I told you pickin’s would be slim around this time, so grab all you can. Next week will be better, but why wait, on something great (like what’s listed below)?
I could tell you a tale from my music history, I suppose, since I have the space. …well, OK, you twisted my arm. I will.
I cannot understand why some people can’t stand Jethro Tull. Revisionist history, I think. Or maybe they never saw them live. They were considered one of the top bands of the early ‘70s, and I still consider, musically and conceptually. A dirty, obviously homeless guy as the concept album’s protagonist. Not a pretty picture.
“Sitting on a park bench, eyeing little girls with bad intent, Snot is running down his nose, greasy fingers smearing shabby clothes, Oh, Aqualung…”
But composer-lyricist-bandleader-founder-vocalist-flutist Ian Anderson was also a master showman, and his band was both nuanced and incredibly powerful. They could blast like locomotive breath, play pretty, and stop on a dime, no, on a pinpoint. I saw them (6/22/72) just a week after the Rolling Stones also played The Pit, with Stevie Wonder opening and Mick Taylor in the band, on the tour nearly everyone agrees was their greatest.
But Tull still thrilled me. No comparisons needed. There’s not a bad cut on the entire Aqualung album, and two or three at least are stone cold classics. Anderson took on a lot of social issues, pretty much spitting in the face of the establishment, in the UK especially, more intelligently and viscerally than almost anyone. He was my age then, 26, but looked like Aqualung before his fall from grace, with his long shaggy hair and beard and long topcoat and tights. No one else blew a rock and roll flute like he did, and it was also his dramatic stage prop.
It always makes me a little crazy
When people refer to him as Jethro Tull, who was an early 18th century agricultural scientist who invented the seed drill. Move over, Ben Franklin. I think the UNM Arena was sold out (20,000, or close to it, ticket price: $4), Heads Hands & Feet opened (eh), and Tull played Aqualung front to back, and you’d think I would have been ecstatic, I was, but only mildly so, because I had heard an even better band that same day…
As the Arts & Media Editor of the student newspaper, I knew the right people who could get me in for the sound check. And that’s what this tale is all about. I was one of maybe two or three dozen people in the cavernous, empty Pit (one of the loudest arenas ever), and I was halfway up one side when one of the Tull members came on stage and picked up his instrument and started noodling. Sounded good, with all that echo.
After a few minutes another one came out, also to tune. Then a third musician and it was now cacophonous, like when a symphony orchestra tunes up individually. Then a fourth player, and finally Ian Anderson joined the noise, which slowly, almost imperceptibly, coalesced into Thick As A Brick, which lasted a good 20 minutes. No, make that a great 20 minutes, a highlight of my life in music.
When they finished and walked off stage, a few of us who were there could only look at each other with giddy astonishment, and say, I can’t believe what I just heard. I took a moment just now, and I could hear it again…
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED:
The Hot Club of Los Angeles – Looking for something different? But really good? And on a Monday? Every Monday? “Hot Club’s brand of virtuoso, Django-style 1930s gypsy swing jazz is found nowhere else in town and even if it were, it couldn’t possibly be this good. These guys are masters, individually and collectively. You will find it hard to stop smiling all night.” Mon 9 p.m., Cinema Bar, Culver City, no cover.
Next thurs – Dudamel, La Phil, Mahler 6 – They call it The Tragic Symphony but Mahler did not give it that nickname, nor did he care for it. In fact, he composed it during a particularly happy period of his life. He was a master at expressing the vast range of human emotions as music, and on this one he hit some pretty dark and deep corners of the psyche. (Be ready for that ending.) He employed a huge number of instruments to do it (four harps in one passage, hammers and other odd percussion), and conducted the premiere performance himself. Gustavo Dudamel is considered a master of Mahler, and this may be your last chance to see him conduct the Sixth. (Next Thurs 10 a.m.,rehearsal, invitation only, LA Phil donors), next Thurs 8 p.m., Fri 11 a.m., Walt Disney Concert Hall, LA, $147-399.
Recommended:
Toledo Diamond – Unique, riveting, first class act. There’s nothing like it, it is high performance art and great decadent fun. Degeneracy is rarely so well disciplined. Toledo may have his trademark ciggy, but it’s the band that really smokes! Sun 9:30 p.m., Harvelle’s, Santa Monica, $12.
Coming Attractions: Dudamel, La Phil, Mahler 6, Disney Hall, 1/11, 12; Toledo Diamond, Harvelle’s, 1/14, 21, 28; Hot Club of Los Angeles, Cinema Bar, 1/15, 22, 29; Library Girl, Ruskin Group Theatre, 1/14; Whisky A Go Go 60th Anniversary Presents Love. “Forever Changes,” W. Hollywood, 1/14; Alan Pasqua-darek Oles Duo, Sam First. 1/19, 20: Rick Shea, Tony Gilkyson, Cinema Bar, 1/25; Booker T. Jones, The Soraya, 2/2; Hot Tuna Acoustic, Mccabe’s, 2/10; Robert Fripp, David Singleton, An Evening of Conversation, Questions, Insights, Mccabe’s, 3/3; Academy of St. Martin In The Fields, The Soraya, 4/21; “La Traviata,” La Opera. 4/6, 14, 18, 21, 24, 27; Rhiannon Giddens, Theatre At Ace Hotel, 4/25; “Turandot,” La Opera, 5/18, 26, 30, 6/2, 5, 8; Chris Stapleton, Hollywood Bowl, 6/26, 27; Rolling Stones, Sofi Stadium, 7/10, 13.
Charles Andrews has made it his life’s mission to listen to every kind of music known to man.