Who Moved My Cheese Metal?

In the early 90′s rock radio was a bit confusing at times. You might hear Journey’s “Wheel In The Sky” right next to Neil Young’s “Southern Man” at any given time. Following that might be Skid Row’s “Eighteen And Life” leading into Yes’ “Roundabout” and right before the inevitable commercial break they may have closed with the Scorpion’s “Winds Of Change.”

All in all a really strange time for rock radio.

So what do you do about it if you are a young and talented musician/songwriter?

Well, you pretty much ignore anything else on the radio and do your own thing and hope for the best…

1990′s Toy Matinee was a truly weird band. Musically and otherwise. (If you know the story of Kevin Gilbert’s untimely death from, well, if your interested read the link, you’ll get the picture). Gilbert and Patrick Leonard had formed the band from a group of musicians that would eventually become known, thanks to Sheryl Crow, as the Tuesday Night Music Club.

Gilbert and Leonard had a unique view of the world with the album including songs dedicated to the President of the then newly liberated Czech Republic, Václav Havel, and two songs about Madonna as Leonard had been songwriting partners with the pop queen for some time previously.

“Last Plane Out” is a celebration of excess. A four and a half minute might as well try to fly as you fall off the cliff kind of song. The intro is a bit misleading as to where this is all going and somehow that only adds to the fun. The absurd lyrics can be taken seriously if you really want to do that…

“Greetings from Sodom, How we wish you were here,
The weather’s getting warmer, now that the trees are all cleared.”

Nothing gets a party going better than some good old fashion death and destruction.

Now, all in all, “Last Plane Out” is pretty funny. “Dog’s and Valvoline?” Did they really say that? Yep. They did…

Toy Matinee didn’t really have much in the way of a career as Leonard lost interest in the project and offered no more support, but Gilbert and then girlfriend Crow did the rounds of radio promotion and special events most notably with KLOS 95.5fm’s Mark & Brian show. “Last Plane Out” was the bands biggest single reaching 23rd on the charts with a minor follow up hit, “The Ballad Of Jenny Ledge,” hitting the same mark but without the same impression on radio or sales. And with Gilbert’s death in 1996 Toy Matinee was finished.

Toy Matinee is truly one of the more interesting albums you will ever hear with great harmonies and a wide range of musical styles reflecting  perfectly the state of rock music at the time it was released. It’s a bit of everything at once, and for once, that idea actually worked.

As a bonus, here’s my favorite Toy Matinee song.

It’s about Madonna… Can you tell?

“Things She Said”

We are still up in the air at WMMCM, and here’s a nice one from Tom Petty.

(The official video is available for embed, but it is both NSFW and stupid, so we have a fan-created video instead.)

This is from 1991, and I’m fonder of Petty’s earlier work, but this is just a good, solid radio record — it’s the nice, straightforward and unmistakably American rock he does so well, with the usual nice details from the Heartbreakers, like that gently echoing guitar and the rifle-shot drums that come in at the three-minute mark. Not a thriller, but a nice mid-career tune about getting by, get along, and finding your place in a tough world.

I’m learning to fly
But I ain’t got wings
Coming down
Is the hardest thing.

Doesn’t get much more typically Petty than that, does it?

As we continue in flight at WMMCM (we’ll be landing around the end of the week), we have this choppily pretty track from Joni Mitchell’s 1971 Blue.

“This Flight Tonight” is a love song on first listen, with a view from the airplane window and apparent regret at having gone away.

Up in the air, she’s saying
You’ve got the lovin’ that I like all right
Turn this crazy bird around
I shouldn’t have gotten on this flight tonight

But that is not quite what this song is about. The singer is infatuated with a difficult man, and when she’s not around him, their problems become that much clearer:

You got the touch so gentle and sweet
But you’ve got that look so critical
Now I can’t talk to you, baby
I get so weak
Sometimes I think love is just mythical

But she can’t stop wishing things would get better: “Oh, blackness, blackness dragging me down/Come on, light the candle in this poor heart of mine.”

In the last verse, it becomes clear that she isn’t on her way out of town — she’s coming home, and the plane is about to land:

Up go the flaps, down go the wheels
I hope you got your heat turned on, baby
I hope they finally fixed your automobile
I hope it’s better when we meet again, baby.

Makes the last time she sings “I shouldn’t have gotten on this flight tonight” mean something quite different. There is more to the song than that, but a simple love song this is not.

And, by way of a curiosity, this adaptation with an entirely different melody by Scottish band Nazareth.

They don’t seem to have a clue, do they?

As we fly along on WMMCM, here’s another sort of vehicle:

A pop act with occasional R&B tendencies, the 5th Dimension had hit after hit in the late ’60s and early ’70s. This one was pretty early, making the top 10 in 1967. And yes, I know it was the ’60s, but I am still somewhat concerned by that clear plastic poncho Florence LaRue is wearing in the video. This is a TV appearance — do you suppose someone at the network panicked over her semi-revealing outfit? If so, did this really address the issue?

But anyway, this is a pleasant record from a usually quietly consistent vocal group.  The song is by Jimmy Webb, who also of course wrote some of Glen Campbell’s most memorable songs in Campbell’s pop star days. The vocals are not as polished as they would become later with the 5th D — with this arrangement, it’s a bit too high for the women and a bit too low for the men — but that actually works a little better than studio perfection would have with the slick tune and lyrics that are maybe a bit hyper-elegant.

Would you like to ride in my beautiful balloon
We could float among the stars together, you and I
For we can fly (We can fly)

It is a nicely extended metaphor for all the grand things that could happen if this pair are really in love:

Suspended under a twilight canopy,
We’ll search the clouds for a star to guide us,
If by some chance you find yourself loving me,
We’ll find a cloud to hide us,
We’ll keep the moon beside us

The 5th Dimension were hugely popular for a time, and though their sound was usually pretty mellow, they took on some interesting songs — two of their bigger hits, “Stoned Soul Picnic” and the singer-killing “Wedding Bell Blues” were by the always challenging songwriter Laura Nyro (who also wrote “Stoney End,” a strange song recorded by many and conquered by none). But the 5th Dimension are perhaps best remembered for this one:

It’s a silly song from a silly show, but they do it perhaps about as well as it can be done. The audio is not the best on this clip, and the “Sunshine” section is shortened, but I couldn’t resist the platform in space. And whoever is playing bass on this just rocked.

In the dark, early days of the First World War a hard fought battle was developing between the well trained and highly motivated ”Flying Circus” pilots of Germany led by Baron Manfred Von Richthofen and the British pilots of the newly formed Royal Air Force. Richthofen became known to the world as the Red Baron because of his bright red Fokker DR-1 tri-plane

which he flew to victory in aerial combat some eighty times making him the leading ace pilot of World War One.

In 1966 the Red Baron finally met his match.

I almost hate saying it but the victory in 1966 was made much easier by the fact that he had been dead for fourty eight years…

Florida’s The Royal Guardsmen, (yes, I did say Florida), were complete strangers to the radio waves of the mid ’60s. Even though Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron made it to number 2 on the charts, The Royal Guardsmen faded into a long pattern of recording Snoopy related songs actually even managing to get themselves sued by United Features Syndicate, the publishers of Charles Shultz’s Peanuts cartoon series.

The mixing of pop rock with Snoopy gave them one hit that lives on today, that’s one more than most bands ever get and what’s wrong with that?

Being that I am heading out of town in the morning I thought I would leave you all with a bit of travel fun and enjoyment.

Ah yes, the joys of shoe inspection and body searches while waiting in ridiculously long lines with hundreds of your closest, (and newest), acquaintances. Nothing beats the sunshine and light given off by your friendly airport security drones…

So what could be worse than that?

Oh dear…

The Who’s “Glow Girl” was written by Pete Townshend as he was getting together ideas for what would become the rock opera Tommy. A rather dark song but very interesting. Daltrey had not quite found his classic rock voice yet but it’s beginning to sneak out here and there.

While Roger Daltrey was still finding the lion that would rage in a few years from 1968 when “Glow Girl” was recorded, The Who and Townshend were on to something. The ending lines of Glow Girl became on the the first lines in Tommy released a year later, the girl having been changed into a boy for the storyline to work better.

The one thing sonically that is quite fixed in “Glow Girl” is Keith Moon’s drumming. He fills all the open spots beautifully even doing some delightfully placed runs through his tom toms that match John Entwistle’s bass in a style they would soon improve upon with Tommy and then perfect on  the Who’s Next and Quadrophenia albums. Listen to the run following “sentimental photographs” in the third line. Rarely has a rhythm section worked more closely together.

Townshend’s lyric and melody are maturing quite quickly at this time in The Who’s career. “Glow Girl” has a very seductive melody that draws you in with its power pop chords and very full vocal harmonies backing Daltrey. The subject matter kind of sneaks up on you, at first a bit of reminiscing.

“Your out-of-tune piano, sentimental photographs,
A million little memories, a million little laughs.”

Then it’s all gone wrong.

“The wing of the airplane has just caught on fire,
I say without reservation we ain’t getting no higher.”

Then a bit of British reserve…

“The plane is diving faster, we’re getting near the ground,
Nobody is screaming, no one makes a sound.”

And rebirth…

“It’s a girl, Mrs. Walker, it’s a girl.”

It’s not a long song lyrically or by the clock, and it may never have been properly finished, which might explain its release only on the 1974 Odds & Sods compilation album. But the effect and emotion, notably added to by Townshend’s plane crash guitar riffs prior to the ”Mrs. Walker” closing lines, make “Glow Girl” truly innovative and a track that, had it been released when it was recorded, might have actually given too much away about where The Who and Townshend were headed musically.
.

Where you have songs about airplanes — and we do, in our ongoing informal tribute to flight — you have to have a song about an airplane crash. And so the Everly Brothers, and “Ebony Eyes.”

(Odd and distracting visuals ahead — best I could find.)

Written by JD Loudermilk, this song from 1961 fits right into the fad for tragedy tunes that had been running since the mid-’50s.

It’s pretty simple: A young serviceman with not enough time on a weekend pass to go home and get married gets the chaplain’s OK to send for his fiancee: “My Ebony Eyes/Was coming to me/From out of the skies/On Flight 1203.”  He’s at the airport, waiting for her to come in, but the plane doesn’t arrive.

That is followed by a spoken interlude. But as spoken interludes go, it’s not that bad. Don is no actor, but he gives it a little something and doesn’t embarrass himself at all. The plane is late, and the soldier asks about it at the airline desk. The clerk reassures him, but the weather is bad, and, “Then came the announcement over the loudspeaker: Would those having friends and relatives on flight number 1203…..”

It’s not what you’d call a good record, exactly. The lyrics are clunky (“authorized” is not an easy word to sing, actually) and there’s no real emotional arc, since the mopey tone makes it clear from the start that Ebony’s not going to make it to the wedding. Some guilt or regret for having asked her to come might have added a bit of depth, but there’s no indication of it in the lyrics.

But it has a simple, pretty tune, and, typically for the Everlys, they do a thoroughly professional job. If there’s not much to the material, they make the most of what there is.

As we soar (or perhaps hover) in our tribute to flight of all kinds on WMMCM, here’s a song about flying right on out of the atmosphere, from 1972.

For obvious reasons, there were a lot of songs about astronauts around this time — most of them from British bands, interestingly. But in this one, with the moon landing a few years in the past,  lyricist Bernie Taupin gives us not a hero (“I’m not the man they think I am at home”) but a harassed and unhappy man who’s just getting through the day.

As the song begins, he’s just ready to head out on yet another long trip away, and dreading it:
I miss the earth so much,
I miss my wife.
It’s lonely out in space
On such a timeless flight.

It’s not a typical view of an astronaut, then or now — the rocket man is just a working guy, a little confused and maybe in a bit over his head: “And all the science, I don’t understand/It’s just my job, five days a week.” But Bernie Taupin is a grandly eccentric lyricist, whose peculiarities nicely complemented Elton’s pop instincts. “Rocket Man” was a hit because of its lovely,  inviting refrain, but it holds up on the strength of the words.

There is not much to recommend the early ’70s in retrospect, but it was a grand time for pure pop music. Who was more mainstream in 1972-1975 than Elton John? But within a couple of years he released as singles the good-natured “Bennie and the Jets,” the beautifully acid “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” pure-hearted ballad “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters,” and the truly strange (and very funny) “Honky Cat.” Each very different, all fine, thoughtful pop with not a whiff of bubblegum about them, and all of them hits.

It’s 1976 and you’re on a tour stop in Los Angeles so where do you stay?

At the Riot House of course. Back in those days everyone who was anyone in the rock world always stayed there if they were on tour. Even if they lived in L.A. Why not, all your friends would be there.

The next morning when it was time to go to your next gig in Sacramento or Fresno you had to head out to L.A.X and get on a…

NSFW (One word… but that’s all it takes…)

Sometimes it can be fun to be the master of the obvious…

“Jet Airliner” from Steve Miller’s Fly Like An Eagle album is one of those songs that just won’t go away. I think that’s a good thing myself but if memory serves Bridey has a different opinion.

Well, I like it. There is not much in the way of a guitar solo on this track which is a bit odd for a guy who grew up with Les Paul as his Godfather and spent a few years here and there playing with the likes of Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy among others. As a pop rock song it’s hard to beat though.

I always like the way the harmony vocals keep coming and going, in and out as Miller gets through each line. It adds a nice bit of intensity and at times well needed attitude.

“Jet Airliner” is one of the very few songs that are classic rock staples that I really enjoy hearing every time.

We don’t mention the Beatles much at WMMCM — perhaps because we are classic rock bloggers, and they never really were a rock band — but while we’re on an airborne theme at the moment:

A not-quite-instrumental from Magical Mystery Tour, “Flying” seems like a throwaway and may well have been exactly that. Soft guitars and low-key drums, a faint bassline, and at about 30 seconds a slightly exotic-sounding keyboard — a Mellotron, I think — starts to carry the melody, with a Hammond organ playing chords way behind it. All pleasantly psychedelic as far as it goes.

At just about the one-minute mark, a male chorus joins in: “La la la la laaaaaa….” It is not loud, but it’s oddly intense, even a bit unsettling — even though it’s mostly a multitracked Lennon doing funny voices, until a last “Ohhhhh” that is plainly McCartney. (Though it’s barely audible, that “Ohhhh” is about as pretty a sound as Paul ever sang.) And fade into 15 or 20 seconds or so of unnecessary sound effects and noodling.

The thing about the Beatles is that they’re often interesting even when they’re not, if you know what I mean.