a little along the way. A patchwork quilt, a string of pretty, multi-colored beads of a thousand various shapes and sizes, in the (tidily) displayed (dime store jewelry) case for all to marvel (oogle) at. A special sampling of all the experiments with Eno.

RadioHead is still the reigning Lords of Art Rock but Coldplay is currently the new cousin dolphins shining in glow of the Sun-King of Versallaises. Coldplay is a wholesome Radiohead.

“Viva La Vida” is a patchwork quilt, a spiffy slice of pop-ephemera, a jigsaw puzzle of Rock`s moments in the sun. For this I liked it. It`s not clichéd for this. It keeps ya guessin` by attempting to identify the mystery puzzle pieces of rock. There`s a bit of Pepper, a bit of The Wall, & UT`s Joshua Tree.

*(the business bit about EMI) Brian Eno plays the role of George Martin here.

Dreamy, unforced, natural, organic fluidity. More introspective, self-conscious, self-critical, narcissistic. Attempts to be more of a statement, but it`s not all that clear what is being said.

The opening number, Life In Technicolor is a sort of instrumental overture to the entire project and has a marching sweep to it, and suggests the guiding hand of Brian Eno. Cemeteries Of London is a ghostly sea chantey with a wall of sound splashing waves of echo and reverb, the lost souls of London are washing up in the soundscape.

Lovers In Japan is an amorphous tone, a bright, peppy promenade, a UT like march. The second half Reign of Love is lullaby like. Chris Martin looks inward and reflects the way that people are picking at him, that is the meaning of his words. Yes begins with an eastern riff, then Chris Martin sings against droning guitars about temptation and breaking the moldy doldrums of Coldplay. ‘So they picked me by the big toe.’ The lyrics for Yes address the issue of desire for a lady-lust. This must be the critics giving them a good lashing. Coldplay is in virtual isolation as they try to break out of their formula. Chinese Sleep is a little fragment, an ocean of guitars wailing.

Nice little intro-couplet. Reminded me of Walls and Bridges by John Lennon. On Yes Chris Martin sings in a lower register wailing against loneliness. Lyrics address the difficulty of coming up with a fresh project. Chinese Sleep is a little offering as cure for insomniacs; one is reminded of the last number on the White Album.

“Violet Hill” has a nice video single on itunes. In Salvation Army geer playing around in a mansion and fields. Reminded me of Beatles “Strawberry Fields” film with band members rotating rapidly at piano and playing marching band instruments. A lot of fun. The lyrics are illusive but refer to a need for affection in a chilly settine of Violet Hill, a street in St John`s Wood, London. A bit of a snack in the snow. A few allusions (or illusions) to the Crusades, God, and how the future is carved by idiots (fools). Use random word play is tricky, but when in the context of the images and the whole project, it makes perfect sense.

“Strawberry Swing” is my favorite on the album. Is a happy go lucky nursery rhyme that chimes like a popsicle truck ambling down the lane in some carefree suburbs of anywheresville. Death And All of His Friends starts out as an innocent little Mary Poppins positive bit of advice to escape over the rooftops a Peter Pan sort of thing. Two minutes into the piece it takes a high-tempo turn and the delightful phrase comes out “I don`t want to cycle recycled revenge-apparently some limerick thought up by Brian Eno-the lyric line in the whole album. The coda, The Escapist, repeats the opening melody-“In the end, we dream of making our escape”. Written by a friend of Brian Eno, John Hopkins. This is the main theme-escaping the stigma of brainless arena rock.

Viva La Vida will not go down in history as an innovative classic for pop-rock. The song Viva La Vida is for me their best song ever-shrewd high-pop. The songs are strung together like mardi gras beads functioning as treble clef notes on staff paper. The production is sprinkled (dappled) with glitter on glue, just as this piece is doused with glitter. Chris Martin is still chippering. I`m tapping into the inner sanctum of the album. The use of Eno`s Oblique Strategies reminds me of Philip K. Dick`s use of ‘oracles’ in The Man In The High Castle. This was really just the medicine needed to hatch a golden egg, with their record floating buoyantly at the top of Billboard charts.

First paragraph-Jiminy Cricket, Great Balls of Fire, Gee Wilikers, Viva La Vida is a proper piece of pop ephemera with planning, hooks, and production.

Viva La Vida or Death And All His Friends is a very, very clever long playing record. * (first line in piece)

The cover is Eugene Delacroix`s painting, Liberty Leading the People with a bit of whitewash graffiti splashed over, and mysteriously ties together the title, Viva La Vida, the title of an exquisite still life by Frida Kahlo. How the two paintings connect together is unknown, but I do not believe it really matters. The cover doesn`t mean nothing`, that`s what it means. I can just picture Coldplay fans all around the world turning` the CD about and putting` it under a magnifying glass to glean the inner sanctum of wisdom, this is pure ballyhoo, but I too have been twisting the record cover about for secrets.!

Much of this is the obligatory tears and flapdoodle (Mark Twain`s words from Huckleberry Fin) of Chris Martin. Viva La Viva is a pleasing grab-bag of pop ephemera with Brian Eno as Virgil, the spiritual guide, & Chris Martin as Dante negotiating the perilous sandtraps of Hell, such as exist in the world of arena rock.

Coldplay brings home the bacon with a ‘Little Help From Their Friends’. This is a polite way too to say they borrow from the Xen-Masters of rock, such as The Beatles, REM, Pink Floyd, and UTU. I hear they are influenced by RadioHead, but RadioHead wears the crown of Art Rock. Coldplay sports the diadem of Arty Arena Rock. I realize there is no such genre, but there is now cuz I just invented it!

Ian Yorke from Radiohead uses falsetto just like Chris Martin, but warbles like a Martian Tibetan monk leaving his body for the Elysian Fields, Martin sounds more like Barry Manilow. Coldplay sounds more like The Archies in Jettson gear than Radiohead.

Coldplay almost soft rock. Was listening to “Parachutes” and thought the CD player was going too slow. They need to drink stronger coffee.
Viva La Vida is charged with feel-good positive ions. Pleasant album to listen to, but it`s just not that big a deal. Use the word punchy a few times!

MY MORNING JACKET-EVIL URGES

I had a vacation day on Tuesday, so I went by Waterloo Records to scout out some new tracks. I saw that My Morning Jacket`s new one “Evil Urges” was out, so I listened to a few passages from several tracks at their nifty sampler stations. The first few tracks were gentle and smooth and I really thought they had changed from their hard-rockin` presence when performing live. I immediately thought of “Workingman`s Dead” by Grateful Dead as possible reference to these fresh tracks spinning in the Apple Player. The record was $11.99 so I snatched it up along with a bunch of Radiohead that was also on sale. I nonchalantly spun the disc a few times at home, but only as background music for my reading. Much variety was present, I thought, and the production was smooth with shimmering guitar work, enunciated lyrics, and balances in bass and drums. A very big piece in the New York Times appeared on Friday, and I consumed this with relish and curiosity as I tried to further assess this new offering of My Morning Jacket. They haven`t really sold very many CDs in their past releases but their live shows sell out easily. Maybe this new release will produce a hit and “Evil Urges” will take off on the charts! I have a sneaking suspicion that it will do considerably better than previous records. I just listened to ‘Thank You Too!’ and that one could be a possible hit, from where I`m sittin`. ‘Sec Walkin’ is on now and it is relective and people conscious, hey that one could be a hit. The background female chorus is a nice touch. This CD has a lyric book too, and this is a big plus for me, since I can rarely tell what musicians are saying. “Two Halves’ is very catchy and reminds me of the Everly Brothers. The guitar flanges and the background harmonies give a full, Spectoresque production. ‘Librarian’ will listened to vastly by college students on their ipods as they amble across their campus. This is a minor key with a melancholy motif…it`s catchy, my friend! The line about Karen Carpenter is likely the hook in this one. Okay he is has a crutch on the Librarian; sounds like a good B movie too. My favorite song on the record, for right now, is ‘Aluminum Park’; this one sends me to the empty industrial wastelands of the deep South…I don`t know why really? I will continue to think about “Evil Urges”; I sure hope it`s not buried amongst the avalanche of releases this summer!

STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE

...Or Mama Don`t Ya Take My Kodachrome Away.......

I was very surprised by this new Errol Morris project as I was viewing it. It was much more subdued than I had expected, and wasn`t a sounding board for a not so hidden agenda. The Fog of War seemed to naturally cook the goose of Robert McNamara by his own admissions. The issues here at play were who is actually culpable for the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib? That is not really all that clear. The photographs are the specific evidence that Morris looks at to provide clues to what really happened. This would even include one of Donald Rumsfeld inspecting the facility one day. The talking head interviews are perfect for what they reveal about the characters and also what they tell us about what really occurred at Abu Ghraib.

The interviews of Lynndie England were the best for me. She has aged startling since 2003, no doubt because of the stress of all the bad stuff that happened to her. She seemed to be motivated by her love for Charles Graner, a staff sergeant who seems to be the main culprit behind some of the more heinous photos. Graner was setting her up by photographing her with the leash around the neck of the prisoner Gus. What Graner`s motive was in this is undetermined? He comes across as a sadist who just enjoined torturing and humiliating these Iraqis. Most of the prisoners, as is shown in the film, were not associated with al Quadi or with the Insurgency, for that matter.

Sabrina Harman is even more puzzling in her interviews; the letters she sent back to her girlfriend carefully document the sinister events at Abu Ghraib. She seems like a sweet enough girl on the exterior, but then why is she giving a thumbs-up to the camera as the prisoner is writhing in agony? This is the great thing about these interviews, are these people telling the truth or are they lieing? Sabrina`s nose doesn`t grow here, but it looks like she is rationalizing!

The photographs themselves are at the center of gravity in Standard Operating Procedure. Morris tries to probe what may have gone on before and after the single snapshot in time. He does come close to seeing the truth. The chief investigator is able to compile a timeline of events because there were three cameras involved, and all have a clock inside of them. This is immutable evidence that can not be denied. There are thousands of extant photos, but only a handful were popularized by the media. This again underscores the tragedy of Lynndie England-that is, the way she took the fall for the real perpetrators of abuse.

I just paused for a moment to purchase Paul Simon`s Kodachrome on itunes; I suddenly had a flash that that song should have been used on SOP, but of course that would have been heresy. Really, the motive for the taking of the photos is at the heart of this film. I believe it`s “Mama, don`t take my kodachrome away!” These low ranking soldiers, plopped in the middle of the fray of Iraq, were simply trying to amuse themselves by shooting photos of themselves with prisoners. They weren`t even trying to hide it, and freely passed these snaps around Abu Ghraib.

On another level, SOP is the technique used on this low-key, refreshing documentary. Systematic, detective-like research is employed in order to ascertain what really happened; in this case the media blew this up out of proportion. Sensationalized, if you will. I don`t believe that Errol ever actually exposed who the real villain is (or was)? Then the photo of Rumsfeld comes back to me. Recently I`ve seen photos of Himmler touring (okay, inspecting) Auschwitz. A little fuzzy light comes on by way of analogy.

Please read my review of Raising Sand on NewsBlaze!

It Was Twenty Years Ago Today...

Okay, a little more than twenty years since The Potatoes backed up Tiny Tim at Club Dada (May 19th, 1988). This photo was taken on May 18, 1988 and includes Hubert Winnubst (on left), French Acers, Mister Tim, Will Clay, & John Kays (me). Big Bucks Burnett & Jack Turlington (left to right) are in the front. When Tiny Tim showed up to our funky rehearsal space, The Tater Palace, he had his ukelele in a Neiman Marcus shopping bag. This was his standard way of carrying his musical instrument (to the best of my recollection). We LOVED Mister Tim, & will always love him. I LOVE those Potatoes and Mister Bucks too (& will always love em). If you would like to hear a more detailed account of that historic night, send me a comment! Maybe, I can get these guys (the retired, still living, former Potatoes & Big Bucks) to write their stories too, if you would dig it!

Please read my beautifully edited (by Judyth Piazza) review of Raising Sand on NewsBlaze too. This is my first music review, so don`t be too critical of me. I will improve with time. I did that with music too, as best as I can recall.

RAISING SAND

RAISING SAND-ROBERT PLANT/ALISON KRAUSS-MAJOR GRAND SLAM! BY JOHN G. KAYS

Great Caesar`s Ghost, heavens ta mergatroid, (as Snagle Puss use to say) by cracky, Robert Plant IS a God on “Raising Sand” (Rounder) and Alison Krauss IS an Appalachian Sappho, fiddling feistily and piping odes of love-lost in pleasant pitch. Yet T Bone Burnett is Zeus himself pulling the marionette strings of these sundry lesser gods, picking up perfect songs, providing fresh arrangements for such rarities, and using a stack of veteran musicians who bless us with subtleties unfolding with each new listen. “Raising Sand” is a rusty squeeze box, a faded glass menagerie, a curio of a long lost era that belongs to none. I`ve been to Candyland and I`ve played Candyland (but I`ve never been to Electric Ladyland, but sure would dig it); nonetheless the bonding of this odd couple, twilight of the gods arena rocker and smoky mountain diva, works for reasons unknown, a perfect storm of banjo, golden throats, fiddle, electric guitar, a thousand permutations of percussion, and a genius record producer who knows his way around the block and then some.

I`ve invoked a mystery muse for this tidbit, a forgotten recipe stuffed in a ceramic Elvis cookie jar, crooning away on a microphone, and thus I`m ‘In Search of a Lost Chord’ here (in so many words), and so gather fodder from what I have compiled from my forefathers, the Maximilien Robespierres (would you believe the Vladimir Lenins?) of rock music criticism. I can still remember seeing Lester Bangs popping a vinyl LP on the turntable, then waxing hysterically, or cursin` the rock stars who wail these tunes or spit these riffs out an` wax em in so many grooves for hungry freaks. I frantically turned this platter “Raising Sand” over more than 150 times, stood on my head, read other coverage, isolated the instruments, listened to each section of every song, but found only an ineffability present, some alien sounds that left me on a vessel with no particular destination in mind, both in terms of the process for telling and the isolation of the musical DNA contained within the album itself.

My review is a distillation of bits and pieces, scratch pad doodles, misty recollections, or looking-glass scraps from a yellowing 1969 Rolling Stone, lying solitary on some stacks of an abandoned archive, catching dust. They did it right back then anyway. I began a solemn search for a method to this madness, that is, what is the process that one should use to write a music review? Ed Ward is a member of the Yahoo Group that I belong to, CasaGrandeEast, and so I had the opportunity to question him about this issue. I asked Ed, one of the original music critics for Rolling Stone (but so much more these days in terms of writing-travel, food, art, history, the Berlin Connection, and lots of other stuff make up his ingredients), “What process do you use to write a music review?” I will include his response in tact and let it speak for itself. ‘To be honest? I can`t answer that question. In fact, it doesn`t even make sense to me. I will, however, repeat something John Burks, who was managing editor at Rolling Stone when I was there, used to say, “Just imagine you heard something you want to turn your friends onto. What do you tell them?” A bit over-simplified, but something to think about (Ed Ward-an email).’

I tried to take his advice, but only morsels sifted into my consciousness. I listened to the record in many different moods, and in odd environments such as the urban jungle of Sixth Street, with hollow hobos driftin` at dawn. I even scribbled some lines outdoors at UT by the LBJ Library, while college students were shooting a video (I`m still wondering why the girls were in bikinis and one cat was dressed up as a clown?), Yea, I was armed solely with my MP3 player and my trusty parker pen; I slovenly jotted down lackluster sketches in my Office Depot (you can almost feel the sterility) notebook. But something was missing; hadn`t the ‘big boys’, back in the day, felt those gaping black holes when their editors were begging them for copy on the most recent offering of Emerson, Lake, and Palmer? I recalled that Lester Bangs had a similar empty feeling, had a clear sense that a vacuum permeated rock music itself, that the well was now poison you see; yea, ROCK WAS DEAD! It took Punk Rock to resurrect Lester back from the departed (to cure his writer`s block) and to put a fire back under him (like he had felt with The Doors in the Sixties). When I put this together, I suddenly felt a fresh spark myself from the likes of Plant, Krauss, and Burnett, and the light bulb came on in a strange way; these were the founts of spring water that sprinkled my brow with sweetness, stardust brushed over me, and my shape altered. I was a spick-and-span man again, and hurried home and put my ailing ears right `gainst my Beovox S40 Bang & Olufsen speakers, the most perfect ear-boxes that ever were-they have served me for three decades-; eureka, mesmerizing music transported my spirits to the spheres of the Mousai!

I ain`t no Mark Twain and I ain`t no Lester Bangs, I ain`t even no Prairie Miller, but I was shocked when I found out that I was sufferin` from a mild case of writer`s block as I banged staccato strokes on my Gateway relic of a keyboard. (Stop your cleverness people, I know you`re saying, “John, you may not know it, but you have ‘terminal writer`s block’”). I transcend this malady (presently) by reading the greats of rock criticism (Lester Bangs, Robert Christgau, and Ed Ward), hoping some of the good juju will rub off on me. Maybe if I give the appearance that I`m having some fun, the stigma or better yet the stigmata, will lift. When I read Lester he doesn`t hold back nothing`-writes whatever he feels like-and this only increases his audience. In fact, this is why we like him so much, because he`s a self-indulgent, pompous, narcissistic asshole who thinks higher of himself than a bunch of stupid rock musicians who he constantly has to plaster an obnoxious wallpaper-of-words-on for the paltry pulp of Creem and Rolling Stone. This is why he is our hero. And as I pondered, chewed on these revelations, I tossed overboard the lions share of my editing abilities; hey, this isn`t “The Sound And The Fury” by William Faulkner, I thought to myself, after all! Yea, I let myself go and didn`t give it a second thought.

This album is a brontosaurus trudging through the verdure, or rather through the sand, and getting its bully way as it carves a path of destruction through the primeval rain forest of Tunes Ville. The reason that it challenges us so potently is that it has jettisoned some sacred barriers of music that would normally come through the forms of bluegrass, country, pop, mega-rock, or even ballads, and so something modish emerges. It`s not a singer-songwriter record either, and thank God for that! As soon as we spot it here as a horse-of-a-different-color, by way of miracle the Technicolor turns on so very brightly and we`re Dorothies crashin` in the Merry Olde Land of Oz with a kaplunk, after the twister unmercifully whirls us there. Robert reclaims his throne in heaven because of this serendipity, this realignment of the orbs, but probably it`s a result of so many magic tricks by the Merlin T Bone Burnett, where bluegrass and rock can morph to an au courant species of music never heard by temporal beings heretofore.

We take off with a thud on the first song “Rich Woman” an R and B shuffle, a catchy vocal duet for Robert and Alison, where dollars and sex appeal (the money/honey dichotomy) go hand in glove. The percussion is up in the mix and the delay on the guitar, that is also flanged coolly in the middle eight, reminds me of the early Sun Sessions, the Mystery Train thing or The Killer`s brawlings on “Whole Lotta Shakin` Goin` On”. The second track is a heartfelt “Killing The Blues” penned by Rowland Salley, and is a sad poetic ode with soothing harmonies; moreover, this is a vocal capstone for Ms. Krauss. The pedal steel guitar by Gregory Leisz slowly jacks up the lyrics off the page, ‘bouncing over a white cloud’, guitars are stacked to the sky and blended tenderly; here blues are a viable path to optimism.

“Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us” is the most melodic song of all with droning drums and banjo and fiddle interplay, and is a particularly canny showcase for Alison`s pipes. The song was written by Sam Phillips, an Ex of producer T Bone, and the B-section is one of the most beautiful I`ve ever heard, since Mary Hopkins` “Those Were the Days”, written by Paul McCartney in the early Apple Record days. “Polly Come Home Again” is slow and dirge-like and was penned by Gene Clark of The Byrds fame. Robert Plant provides an apropos monotone to the sad lyrics that speak of a love loss, ‘I felt much of the pain as it begins.’ I dug up some backlog on The Byrds at this rest stop, reread Bud Scoppa`s famous piece in The Rolling Stone Illustrated History Of Rock & Roll (1976, 1980) and felt Byrdsie fingerprint smudges present (when I dusted for them) throughout this spectacular oeuvre of Americana. I`m listening to “Eight Miles High” at this very moment, and see the changes of the country right before my very eyes (as if I`m watching a history time-capsule film of the Sixties)!

“Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)” is the punchy pop hit from the record with a fun video, an oasis of bright yellow in a sea of blue. “Through the Morning, Through the Night” is another Gene Clark song and is given a country interpretation with pedal steel guitar twangin` against overdubbed harmonies by Alison. The arrangements are minimal, the piece is understated and paced; this lament by Gene Clark is sincerely sad and seduces you into this melancholic mood, a love loss that can not easily be repaired. A refreshing digression for me was the discovery of Gene Clark`s solo project “Echoes”, a dusty gem by way of grandma`s attic, a seldom heard clarion burst of flower-power from 1967 that`s getting robust rotation from yours truly! I can not play this enough, “Echoes” is sensational!

I`m goin` back in gradually. Back down the river where hostility is all around, and the primitives shoot their poisonous darts at me with impunity. I still remember that Rock & Roll killed Lester Bangs! As I was watching Indiana Jones the other day, I realized that this form was dead too. Lester felt the same way when he listened to over-produced Seventies rock with synthesizers, such as ELO! But this album brings me back to America and I return gracefully to the heartland of Americana, where Tom Waits and Townes Van Zandt reside, and hobos make a fire and tell stories of endurance. And the Neville Brothers are pickin` `til the break of dawn, and T Bone gets it all, and broken New Orleans is on the mend, and banjos or fiddles remind us of Seeger or Guthrie or Bobby and we are home again. I can read through “The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll” as if it`s for the first time, and it`s fresh and revealing to me. And all because some musicians got together and agreed to play some songs, but they were bringing miles of experience to the table, and things came together to create a new paradigm, but all the old forms were still there, but used again in an unusual way. That is a paradox if you think on it.

With thumpy bass and jaunty rhythms behind “Please Read The Letter”, gentle pleas from Mister Plant and urgent harmonies from Ms. Krauss are everywhere, since ‘their walls came falling down’ or ‘the secrets and the memories we cherish in the deep’-touching lyrics and riveting fiddle lead by Ms. K. Just a few Plants moans and a partial penning from Jimmy Page, injects this with some Zeppelin-zap that squirms and gyrates loosely, clear-see right in the grooves when you look at the vinyl under a microscope. Another listening today revealed the beauty of the shimmering harmonies. These two should team up permanently! “Trampled Rose” resides in an empty space of the heart, a Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan composition, it`s a bopping lament where banjo is echoing and percussion racket is thumping, traces of xylophone and strings, it sounds like you are in a tunnel. I feel safe here inside Tom Waits` world of carnies and misbegotten outcasts, but I feel mostly empty such as a homeless critic hitching rides with a sign (will write for food) on a lonesome interstate, Highway 61!

“Fortune Teller”, written by Naomi Neville, conjures images of Madam Marie Laveau for me and the occult arts of New Orleans. I love the Rolling Stones earlier take on it, and this minimalist version is a clever arrangement where by the first half of the song is soft, then it breaks open with some joltin` guitar and sweaty metal bendin` by Mark Ribot- dude, this rocked my world! The middle section has only hand clappin` and treated primal female vocals that is really ingenious, just before the Bad section. “Stick With Me Baby”, a pop-country song penned by Mel Tillis, is a tasty little ditty, a classy duo where the vocals are subtly blended and the electric guitars are drenched in reverb.

“Nothin`” is the most distinct arrangement of all the songs on the album from the composer`s original version. The vocal lines are light, then the relief-response-part wails with fuzzy guitar and frolicking fiddle; the dynamics are astounding and put me in my place! “Nothin`” was written by the dearly departed Townes Van Zandt, who fairs from these parts (Austin), and is a legend of the highest caliber. I was fortunate enough to see him a few times in the seventies and can attest to his vision as nothin` (pardon for the word) short of revelatory! You would benefit immensely by reading the lyric book as you listen to this. If you can, please dig up some of his original recordings and witness for yourself the brilliance of his feelings and ideas.

“Let Your Loss Be Your Lesson” is a chug-a-lug C and W boogie-woogie shuffle that snaps and pops. Alison belts it out with gusto, but the best is the bluesy guitar with low treble with a four bar accent before each verse. “Your Long Journey” is another tent revival, tear-jerking duo by the twin song-gods that sends a chill down your spine. The autoharp gives it an olde-timey feel and you feel as if you`re gliding down the Mississippi River on a riverboat with Mister Twain as your captain navigating you to New Orleans!

I`m listening to Scarlett Johansson`s “Falling Down” as I write this. It reminds me of Lester Bangs and breakthroughs that have made Rock and Roll a trippy world to dwell in. It has consumed some, though, sucked em into the abyss, ‘everyone knew that hotel was a goner’, Chelsea Hotel I guess, but there is an equality of songs on “Raising Sand”, and the whole thing works together with persnickety like a concept album ought a. ‘My house was full of rings and charms and pretty birds’, and here was the conundrum staring me in the face. The reason I was sufferin` writer`s block was that I had been going back inadvertently to the Seventies into ‘Lester`s Bag of Malaise’, I was there again, and stuck in the muddy puddles of the Eagles, BloodRock, or Nitzinger, but I gotta tow from AAA and raced back on “The Road”, by way of the perfect manuscript for counterculture (that`s on display at the HRC in Austin now), and was resuscitated otra vez (this is modeled from the opening lines of the “Divine Comedy”). It was my blunder to dwell on Led Zeppelin, but Plant suggested them, and this caused me to make a wrong turn onto this “Highway To Hell”. Plant transcends his old role here and is a part of this ‘New Art’. Just think of the title “Raising Sand”, and as illusive as it is, it suggests to me the idea of creating an oasis of art out of an exceedingly dry desert of sand. I could be off base on this, but that is what it is telling me. A vibrant new paradigm emerges from a drought of locusts; this would be an escape from the Seventies and Led Zeppelin for Plant, you see! Okay, I may be trippin`, but that is what I`m seeing! And so my curse dissipated, I didn`t evaporate from the landscape such as Lord Carnarvon (or Lester for that matter) when violating the sacred tomb of Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings. So please read the review that I wrote, people!

* This piece is dedicated to the late Lester Bangs, a pioneer of rock music journalism, who had the courage to write what he really felt in his heart to be the truth!

A BLAST OF FLOWER POWER...??

PLEASE TAKE A JOURNEY TO MY PIECE THE COUNTERFEITERS ON NEWS BLAZE! I NEED TO BOOST MY NUMBERS OVER THERE. THANK YOU IN ADVANCE! ALSO, YOU CAN FIND ME ON VERVEEARTH NOW! JUST CLICK ON AUSTIN AND PUT IT ON ART, MOVIES, OR HISTORY AND YOU WILL FIND CLAUDE BOVEE. IT`S PRETTY NEAT!

I`m longing for a blast of flower power today. This may be partially due to the fact that this story is breaking about possible new bodies being found on Barker Ranch. I didn`t think that the Manson Family story could have such endurance, but it`s coming back to life again. Eerie memories seem to surface, but I surfed itunes for some flower power ditties from a fresher period. I found it in Gene Clark`s Echoes, a 1967 release, a little bit before the over-ripening of psychedelic generation. I downloaded the twenty tracks just like that! To my surprise I have never heard this before. It sounds just like The Byrds, but the quality of the songs is a little sub-par. It still has Chris Hillman and Michael Clarke as the rhythm section. The jingle janglie guitars, possibly twelve string, are stacked to the sky and the harmonies are complex and choir-like, just like The Byrds. I didn`t really know Gene Clark`s story very well, so I read up on him on wikipedia. It`s a sad one along the lines of Townes Van Zandt or Gram Parsons. This is a recurring pattern…I astutely discern. I came to Gene Clark because he wrote two of the songs that appear on Raising Sand, a really spectacular record that I am trying to write a review on. Polly Come Home and Through the Morning, Through the Night are two very fine songs that led me to Gene Clark. Then when I was reading up on The Byrds I realized that he had written many of the mega-hits, like Eight Miles High, I`ll Feel A Whole Lot Better, and Set You Free This Time. I`ve never heard most of the songs on Echoes, but the sound is familiar to me and the tambourine shaking is an old sensation.

Only Colombe is playing right now and has a mandolin rippling throughout. So you Say You Lost Your Baby is the last track…it`s just an acoustic guitar and a vocal and it has double-entendre lyrics and a nasal vocal…very good song. I doubt if many people have ever heard it. Echoes is a big production number. Strings, flutes, and the lyrics are electric. I just read that Terry Melcher was the producer for The Byrds…Eurekia! There`s the Manson connection with Gene Clark that I was able to make through the back door. Melcher actually owned the Sharon Tate mansion and was possibly the real target of the flower molls, if I can remember my Ed Sanders. His book on The Family is really the best one to read, in case you are curious to travel down that Black Brick Road…He headed up the band The Fugs and it`s been a long time since I heard them.

I Knew I`d Want You is a great song too…harmonies all the way through…the guitars are crisp and top off each line. Here Without You reminds me of Eight Miles High, the way the minor key melody cascades up the scale…the harmonies on the chorus are rapturous. I knew I Wanted You is more of a drone, an ode? On Set You Free This Time the melody is atonal, but the sound is full, overdubs are present on the vocals. I`m beginning to believe that the folk/rock label of The Byrds was largely due to the influence of Gene Clark. Boston is a catchy one and starts off the album. For Me Again is maybe the best song on the record. In listening to these ancient songs I feel like I am in a museum for ancient music. I`ve found some very old tracks and as I look at the ghost town photos of Barker Ranch a chilly feeling comes over. I can`t find my old Byrds, so it`s lost, just like many of these great stars who have succumbed to substance abuse…wasted talent. I sure needed this blast from the past today, and I don`t know exactly why? So you say you lost your baby…if they find some lost flower children buried behind Barker Ranch we will discover something odd from the past. Maybe Manson really is The Devil! But I need a fix of positive flower power today…not the Dark Force of The Sixties!