Issue 71

From the 1920’s through the 1950’s, one of the most popular English entertainers was Stanley Holloway, who carved out a niche for himself reciting comical poetic monologues in a northern working class accent, one of the last hurrahs of the old ‘Vaudeville’ music hall tradition.  He went on to star in films and television on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as on the stage.  Most of his famous monologues were written for him by the poet Marriott Edgar, who had worked with Holloway in a 1920’s stage revue called The Co-Optimists.  By the 1960’s, few British households with one of those new-fangled record players did not have an LP of Stanley Holloway monologues.

By far the most iconic of the Stanley Holloway monologues was The Lion and Albert, which was so popular when first introduced by Holloway in 1931 that he commissioned Edgar to write a series of follow-ups based on the Albert Ramsbottom character.  Incredibly, the original was inspired by an actual newspaper headline, where a boy was reportedly eaten by a lion in Blackpool Zoo.  Apparently Edgar found this amusing!  Maybe he knew the boy…  But in any case, by the 1970’s, most British people ‘of a certain age’ could have recited the famous opening stanzas of The Lion and Albert … even if they would mistakenly refer to it as Albert and The Lion.

The piece pokes gentle fun at a number of Northern British stereotypes of the day.  Being careful with their money.  Dressing up on Sundays.  Respect for authority.  Understatement.  Dour practicality, and a largely absent sense of humor.  All encapsulated in a typically Vaudevillian piece of Theatre Of The Absurd.

I had mentioned in passing in a previous column that in my youth I sang in a Male Voice Choir known as the B.U.  One of the things we regularly did was visit retirement homes, and perform a small concert for the retirees.  Although our repertoire was far more serious and high-brow than the expected fare of sing-along classics, our little show was always warmly received.  But whatever else we might have sung, we always ended up the same way … one of our troupe was able to recite from memory the entirety of The Lion and Albert, complete with his own approximation of Stanley Holloway’s famous faux-northern accent, and it was always – without exception – everybody’s favorite part of the show, bar none.

Nowadays, The Lion and Albert has largely drifted from popular awareness, its simpler, less sophisticated expression of entertainment having long since been deemed inadequate.  But iconic art will always remain iconic art, and The Lion and Albert – for all its unapologetic anachronism – is just as hilarious today as it ever was.  The simple nonsense of the poetic doggerel, the dated accent, the dead-pan delivery, are all absolutely classical in their own way.

Here is Stanley Holloway, reciting his famous monologue, in a recording from about 1932:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaw-savyK0s

… and here’s the poem itself, if you want to follow along:

There’s a famous seaside place called Blackpool,

That’s noted for fresh air and fun,

And Mr. and Mrs. Ramsbottom

Went there with young Albert, their son.

A grand little lad was young Albert,

All dressed in his best, quite a swell,

With a stick with a horse’s head handle,

The finest that Woolworth’s could sell.

They didn’t think much to the Ocean,

The waves, they was piddling and small.

There was no wrecks and nobody drownded.

In fact, nothing to laugh at at all!

So, seeking for further amusement,

They paid and went into the Zoo,

Where they’d Lions and Tigers and Camels.

And old ale and sandwiches too!

There were one great big Lion called Wallace.

His nose was all covered with scars.

He lay in a somnolent posture,

With the side of his face on the bars.

Now Albert had heard about Lions,

How they was ferocious and wild.

To see Wallace lying so peaceful,

Well, it didn’t seem right to the child.

So straightway the brave little feller,

Not showing a morsel of fear,

Took his stick with his horse’s head handle

… And shoved it in Wallace’s ear.

You could see that the Lion didn’t like it,

For giving a kind of a roll,

He pulled Albert inside the cage with him,

And swallowed the little lad whole.

Then Pa, who had seen the occurrence,

And didn’t know what to do next,

Said “Mother!  Yon Lion’s ate Albert!”,

And Mother said, “Eeee, I am vexed!”

Then Mr. and Mrs. Ramsbottom,

Quite rightly, when all’s said and done,

Complained to the Animal Keeper,

That the Lion had eaten their son.

The keeper was quite nice about it.

He said “What a nasty mishap.

Are you sure that it’s your boy he’s eaten?”

Pa said “Am I sure? There’s his cap!”

The manager had to be sent for.

He came and he said “What’s to do?”

Pa said “Yon Lion’s ate Albert,

And him in his Sunday clothes, too.”

Then Mother said, “Right’s right, young feller.

I think it’s a shame and a sin,

For a lion to go and eat Albert,

And after we’ve paid to come in.”

The manager wanted no trouble,

He took out his purse right away,

Saying “How much to settle the matter?”

Pa said “What do you usually pay?”

But Mother had turned a bit awkward

When she thought where her Albert had gone.

She said “No!  Someone’s got to be summonsed!”

So that was decided upon.

Then off they went to the Police Station,

In front of the Magistrate chap.

They told him what happened to Albert,

And proved it by showing his cap.

The Magistrate gave his opinion

That no one was really to blame,

And he said that he hoped the Ramsbottoms

Would have further sons to their name.

At that, Mother got proper blazing,

And, “Thank you, sir, kindly,” said she.

“What, waste all our lives raising children

To feed ruddy Lions?  Not me!”

This article’s title was taken from the great Chuck D who reprised his vocals for the 1991 Public Enemy/Anthrax video “Bring the Noise,” one of the earliest Rap/Rock partnerships along with Aerosmith/Run DMC. It was revolutionary and evolutionary. Suddenly, this “urban” art form was either desecrating or improving a traditional realm – depending on your point of view. I don’t know exactly what Chuck D rhymed about – perhaps ‘bass’ symbolized a new groove infiltrating the Heavy Metal community.

But if he was simply talking about the low end of hertz measurement, then I was asking the same thing at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2018. Walking from room to room of high-end speakers blowing out Jazz and female vocalists, I thought, “Sounds great, but where’s the bass at?”

RMAF was not my first rodeo. I attended the local show in New York City in 2017, and had a similar issue. It was the first time I had seen the legendary Harbeth 40.2s up-close. Finally, there I was in a hotel ballroom with the beefy BBC monitors connected to 500-watt mono-blocks via obscenely priced silver cables, but those speakers were given nothing better to play than what amounted to elevator music! I sat for about 15 minutes until I thought to ask for something different. I got two minutes of The Who before the dealer stepped in and switched over to the requisite In Session with Albert King & Stevie Ray Vaughn. “Okay, we get the idea,” he said. Well, I didn’t get any idea of the speaker’s capabilities.

I would prefer to audition with Motörhead (or “Motör-Fuckin’-Head!” as we say), but I wouldn’t expect anyone to play that. Whereas I’m thrilled by torrential flows of double kick-drums, screeching leads, fat bass chords, and tar-soaked vocals, I understand those qualities might not inform the other listeners adequately. I keep it classy, and only ask for musical changes when I’m nearly alone in the room: gimme some Yes, Rush, Led Zep – even Stones – and I can get a sense of what the equipment does with my music. But almost every time I made a request, I was met with a blank stare as if I asked for Reggaeton instead of mainstream Classic Rock. “You want… Rock? Digging through a small stack of records only produces Dark Side of the Moon, again. “Hey, how about Stevie Ray Vaughn?”

Although Capital Audio Fest is located closer to me, I decided to fly out to RMAF for the range of exhibitors. Armed with a checklist of established brands, new items, and people to see, I made my way first to the PS Audio room and had a chat with the incredibly friendly staff I had only seen in photos and videos. It was also nice to see their sleek components in person.

Then, I had a hell of a good time listening to Klipsch La Scalas. Talk about bass; the Klipsch Heritage room offered plenty – albeit sweetened with a pair of external subs. It was one of the few spots where listeners could really feel the music, especially the symphonic piece which energized the crowd.

I happened upon a few other rooms with noteworthy bass and decent music: NOLA Grand Reference Gold 2 speakers out of Long Island were deceptively massive-sounding for their driver sizes; Brooklyn’s DeVore Fidelity Orangutan Reference 4-piece set was as gorgeous as it was lush; the more affordable stand-mount JWM Acoustics’ Alyson AML II ($9.5K/pair) out of Texas were seductive and powerful. The most reasonably priced set ($6K/pair) with a retro 70’s vibe were the Super Seven T-c’s made by Speakerlab in Washington State. It seems like I have a definite ear for American craftsmanship.

The coolest musical space, as usual, was the Zu Audio room – this time partnered with Pass Labs electronics and Mobile Fidelity turntables. I already own Zu speakers and was there just as much for the music as the Zu Druid Mk. VI towers. It was great to hear expertly selected records, from multiple crates, spun on two MoFi Ultradecks by young hip Zu employees.

I hit that room twice! The rest of the time, I just roamed the Marriott hallways waiting to be pulled in by exciting sounds or noticeable thumping, of which there was relatively little. In fact, the hotel staff should have left beds in place, because some of the audiophiles looked downright somnambulant.

Now, I’m not suggesting exhibitors feature Metal, Rap, and Latin music– or maybe I am. Can an aging, homogenous group of people support this industry indefinitely? Maybe a little musical and demographic variety would be a good thing. Change doesn’t have to be anything radical like woofer battles in the parking lot, but how about an occasional track by P-Funk, Beastie Boys, or A Tribe Called Quest played on an appropriate rig? Maybe some old-school Cuban and Salsa? It would be wonderful to hear cuts off Buena Vista Social Club or something by the 1970’s Fania All-Stars featuring Salsa legends Willie Colon, Johnny Pacheco, and the incomparable vocalist Hector Lavoe. Dare I say, a bit of Electronica for the Ecstasy crowd?

As a 52-year-old member of the same homogeneous group mentioned above, I have college-age nieces and nephews who have very little interest in sound-quality or stereos. They think a phone playing an ashtray-size wireless speaker sounds awesome, and that’s if they use a speaker at all. They like music through $20 headphones. One of my nieces recently claimed to like the Beatles, and I’ve been trying to get her over to listen to records on my modest $5K system. I want to sit her down at the top of the equilateral triangle and let her understand the point of all this boxy two-channel paraphernalia – even if it means playing Harry Styles.

I can’t believe it’s come to that.

Like an audio acquaintance of mine observed, shows are not necessarily targeted to music lovers, but rather to equipment lovers who adore music expressed through design, physics, and engineering. There is a difference. My local record-store owner and good friend plays his vast collection on an old beat-up DJ kit because he cares only about songcraft. Whenever I trade-in discs with noted flaws, he says my system is too good for my own good and that I’m missing the music in pursuit of vinyl perfection. As for hose-size cables and $10K turntables, “Idiotic!”

I guess I’m in the middle. I appreciate all the design and science to the extent of my understanding, but to me the music is paramount.

My tastes span many genres: 60% of my collection is Rock, but the rest is Jazz, Blues, Orchestral, and other. Never do I sit down for a session and listen to just one style of music. That’s why I would like to see more diversity in the rooms, and if it means annoying dealers, designers, and manufacturers, then I’ll do it.

Elevation sickness notwithstanding, I’m already looking forward to my next show in Denver. I’m bringing a whole new batch of dumb questions and unsophisticated musical requests. And maybe I should bring my own noise in 2019. How about some Public Enemy, Ruben Blades, or better yet, Slayer?

I have a recurring dream.

I’m standing backstage at a theater of some kind and the curtain is closed. Next to me is a guy whose name apparently is Fred and he’s some sort of agent or angel. I peek between the curtains and the audience is full of werewolves which I find more upsetting than odd.

“I can’t go back out there Fred.”

“Yes you can. You gotta.”

“No I don’t gotta! Whadyamean I GOTTA!”

“Ya gotta, that’s it. You’re just not sure you’ve still got it.”

“Got what ya ass clown? What are we even talking about?”

From the audience comes a sound like animals eating and it occurs to me the comedian that was just on is not there anymore.

“We’re talking about you going out there again.”

“I don’t know. What if they don’t like me?”

“Dude, they never liked you.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Man this is your future.”

“My future? This is my future? What happened to my present?”

“You know what I mean. Quit stalling. You need to get up and get going.”

“Get up and get going!”

“You’re the man!”

“I’m the man!”

“Take No Prisoners Troop!”

“TAKE NO PRISONERS!”

“LET’S GO!”

I turn to the bored stage hand and scream, “LET’S GO!”

The curtain rushes apart, the floodlights hit me. And I’m naked.

The last time I had this dream was the night before I had to deliver the eulogy for a guy I didn’t know. True story.

Like most folks I have several recurring dreams, taking place in houses I’ve never visited and with people I’ve never met. The human brain is a marvelous and dangerous place, full of chuckheads and gargoyles, luscious tropical islands, and giant gorillas. Yes, I have a giant man-eating gorilla that shows up in the damndest places. I can be dreaming about being at a car rally, a rock concert, or relaxing beside a pool when suddenly everyone’s running and screaming and this big ape rambles onto the scene roaring and throwing shit around. A real asshole.

So here I am, naked once again. I have had a few months away from Copper with a busy summer moving PS Audio operations into a new building and helping design and implement a new production line. It’s been like wrangling a huge writhing snarling sack of shit and I needed a break from the mag deadlines. I was never good at those deadlines anyway (Leebens will attest here) so that was one less scoop of shit I had to deal with. Paul McGowan suggested I throw in with some personal stories from my miscreant past. The man does not know what can happen. That could be a four part-er but my lovely wife Diana would pitch a fit. Some stories just shouldn’t be shared.

An apology here. I know no one is interested in my personal story. But reading is a choice. I strongly suggest you click out now.

I’ll keep with the music theme and talk some about my past with bands. I was never close to famous. That period in my 20’s was more of an experiment in debauchery, club life, and drugs than a serious attempt to ‘make it’. That was never important to me. Good thing, because I wasn’t very good.

I was one of a million guys and gals that loved music, had enough talent to get into a band, air it out on the road and never sniff true success. Worked my ass off gigging and practicing and always came home broke. It was wonderful. I don’t miss it mind you. ‘It’ damn near killed me. But I’m glad I did it. Part of who I am

There were bands with names like Pass the Hat Band, Gettin Even, Strictly Smokin, Somebody’s Dream, Parvenu, and The Uh Oh Squad.  Somebody’s Dream had the most talent but The Uh Oh Squad was the most talented group. It was the early 80’s and we were doing a lot of New Wave, like the Police, Joe Jackson and Elvis Costello. Loved it. I’ve talked before about gaining a new understanding of the music when you have to learn to play it. And New Wave was fun as hell to play.

We got the name for that last band from a song by Robert Ellis Orrall named ‘Call the Uh-oh Squad’, and we loved doing that song.

My stomping grounds started in CT but ended in CO after we moved. In CT the Pass the Hat Band played regularly in a place called the Putnam Pub. That was a definite weird scene. You know these places. They are out in the middle of nowhere and you hardly pass a car on the way to the joint, but the place is jammed with college kids from who knows where, construction workers, loggers and the ever present bikers.

One Halloween night I was playing next to a speaker stack and suddenly there was a knife sticking in it. They loved us.

On a snowblind winter afternoon we drove through a blizzard to get to the Putnam Pub. By the time we got done and broke the equipment down there was 18” on the ground and more coming. Of course we were all driving old vehicles with bad tires so we got going as quickly as we could. I left first in my ’66 Dodge truck and the remainder of the caravan was to follow.

Diana was with me. No more than two miles down the road I had to stop and clear the windshield. Wipers really sucked in those days. The wind was roaring and blowing snow onto the windshield faster than I could wipe it.

Through the roaring wind I heard rattling coming down the road. The guitar player in his ‘72 Jeep Wagoneer went sailing past at Mach 2 with the keyboard player yelling something through the open passenger window. Whatever he was yelling was swallowed by the wind. Hmm. That was weird.

My brother Ed came next in his ’56 GMC pickup with a homemade topper, bleating down the road and barely staying on the pavement. This time a roadie was screaming something incomprehensible and waving an arm signaling to get moving. I didn’t know what happened but knew enough to make haste. Bands have been known to get in all kinds of trouble.

I didn’t catch those swirling clowns for 30 miles. I finally saw the trucks parked at a snowed-in 7-11. Inside the group was getting coffee and laughing the relieved laugh of the prison escapee.

As it happened, we had a roadie who’d had a few too many cups guiding a truck driven by Ed out of an alley separating the club and a jewelry store. Turns out if you’re not careful and the roadie is piss drunk he might back you into the jewelry store window and set off the alarm. Not a good thing in a small rural town and half the guys are in the bag. So as responsible citizens they took the road most traveled. They got the hell out of Tombstone.

That venerable old ’66 Dodge. Bands traveled in all kinds of vehicles in the early parts of their careers. Rev. Horton Heat used to travel in one van. That mode was really common because you could also sleep in the thing, as long as you had no more than three band members. Three guys and all your equipment makes for tight sleeping arrangements. But that ’66 Dodge Stepside was special for a unique reason.

Just after I’d bought the truck a parked car pulled out and hit me. The force knocked the body around the frame just enough that I had a driver door that would no longer open and a passenger door that wouldn’t shut at all. So being the young entrepreneurs we were we simply bolted the passenger door shut. Now in order to get in the truck you had to climb through a window. Yeah. Those were the days.

We were coming back after a very late night at the Inn Place in Granby, CT. We loved that place because not only did they have a great crowd but after hours they’d shut the doors and the band partied with the staff for a few hours. While driving home with Duane the keyboard player through rural country a cop came out of nowhere and pulled us over. The cop comes up to the truck and shines his light at us and around inside the truck. He then asks me to step out of the vehicle, sir.

“You’ll have to step back.”

“Why?”

“Just take two steps back and I’ll show you.” The cop is looking less confident about this routine traffic stop.

After he stepped back I vaulted myself through window.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.” Never heard a cop use that kind of language before that night.

I told him the short version of why I had to do that, and he explained I had a taillight out. He let on to how he wasn’t going to write me up because he wasn’t sure he could tell his sergeant about the window thing. So he told me to get the light fixed and he left.

I climbed back into the truck and noticed Duane looked a little green. He pointed at the floor under the dash where the cop had flashed his light. Lying there, neatly wrapped in clear plastic, was a full pound of weed. Apparently the sound man had scored at the club and for some insane reason decided my truck was the safest place to stash it.  So he stuffed it under the dash by the glove box. Sometime before we got pulled over it had fallen free and by the grace of God the cop’s flashlight didn’t catch it.

We proceeded to smoke as much as we could on the way home where we got baggies and separated more before giving it to the sound man. What a mook.

The pictures here all come from the Uh-Oh Squad and I’m the guy in the shades. The Rocky Mountain News had done an article on us and sent a photographer to one of the gigs. It was fun coming across those.

And it was fun writing this. My Editor will shit when he sees the length, but it was hard to keep short. And the stuff I left out..Hoo Boy.

{Your Editor is fine with the length. And next time, put the stuff in.–-Ed.]

It’s one thing to help invent a genre, but it’s quite another to continue inventing and developing that genre into the next generation. That’s a particularly impressive feat when you consider that The Clash was together for only a decade. It sounds hokey, but they never stopped being willing to learn; as a result, they ushered in British punk and then helped turn punk into post-punk.

Guitarist/vocalists Joe Strummer and Mick Jones formed The Clash in London with bassist Paul Simonon and drummer Topper Headon in 1976. Two facts immediately set them apart from other groups expressing the new punk attitude in their clothes and music: a) They played their instruments well; and b) They had a keen interest in other types of music, especially reggae and ska, not to mention some sense of the history of rock.

They proved their devotion to Jamaican music by covering the Junior Murvin hit “Police and Thieves” on their first album, The Clash (1977). The bright-sounding hi-hat cymbal is not softened here by mellow guitar waves the way it is in the original Murvin recording, and the rhythm in general is tighter and more frantic – the default mode of The Clash. This track is also a good indicator of the band’s political bent, to call out perceived wrongs, and never in a detached way. These were injustices that had been or might well be committed against themselves, so their delivery was powered by genuine anger, not just empathy.

The band’s second album, and the first to be released in the U.S., was Give ʼEm Enough Rope (1978). It contained only songs by Strummer and Jones, with the exception of their strident arrangement of the folk song “When Johnny Comes Marching Home,” which they called “English Civil War.”

If you think the songs I’ve mentioned so far don’t add up to a punk band, then listen to “Drug-Stabbing Time,” which is punk by any measure. First, there’s the title and lyrics – punks don’t pussy-foot about their habits. They say what’s on their minds and in their veins. Then, there’s the brash drum-smashing that drives the song forward. But Strummer and Jones, meanwhile, are doing fun rockabilly riffs on guitar. Wait – do I hear influence from the Beach Boys amid all that turmoil? Probably. Welcome to The Clash.

Give ʼEm Enough Rope climbed all the way to number two on the British charts. American critics were starting to take notice, too, paving the way for the next album to really land. That album, of course, was London Calling (1979). While the title track became a huge single, other songs from the album are worth remembering

“Lost in the Supermarket” has a lot of interesting things going on. For one thing, Strummer intended it as a fictional biography of Jones’ childhood, yet filled it with details from his own childhood, particularly the suburban setting. Jones agreed to sing lead on it anyway. As usual, the broader message is dissatisfaction with the changing world, only this time the mood is more disappointed and overwhelmed than angry. The arrangement is surprisingly delicate, largely thanks to the lacy effect of Headon’s quick, tricky drumming.

It makes sense that musicians who admired the work of others would be happy to feature that work in their own projects. A great example is “Lose This Skin,” from The Clash’s fifth album and final success, Sandinista! (1980). Strummer invited English folk singer and fiddler Tymon Dogg (this is a man, despite the high voice), giving him a whole track to show off his stuff. Dogg even wrote the song, and The Clash stays in the background, providing high-energy chords with Simonon’s bass clearing a path for the fiddle.

The Clash, always seeking new influences and sounds, realized that New York was the place to be. Everything and everybody showed up there, and Strummer and Jones were always primed to absorb what they heard. The hot new trends they found most intriguing were two ways of using pre-existing recorded material: an electronica outgrowth of reggae called dub, developed by Jamaicans in London and New York, and hip-hop, which at the time was a fairly new technique growing in the African-American musical scene.

Released as a 12-inch single in 1981, “This is Radio Clash” celebrates and experiments with both of those new flavors. The extreme reverb and shimmering are common colorations of dub. The jagged bass reshaping comes out of hip-hop. You’ll hear some solid funk bass-slapping in there, too. And best of all, it’s a meta-song, with self-referential lyrics (another frequent feature of hip-hop).

Plenty of musicians called New York City home in the early 1980s, and many of them worshipped at the feet of legendary beat poet Allen Ginsberg. Strummer, though, took it upon himself to win Ginsberg over, convincing him to recite his poetry for the number “Ghetto Defendant,” which appeared on the 1982 album Combat Rock.

Just when you acquiesce to Ginsberg rhyming Acropolis, cosmopolis, metropolis, and populus over a reggae beat, in comes the harmonica. It’s bizarre and kind of charming, as if the NYC beat scene of 1962 wandered across the world for 20 years, only to eventually show up at a Clash recording session by accident.

During the planning stages of Cut the Crap (1985), guitarist Mick Jones was fired because he and Strummer couldn’t stand each other anymore, and drummer Topper Headon was fired for his heroin use. No surprise, then, that this is the band’s final studio album. Also, no surprise that neither the fans nor the critics had much use for it.

But, in retrospect, some of it isn’t so bad. Here’s “North and South,” a ballad by Strummer. The production is tritely 1985 – too busy, too much tinny nonsense – but the song itself has that uniquely Clash combination of melancholy and frenetic energy, as if to say “Sure, life is awful, but if I keep on moving, maybe the worst of it won’t catch up to me.”

Looking for more nifty non-hit Clash tracks? The band itself took care of that for you. Black Market Clash (1980) and the expanded 1993 version, Super Black Market Clash, contain nothing but non-album material. Enjoy what’s out there; sadly, thanks to Strummer’s death in 2002, there’s no chance of any new Clash music.

“Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?”

“Yes,” she replied, to my great astonishment.

I was on a business trip to Europe and as my timing happened to be good, I decided to attend a Hi-Fi show in Milan. I had been to Italy many times before and was always impressed with Italian design and aesthetics. In Milan, stores have magnificent displays, lighting is flawless, and colors are matched perfectly. While having a drink in a café late one afternoon a couple of handsomely dressed young men entered, followed by a procession of the most stylish women I have ever seen. It was the end of the workday and this particular watering place, near the fashion district, suddenly filled with the most beautiful people I have ever seen. After such an impressive display, I couldn’t wait to visit the show and see how the Italians do it.

The directions to the show bus were vague and when I exited the subway station I was lost. After a few minutes I saw a crowd of people waiting for a bus. They were a seedy group of schleppy-looking middle-aged men, mostly unkempt, and poorly dressed. This couldn’t be the line for the show, could it? I then recognized one of them, an English journalist, and my heart sank. As I now feared, the show, with a very few exceptions, wasn’t going to be any different than any U.S. show: poor design, with poorly dressed people.

I had arranged a meeting with the sales manager of a Japanese company and to my surprise, she was a woman. Impeccably dressed, Masumi was tall and elegant, her English was perfect and she was very professional. We conducted our business and after a short while, we separated.

Later in the day, as the show was closing for the night, I bumped into her and on a whim, asked her what she was doing that evening.

“I have no plans,” she answered.

So I asked her to dinner. One of the disadvantages of travelling for business is loneliness. It always sounds glamorous to travel to somewhat exotic places, but at the end of the day, you are alone in your hotel room in a strange city. For all her poise and confidence, I sensed that Masumi was alone in her world, too.

She thought for a moment and then said she would be happy to join me. We cabbed it back to my hotel in via Camperio and after a drink in the bar, she told me that she is often asked to dinner but always refuses to go.

“Why did you accept my invitation?” I asked.

“I don’t quite know. There was something nice about you, so I said yes.”

We headed down the street to a local restaurant. I have visited Japan many times and making small talk with Japanese can be challenging. It was no different with Masumi. The natural formality of the Japanese is difficult to penetrate and try as I could, using all my charm and humor, I couldn’t get her to lighten up, until the end of the second bottle of wine. Then a transformation began and she started to talk about her life.

She was married to a man she didn’t love. She had married him for two reasons: he was taller than she was, and he asked her to marry him. After the ceremony her husband and parents pushed her to become a good, stay-at-home housewife, but she broke with taboo and resisted. This led to conflict and estrangement, and she and her husband now led separate lives.

“What do you do to fill the space?” I asked.

“Women like me have three options,” she answered. “Alcohol, the credit card, or the Hare Krishna.” She hadn’t decided which one, if any, was for her.

I then asked her about sex.

“Don’t you have it? Don’t you miss it?”

She looked at me with a tear in her eye and said,

“No sex.”

My heart went out to her as she quietly sobbed.

When she had composed herself, I called for the check and put her into a cab. The next morning I met her at the show. She gave me a formal “Good morning,” with no hint of recognition or intimacy.

I never saw her again.

Have we today forgotten how to speak softly and with grace, or is the real danger that we aren’t screaming loudly enough?  —Sean Shibe

That’s how the BBC’s Kate Molleson leads off her notes for Shibe’s new album softLOUD (Delphian DCD34213). Musically he argues for both sides, starting with a selection of lute transcriptions from 17th-century Scottish manuscripts, then music from prominent living Scot James MacMillan (b. 1959, seen above). Let’s hear some. First, two brief ditties from the old manuscripts, starting with Ladie lie near me (Wemyss MS, c.1642):

and a bit of A Scotts Tune, by Mr. Lesslie (Balcarres (MS):

Shibe ends his “soft” section with MacMillan’s Motet I: Since it was the day of Preparation …, originally scored for theorbo:

As Molleson notes, “These manuscripts show us the roots of what we now call Scottish music, and that we were musical mongrels from the start.” Aye, lassie. Motet I apparently fits right in, since “it borrows from plainchant, Arabic dances, Bach, Stravinsky, and Britten—as well as Renaissance music and Scottish fiddle tunes.” (Seems like a tall order for a work that lasts about four minutes.)

Finally Shibe breaks out the hard stuff. If you were hoping for Hendrix or Allman, you might be disappointed. LOUD consists of three near-classic works by giants of minimalist or post-modern art music: Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint, written for Pat Metheny (or rather several Pat Methenys); Julia Wolfe’s LAD, originally scored for nine bagpipes; and David Lang’s Killer, originally for electric violin and tape. If you’ve just come back from thirty years on Mars and thus haven’t heard Electric Counterpoint, click here. In this space I’ll cut to the chase, i.e., LAD, movement III (“The Fast Melody”):

Plus a spot of Killer:

Pretty sure you are encouraged to turn up the volume, although you may want to try our All-Soft-All-the-Time channel instead, where historic lute music is on tap 24/7. Recently a new collection crossed my path, bringing unexpected pleasure without ever raising its voice: Nocturnal, from Jakob Lindberg (BIS-2082, SACD and download). Mr. Lindberg, it turns out, is a recovering guitarist. When he decided to quit guitar, he was “motivated foremost by . . . the superior repertoire of the lute, but also by the sensual contact offered through plucking the lute’s pairs of strings with fingertips.” Makes sense. The European lute is descended from a noble Arabic ancestor, the ‘ud, still played in the Middle East, North Africa, and many parts of Eastern Europe. But ‘ud players continue to use a quill or nylon or cow-horn plectrum. And the ‘ud long ago dropped its fretted fingerboard. These two features enable players to work within a wider dynamic range that includes penetrating attacks on individual notes as well as pitch-bending inflections. Check out the opening moments of this, from ‘ud virtuoso Anouar Brahem:

But we’re talking about the lute. Midway through the 15th century, European players largely abandoned plectra. Most authorities also discouraged playing with the nails of the right hand rather than the fingertips’ fleshy pads (click here for a contrarian view). Players achieved some variety in timbre and dynamics by employing a mix of up- and down-strokes and by changing the position of the right hand relative to the bridge. The result was a rounder tone and expressive intimacy that compensated for its reduced volume.

In Nocturnal, Lindberg concentrates on English repertoire from the late 16th century. There’s a lot to choose from, so he focuses on works that “evoke aspects of the night.” The centerpiece of the album is Benjamin Britten’s 20th-century Nocturnal, after John Dowland, op. 70. It was originally written for guitarist Julian Bream but obviously inspired by the great Elizabethan lutenists, of whom Dowland may have been the greatest. So: first a few bits of the old music, beginning with Anthony Holborne’s The Honeysuckle (“a plant with flowers that perfume the evening air”):

and his Countess of Pembroke’s Paradise:

Lindberg tells us that Mary Sidney, wife of Henry Herbert, second Earl of Pembroke, was a poet and patroness of poets including Michael Drayton, Ben Johnson, and Samuel Danyel. Danyel’s younger brother John published a book of lute songs in 1606, setting many of Samuel’s poems to music. And: John’s Mrs. Anne Grene her Leaves be Green, a set of variations on a favorite English song, is track 9 in Lindberg’s album. I mention all this to give you a better idea of the riches within, including Lindberg’s colorful, information-laden booklet notes. Here’s one more music snippet, The Flowers of the Forest, an anonymous work from an early-17th-century mandora manuscript:

Britten’s Nocturnal consists of eight numbered sections and lasts nearly 18 minutes; it ends with his sublime transcription of Dowland’s Come Heavy Sleep. I’m only going to play you a bit of the first section, entitled musingly:

Section eight is a Passacaglia that leads seamlessly into the Dowland transcription. If you watch the entirety of the YouTube clip below, you’ll hear both Passacaglia and Dowland. And yes, that is Julian Bream, likely the greatest classical guitarist of the latter 20th century. When you hear Lindberg’s new lute setting, however, you’ll hear another great performance, brimming with even more timbral variety than Bream brought to it. Lindberg rounds off his album with six Dowland settings—including the rarely performed Galliard to Lachrimae—and three works by the slightly older John Johnson. A must-have.

If you simply must have more, I recommend either of these albums: (1) A Lute by Sixtus Rauwolf, also from Lindberg (BIS-2265), who plays a wondrously restored late-16th-century instrument to good effect in music by Dufault, Mouton, Kellner, Weiss, and “Mr. Pachelbel”—outstanding French and German Baroque suites, i.e., many preludes and dances; or (2) Ferdinand Fischer: From Heaven on Earth. Lute Music from Kremsmünster Abbey (Challenge Classics CC72740), in which Hubert Hoffmann, distinguished lutenist of Ars Antique Austria, rescues from oblivion the music of Fr. Fischer (=Pecheur; 1652–1725), a humble monk who was not only one heck of a lute player but also composed music of remarkable panache, drawing heavily on French models. So, three more suites consisting of short but flavorful preludes and dances. Nice booklet notes by Hoffmann and scholar Rudolf Flotzinger; a Turtle Music release from master producer/engineer Bert van der Wolf. I leave you with bits of three tracks, a Prelude, Aria, and Sarabande from Fischer’s Partita in D Minor:

Last Friday, I attended Elton John’s concert at Madison Square Garden, with amazing seats, courtesy of a good friend, Jay Marciano, CEO of AEG.

I will get into what transpired, in regard to Elton’s performance, but first, a little background. I don’t believe it is a stretch to assume that many of my readers here at Copper exulted in the music of our eras in ways that most people, especially younger friends of mine, are in awe of. I’m not going to list the hundreds of insane shows that I’ve seen, because this is not about statistics.

What I’m about to say, is how the magic of this EJ show may have saved my rock ‘n’ roll soul.

Twisted Sister retired after playing our last show nearly two years ago in Mexico, marking the end of our 40th anniversary tour. What none of my closest friends truly understood, is that I was really tired of the entire rock ‘n’ roll circus that has been my life for 45 years.

This kind of cynicism is understandable.

No one really retires, right? No one walks away at the peak of their touring life?

We played our final shows in 2016 to an average audience of 60,000 people, and headlined 2 metal festivals with over 100,000 attendees.

Hearing 100,000 people sing “We’re Not Gonna Take It” is not something that any sane person would, or should, take lightly.

Why would anyone who gets paid lots of money walk away from that?

Well, I did, and I did because I was tired. Tired of all of it.

My wife has heard me bitch and complain, especially over the last three years of our “farewell tour,” but told me that I would get very emotional and teary eyed at the end.

Okay, in the dressing room, thanking the crew that has been with us for the last 14 years of our “reunion” tour (crazy right), I did get choked up. But, when we finished our last song, I told my crew that they could have all of my stage guitars. I was happy for my crew to have them, but, in truth, I wasn’t interested in taking them home.

In the golf cart, on the way from the stage to the dressing room, I turned to my wife and said, “When we get home, I’m going to sell my entire guitar collection!” She looked at me and said, “Look, I know that you are tired, but this will pass quickly. Don’t do anything stupid.”

My reaction was intellectually similar to that of a boxer after a fight, deciding in the heat of the moment to retire. I realized that it sounded over-dramatic.

We flew home the next day and I said to myself, “Wow, now I understand what some athletes say, and mean, when they retire.”

While some return to the business, others never go back to the ballpark, or even watch a game.

This happens for many reasons, but I believe that it’s primarily about the pain of the journey. Despite whatever accolades and triumphs may have come their way, there comes a point where all that work, all that repetition, all that sacrifice, and all the emotional and physical pain, get to the point where you just don’t want, or need, to relive it.

That, in effect, was me.

Of course, my wife still enjoys shows, and I dutifully would, and have, attended concerts with her since playing our final show.

A Cat Stevens concert, that I saw two years ago, stood out because of the beauty of his songs and the pacing of the show. But, generally, I just endure the events.

Silently, I just sit there making mental notes about how the artist blew the song choices, the lighting rig missed a cue, the mix is bad, the dialogue with the audience between songs was either non-existent, or perfunctory and boring, and the list goes on. I tell friends, who insist that I go to a show, not to ask me my opinion. Just enjoy it, because I will “Andy Rooney” the show for them, and it will dampen the night.

Not only did I give my stage guitars away at our last show, but over the last two years, I have sold off many of my personal guitars, and have gone through periods of six months or more in which I didn’t even pick one up and strum it.

And then…Elton John performed his farewell tour at Madison Square Garden last week.

Jay Marciano and I have recently had a back-and-forth regarding my opinions on the artists I have seen since I retired from live performing. I was critical of the crazy ticket prices to see classic artists, and how they have let me down by not performing, and not entertaining, the way that I believe the audience deserved.

When Elton’s farewell tour was announced, my wife told me that Elton was her first concert, in 1974, at Madison Square Garden, and she wanted to see him perform one last time at MSG. Ironically, I saw Elton for the first time at MSG, in 1972, when the Bonzo Dog Band opened, and Neil Innes came on during Elton’s set to tap dance during (I think) “Honky Cat.” Elton debuted “Daniel” at that show.

There, in 1972, was Elton with just his band: Nigel, Davey, and Dee.

A great show, back in ’72, if memory serves (not amazing, but very entertaining). Not much production either (about standard for the era), and the tickets were about $6.00!

I have seen Elton many times since then. In September of 1980, I was at his show in Central Park when everyone thought that Lennon would show up. I attended a private AIDS fundraiser, produced by Wall Street Power Broker, Ethan Penner, in the Waldorf Astoria ballroom, when Elton played to an audience of about 100 donors.

It was just Elton and a piano; very intimate and extremely emotional, which was understandable, given Elton’s commitment to the cause.

I was, however, skeptical about seeing him one last time. It could have just been a cash grab, and I didn’t want to remember Elton in that way.

Furthermore, when asked what shows were the greatest I’ve ever seen, this is what I say:

The Stones at MSG in 1969, and again on their Exile tour of 1972, stand out as pure rock ‘n’ roll ecstasy; Leon Russell and Mad Dogs at the Fillmore (totally unexpected and absolutely transcendent); and Bowie at Carnegie Hall in September 1972.

It seems that 1972 was a very good year…

These shows, especially, played a significant part of my life by reaffirming my dreams and sacrifices.

When my wife heard about the Elton Farewell show, I contacted Jay. He was happy for me to see the tour at MSG, but didn’t hype me on it or mention any expectations.

That was the best thing that could have happened, because last Friday night at MSG, Elton became a part of my “greatest shows I’ve ever seen” list.

Elton’s performance was nothing short of spectacular in every measurable way. The song choices, pacing, lighting, and sound were a 10/10.

But here’s where the intangible comes in…

The magic of his joy, and the humanness he brought into his presentation, aided of course by a band (this time, expanded with the incredible percussionist Ray Cooper, an added drummer alongside Nigel Olsson, another keyboard player, and, of course, long time guitarist and band leader, Davey Johnstone) of astonishing pros, brought the songs into another realm.

When elevated, rock music somehow touches “that magic place,” a core of universal joy.

The next day, last Saturday, I pulled out my guitar, sat on my couch, and started playing it. Then, Steve Dean, a friend and Nashville songwriter that I collaborate with on occasion, called me and asked if I would write some songs with military vets in NYC this week.

You don’t say no to Steve, and you don’t say no to helping veterans!

I did, and held a guitar in my hands for hours on end for the first time in 2 years.

I had a ball. It was fun again!

So, thank you, Jay Marciano, for the tickets, and thank you, Elton, for saving my (rock ‘n’ roll) life tonight.