Culturespill

Rocky Frisco

“People will always consume musical Twinkies, but only the real stuff can satisfy a genuine hunger. When your lover leaves and hits the bed of somebody you know, Twinkies won’t save your life.” — Rocky Frisco

It is no piece of hyperbole to say that the story of Rock ‘N Roll’s birth cannot be fully told without mention of the great Rocky Frisco–one of the reasons why he factors into Peter Guralnick’s bestselling book about Elvis Presley, The Last Train to Memphis. Frisco has served as pianist to some of rock’s most lauded visionaries, such as the great and hugely influential J.J. Cale, whom the likes of Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler and Richard Thompson credit as a pivotal influence. Frisco and Cale were high school buddies in the mid 1950s, and Frisco has played in Cale’s band throughout his life. And he has one hell of a story to tell–costly run-ins with crooked record company fat cats, the night he bought Chuck Berry a bottle of whiskey and watched him down the whole damned thing before duckwalking across the stage, a 7-day bike ride from Tulsa to Texas to interview Elvis that left him burnt to a crisp in the deadly southern sun, racing a Morris Mini in the Canadian Grand Prix, running for office in Tulsa, starring in Disney movies with Dave Matthews–you name it, this guy’s been there, done that. It is not possible to overstate how thrilled we are to present to you our exclusive interview with this rock ‘n roll renegade, the one and only Rocky Frisco, a man whose grace and humility belie the kind of resume any lesser man would boast of.

Culturespill: You’ve been in and around the music business for quite some time, sitting in with Flash Terry’s band and playing your earliest gigs with J.J. Cale as part of Gene Crose’s band in the late 1950s. You’ve subsequently played with an amazing host of other acts over the years—Eric Clapton, Widespread Panic, Leon Russell, Clyde Stacy, Garth Brooks’s sister (with the Betsy Smittle Band), Johnny Lee Wills (just to name a few.) Who among these many bands and artists was/is the most fun for you to play with?

Rocky: I never played with Leon Russell. I met him as Russell Bridges once when Doug Cunningham brought him to one of my dances at the YWCA in Tulsa. Leon was 14 at the time. The most fun has definitely been with the Cale Band since I rejoined them in 1994. John took me on my first trip to England and the rest of Europe in 1994, something I had always wanted to do. I have been back a number of times since then. I thoroughly enjoy playing with the three Tulsa Bands I work with these days. Tom Skinner is a genius Oklahoma singer-songwriter and his Wednesday Night Science Project is packed with incredible musicians. Tom started Garth Brooks in the business some years ago as his rhythm guitarist. On Thursday nights, I play with Higher Education at McNelly’s Irish Pub upstairs. HE includes Dustin Pittley and Jesse Aycock, two unbelievably good young singer-songwriter-guitarists. Either of them could walk onstage and play with Knopfler or Clapton although they are in their middle 20’s. The band also includes David White, one of the best Bass players I have ever worked with, me on piano and a list of different drummers, most usually, Dylan Aycock, Jesse’s brother. Dylan and Jesse’s dad, Scott Aycock is co-host of Folk Salad, a local radio show that features many local artists. Scott is also a great songwriter whose CDs I have played on. Sundays find me playing with the host band at the Tulsa Sunday Blues Jam; the Kevin Phariss Blues Band is the old Flash Terry Band. Kevin was Flash’s band manager and second guitarist. Scott Santee was Flash’s sound man and he is now our lead guitar and main vocalist. He’s one of the best lead players in Tulsa, but he is known for his self-effacing humor, so few people realize exactly how good he is. He’s famous for ending each song with “I wrote that song.” Harry Williams was Flash’s drummer for many years and we are lucky to have him with us. Harry is in the Oklahoma Blues Hall of Fame. I was inducted into the Hall just this year. Our present Bass player is Tiny Davis, a Tulsa music legend in his own right. The lineup is completed by Mike Winebrenner on Sax and Iona Gilliam on vocals. Iona is not only a wonderful singer, she is incredibly good-looking and charismatic. One other group I’m excited to be working with is “Li’l Tee.” Tee is Teresa Gross, a tiny little lady with an enormous voice and great charm. The band consists of Tee, me on piano and Bob Withrow on Guitar. I put Bob in my alltime top ten guitarists list. He plays with great skill and finesse. Bob and I played in the Mickey Crocker Band some years back when Warren Haynes sat in with us for one summer.

Culturespill: Among the many fascinating anecdotes available on your website, rockyfrisco.com, is the revelation that, during basic training with the U.S. Army in Fort Polk, Louisiana, your commanding officer would sneak you off base to play in local bars and, of course, earn him some free drinks. What are your fondest memories of those days?

Rocky: The Army Basic Training was very difficult. Fort Polk in the summertime was unbearably hot and recruits fainting from the heat was not unusual. The best part of the illicit bar visits was that some of them had A/C. I was small and thin and I’m still proud of completing the training.

That’s Rocky Frisco on the Keyboards with Eric Clapton and J.J. Cale (In Shades & Hat)

Culturespill: You also express particular gratitude for having gotten to play with Flash Terry—both back in the day and at his Tulsa Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2003. Just how big a presence was Flash in Tulsa, and what made you so proud to play with him?

Rocky: Flash was responsible for integrating the Tulsa music scene. He invited me to come and sing some songs at his home club in the Greenwood section of town, the Famingo Lounge. We had a deal: I would come and be the white boy at the jam session on Tuesday nights and I would win second prize, eleven dollars. You know, if you adjust for inflation, that was a lot more than I make now, playing in Tulsa clubs, and the gasoline was 20 cents a gallon then. As time passed, other white Tulsa musicians began to come to the jam. I have no doubt that Flash’s influence was a big part of the development of the Tulsa Sound, so, in a way, Flash influenced Eric Clapton and Leon Russell and JJ Cale. Flash died in 2004, one year after being inducted into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame, and we all miss him. He was once quoted by the Tulsa World newspaper with the best compliment anybody ever gave me in print, when he said I was the most “colorblind” musician he ever met. That may have been partly based on the night one of the guys at the Flamingo asked me if he could dance with my date, a little beauty named “Foxy” Baker.” I said, “Don’t ask me; ask her.” After that, I was one of the family there. In 1957, Tulsa was a very segregated city.

Culturespill: Was rock ‘n roll able to do anything to alleviate that racial tension?

Rocky: Very definitely it helped a lot. Tulsa is the city where America’s worst
racially-based massacre happened back in 1921. Rock and Blues Music were
the strongest influences toward integration and cross-racial friendship
here in the 1950’s.

Culturespill: Another fascinating anecdote you reveal is that, upon touring with Clyde Stacy in Toronto in 1958, you crossed paths with such stars as The Everly Brothers, Jackie Wilson, Chuck Berry, Frankie Avalon, and Jimmy Rodgers. What stories or memories stick with you the most about your encounters with those legends?

Rocky: The ones I got to be friends with were Jimmie Rodgers, Frankie Avalon, the Everlies and George Hamilton IV, all really nice guys. I once got Chuck a bottle of whiskey when he played in Tulsa back when we still had Prohibition (repealed in 1958). He chugged the whole half-pint and then went out and duckwalked across the stage. I wouldn’t have been able to even stand up.

Culturespill: Would you mind recounting for us the “infamous bike-ride to Texas” and your “interview with Elvis” in 1958, when you were known as “Rocky Curtis”?

Rocky: Actually “Rocky Curtiss.” I took that last name from the Curtiss Wright Aircraft Company, where my father was once a test pilot. I was working for radio station KOME in 1958 (stood for Kovering Oklahoma’s Magic Empire) when the station manager and I concocted the publicity stunt. I pedalled a Schwinn bike from Tulsa to Killeen, Texas, to do the interview. It took me seven days of cloudless skies and Summer heat to get there. We didn’t know beans about sunscreen or skin cancer back then. I was burned really badly; some of the scars didn’t fade for years. Elvis was charming and friendly. He had hired a Photographer to come from Temple to shoot pictures of us together, one of the most thoughtful gestures I ever experienced. In the days before the interview, I spent some afternoons with Gladys, eating cookies and listening to stories about Elvis when he was a baby. She was a wonderful woman and a great mother. Gladys died about three months later and I have always thought that was when Elvis lost his life’s anchor. She didn’t care about the money or the fame; she just wanted her boy to be happy and stay right with God.

Rocky Frisco Performing His Song “Pursuit of Happiness”

Culturespill: You’ve mentioned in our correspondence leading up to this interview that J.J. Cale is a unique friend and the finest person you’ve ever worked with in the business. Would you mind elaborating?

Rocky: John is 100% genuine. He has always been, from the first time I met him. He was the coolest guy in Central High School, because he completely didn’t care about such things. He told me that fame just limits your choices. He said, “Elton John can’t go to the Burger King.” He once said that the bane of being famous is that drunk people want to tell you their life story. “I really love your song, Magnolia; it changed my whole life; it reminds me of the time my sister had the gout and her husband left her and . . .”

Culturespill: One of the lingering narratives surrounding Cale’s illustrative career is that some of his own best-known songs tend to be associated not with him, but with Eric Clapton, who turned Cale’s “Cocaine” and “After Midnight” into huge hits. Some people like to suggest that Cale, consequently, fails to get the credit he deserves and is overshadowed by his more famous contemporaries. But judging from his recent work with Clapton on The Road to Escondido, Cale himself seems to enjoy a great relationship with Clapton and doesn’t much mind being, in a sense, the man behind the music. In your long experience with J.J., can you discuss how Cale responds to his comparative lack of commercial success over the years?

Rocky: Maybe a lack of personal fame, which is changing now that “Escondido” has paired him with Eric, but as far as money is concerned, he has done very well. I think he likes it that way. He drives rusty old pickups and wears jeans or fishing clothes, even at our most prominant gigs. I wear some pretty fancy threads on the gigs. One fan asked me on the 04 tour, “Aren’t you overdressed for a Cale Concert?” I told him, “This is what I wear when I mow the lawn.”

Culturespill: You played on J.J. Cale’s excellent 2004 album, To Tulsa and Back, which was his first since 1996’s Guitar Man. Songs like “Stone River,” “The Problem” and “Homeless” delivered quite a bit more political statement than I ever recall hearing on a J.J. Cale album. What encouraged J.J. to head back to the studio after the long lay-off, and what inspired the album’s more political material?

Rocky: John genuinely cares about people and the health of our planet. I was really impressed by his courage in making those statements in such a repressive, unamerican period of time, when our government has turned rogue and our “leaders” are mass-murdering war-criminals.

Culturespill: You yourself have demonstrated a rather active political conscience in your life, contributing to the 1977 nuclear protest album For Our Children: The Black Fox Blues, and even running for office in Tulsa. Can you elaborate on your life as a political activist—what inspired you to use your musical talents as a means of political message, what motivated you to run for office yourself, etc.?

Rocky: The deal with Black Fox was that it wasn’t just a nuclear power plant, but that the design was an experimental “thought exercise” the designers were appalled to see being actually built. Carrie Dickerson’s legal battle with the power company brought out the “Reed Report,” showing that the original designers had resigned their lucrative jobs to protest the plan to actually build it. Thanks to Carrie, we stopped the plant. My latest run for office convinced me it’s a waste. I doubt you can fix anything through politics when politics is the source of all of the problems. When Ron Paul was mostly ignored by the mainstream media, I gave up on politics. None of the other candidates, including the two present ones, even came close to Paul’s integrity. I strongly disagreed with many of his positions, but saw that he was the only one who could be trusted to honor his oath of office.

Rocky with Elvis Presley

Culturespill: We share an affinity for Ron Paul, and your statement that our government “has turned rogue” also resonates loudly with me. In your view, how does today’s political climate compare to, say, the days of Vietnam, JFK, LBJ or Nixon? Is one any worse than the other? How so?

Rocky: I think it’s all worse now, since the President doesn’t even pretend to
act within the law. John Adams said the USA is a nation of laws, rather
than men. That’s obviously no longer even partly true. The present day
America is a nation ruled by powerful outlaws who break the law with
impunity, but require absolute obedience from the citizens. We no longer
have a legal government, but rather the latest of a long line of outlaws
who have hijacked the Ship of State.

Culturespill: You seem to have become disillusioned with the political process, partly because of your experience running for office. At the time when you say you returned to rock ‘n roll and never looked back in 1969, there was a genuine belief that music was capable of changing the world–a spirit Neil Young carried on with his “Living With War” album a couple years ago. I think of anthems like “Ohio,” “Fortunate Son,” “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” Is music capable of provoking change?

Rocky: I’m saying this with only the tip of my tongue in my cheek, but I think
the only thing that has the capability of changing this world, so
polluted by citizens who are shallow, lost and stupid, is The Return of
Christ and that this Christ will not be the storybook Jesus the churches
pretend to follow, but rather the Lord of the Storm, the God of the
Elephants and Whales and Zebras. Recall the bumper sticker that said,
“Jesus is coming soon, and boy is He pissed!”

Culturespill: Your own long-standing relationship with the music business has undergone quite a few evolutions over the years. Most notably, you “retired” from the business in disgust after losing thousands in royalties to a corrupt A & R man in the 1960s. Would you mind recounting that episode and why you dropped out of the scene for a while after that?

Rocky: I was working very hard to support myself, my wife and two kids when I found out that the Columbia Records guy in charge of my account had embezzled around $45,000 from the account. He had been giving the band members money every Christmas to keep quiet about it, but one of the guys had a strong conscience and sent me $500 one Christmas and told me what was going on. Before I could do anything about it the guy from Columbia died. I’m not sorry I quit playing in disgust, since I spent that time in basic electronic research and racing MGs and Mini Coopers, activities that enriched my life immeasurably.

Culturespill: Is the music business any more or less corrupt now than it was back then? How, in your view, has the industry changed over the years?

Rocky: It’s the same old corrupt money-grubbing sewer, with fancy new clothes.

Culturespill: You say that in 1969, you quit your regular job, grew your hair long “and started playing rock ‘n roll again and never looked back.” What brought you back to the music business at that time, and why did you, as you say, “never look back”?

Rocky: I was doing most of the actual work for an IBM machine leasing company in Tulsa, maintaining the equipment of my own account and also the account of an inept bumbler who couldn’t fix a bicycle bell, let alone an IBM machine. When the boss was kicked upstairs, they made the bumbler the new manager. When I raised hell with them, they explained that they couldn’t give me the management job. “Who would fix the machines?” I told them they still had that problem, since I was quitting. I never again worked for “The Man.”

Rocky as “Rocky Curtiss” in a Publicity Photo

Culturespill: Other artists from your generation—such as Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and even Leonard Cohen—are enjoying amazing popularity and success in the 21^st century. What is it, do you think, that keeps people coming in droves to see these guys live after all these years and, at least in Dylan’s case, buy their new albums by the millions?

Rocky: Their music is written from the heart, not from the wallet. People will always consume musical Twinkies, but only the real stuff can satisfy a genuine hunger. When your lover leaves and hits the bed of somebody you know, Twinkies won’t save your life.

Culturespill: Now I’m going to put you on the spot, Rocky: Who is the greatest guitarist of your generation?

Rocky: In which genre? See what I mean? Would it be Chet Atkins or Billy Grammer? Eric or Knopfler or Jeff Beck? I recall Stirling Moss once saying that the greatest racing driver of all time probably never saw a racing car, was maybe born with the reflexes and ability, but lived his (or her) entire life in the outback somewhere. One of the finest guitarists I have ever worked with, Bob Withrow, is practically unknown outside the local music scene. Who can say what other great guitarists are virtually unknown? As far as influence over other great guitarists, I have to say Cale is unmatched.

Culturespill: You’ve also dabbled in film, Rocky, starring in the 2003 Disney remake of Where The Red Fern Grows, among other projects. Can you elaborate on your interest in movies? Are they as much fun for you as playing music?

Rocky: One aspect of acting in films is the people you meet. Dave Matthews was in “Fern” and he’s a very nice guy. My stint as a crowd extra in “UHF” allowed me to meet Weird Al, one of my heroes, and the great Billy Barty. My dream is to have a speaking part in a production with Billy Bob Thornton, the greatest actor/filmmaker alive. It’s a different kind of fun, since you don’t get to see the finished product until months later. The music is right now.

Culturespill: You mention an interest in working with Billly Bob Thornton and praise his work in film. I’m sure you also know about this involvement in music. I was struck by his love of Warren Zevon; Thornton played on the album Zevon recorded as he knew he was dying of cancer, sadly passing away just shortly after its release. I wonder if you have any thoughts on the work of Zevon, yet another unsung genius who never really got his due as a songwriter?

Rocky: I’m not really familiar with Warren’s songs, except for “Carmelita,”
which is a favorite of mine. I know the song from hearing Brad Absher
and Steve Pryor do it.

I think the lack of commercial success Warren suffered was because most
Artist and Repertoire Agents, with a few notable exceptions, are shallow
fools.

Culturespill: In yet another of your many lives, you were a racer—driving a Morris Mini in the preliminary races for the 1967 Canadian Grand Prix. Since you’ve also repaired Mini Coopers in your spare time, I’m curious: any thoughts about the new Mini Coopers that BMW put out on the market in the past few years?

Rocky: The BMW “Mini” is charming and small, but it’s not really a Mini. I have a 1967 Cooper S on my driveway that I rebuilt in 1998 with a 1990’s bodyshell, so it has rollup windows and the big rear window. The reshell means it’s not a concourse car or true collector’s item, but it has a factory racing engine built by Adrian Goodenough for the Sebring 24 hour race years ago. I met Adrian a few years ago when I was in England and he identified the parts used in the engine. The little beast will do an honest 132 mph on a cool day. The BMW car is 16 inches longer, a foot wider and higher and it weighs 1000 pounds more than a real Mini, so it’s not anywhere near as fast or maneuverable as the Austin-Morriss car. I still wouldn’t mind having one for highway travel.

Culturespill: Are there any newer or up-and-coming bands/artists that either you or J.J. enjoy? Anyone you’d like to recommend?

Rocky: Can’t speak for Cale, but the artists I like the best and think will be
very large in the future are Dustin Pittsley and Jesse Aycock in the
Blues-Rock genre, Rachel Stacey in country and England’s Lata Gouveia in
the folk and pop categories.

Culturespill: Thanks so much for graciously allowing us some of your time, Rocky.

Rocky: Thanks for giving me a chance to; it was fun.

One of the joys of living in the age of the mp3 is that we have easier access to moments in the careers of legends that otherwise would never have reached our fingertips. Such is the case with Neil Young, easily one of the most prolific recording artists in the history of rock ‘n roll. Now with news that the agonizingly anticipated archives boxed set will actually feature a collection of blue-ray DVDs and NOT, as fans had assumed for so many years, a collection of CDs that offered a rumored treasure chest of outtakes, live numbers, and demos, it appears that Neil will only avail us of those treasures drip by drip as opposed to all at once. Most recently he has teased us with gems like the Massey Hall and Fillmore live sets or the upcoming Toast album he recorded with Crazy Horse and abandoned in 2002. So we thought we would treat you to yet more teasers straight from the Culturespill vaults. Here they are (just click on any of the song titles to listen):

War Song: The esteemed Hyperrust alleges that this track was recorded around the “Harvest timeframe.” However, this anti-war rocker is so raw that it sounds as if it were recorded even earlier than that, perhaps pre-”Ohio”–at a time in Neil’s career when he was still finding his voice as an opponent of war. Nonetheless, we must defer to Hyperrust’s well-established authority on this one. Download the track and come to your own conclusions.

Sedan Delivery (Early Demo): Though this classic Neil tune eventually appeared on 1979’s Rust Never Sleeps, an early and–in our opinion–much grittier version of the song was recorded for the American Stars ‘N Bars sessions in 1977. Neil decided to leave it off of that particular album and, by 1979, the song found new clothes as an almost self-consciously “punk” anthem shrewdly reconstructed to appease prevailing tastes in the late-70s punk scene. As hallowed as the official version of “Sedan Delivery” is, we humbly submit to you that this one–raw, less frenetic, and more straightforward in delivery–will prove just as enjoyable. Give it a chance.

Fuckin’ Up (Live, solo acoustic): A solo-acoustic version of the one and only “Fuckin’ Up,” recorded live as a raucous audience claps and sings along in sheer disbelief that Neil had chosen to do this song in one of his “An Evening With Neil Young” solo acoustic shows–a typically ballsy move, and an absolute delight to hear.

River of Pride: Don’t let the title fool you. This is a very early and raw but rockin’ demo of a song that would later become known as “White Line” from the brilliant Ragged Glory album of 1990. This version, however, was recorded as far back as the late 1970s and is, for that reason, absolutely fascinating to hear. It’s slower and grittier than the version we know and love.

It’s easy to spot a worthy band these days: just check to see how big they are anywhere other than America–an enduringly reliable barometer of quality. While Tom Waits boats of being Big in Japan, really it’s the UK, central and northern Europe, and, oddly, Australia where the finest bands find their most loyal audiences (there’s a reason Australia was one of just two countries where Neil Young released his scorching Eldorado EP–featuring the little known gem “Cocaine Eyes“–in 1988. The other? Japan.) The Eels, who continue to suffer a baffling neglect in America that is as embarrassing as it is revealing, are easily one of the starkest examples of this formula.

There are two reasons The Eels just don’t cut it commercially in the States: 1.) Their lead singer is interesting. 2.) Their music is good (obstacles any number of indie bands can rightfully claim.) Mark Oliver Everett, The Eels frontman who prefers to be known only as “E,” is the son of Hugh Everett III, an avowed atheist widely credited for the quantum theory of multiple universes who went on to become a multi-milionaire (Mark explored his troubled relationship with his Dad in a BBC doc called Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives.)

But living in the expansive shadow of an American original was hardly Mark’s most challenging experience. Life soon treated him to a banquet of other lovely events: He found his father dead after suffering a fatal heart attack in his sleep in 1982, and then, all around the same time in the mid 1990s, endured his schizophrenic sister’s suicide, the loss of his mother to cancer, and the deaths of several friends. In her suicide note, memorialized in the unforgettable Eels tune “Elizabeth on the Bathroom Floor,” Mark’s sister wrote that she was going to a parallel universe to be with her father.

Anyone surprised by the uncompromisingly morbid Electro-Shock Blues album The Eels produced in the wake of all this just wasn’t paying attention. An absolutely devastating and, at times, truly wrenching exploration of death and the survival of terrible loss, the album scored a spot on many “Most Depressing Albums of All Time” lists–ranked right up there with, you guessed it, Leonard Cohen’s Songs of Love and Hate and Lou Reed’s Berlin (damn fine company if you ask me–but exactly the reason Dreamworks begged Everett not to do it, nearly dropping the band from their roster in the process.) Because American audiences have far greater tolerance for the “it’s a lovely sunny fucking day” pop of Sheryl Crow than for anything even remotely reflective of reality, the album failed commercially–especially in comparison to their debut, which produced the band’s only notable American single, “Novocaine for the Soul” (Well, at least “Cancer for the Cure” found its way onto the American Beauty soundtrack a couple years later.)

The Eels: “Novocaine for the Soul,” Beautiful Freak (1996)

But buried beneath the smoldering rubble of one brilliant and critically lauded release after another–most notably the recent double-disc, 33-song opus Blinking Lights and Other Revelations, an album the band labored over for years and which featured contributions from Tom Waits, R.E.M’s Peter Buck and The Lovin’ Spoonful’s John Sebastian (I don’t know–don’t ask)–is an album that got the biggest commercial shaft of them all: the underappreciated (and perhaps misunderstood) Souljacker of 2001. It’s easy for an album to get the shaft, of course, when it isn’t even released in the U.S. until about 8 months after it comes out in England (you could only find a copy of Souljacker in the exploitative “Imports” sections of Virgin Megastores back then.)

Following the Daisies of the Galaxy sessions, “E” threatened to sound really pissed off next time around–an apparent attempt at owning up to the soft ‘n fuzzy feel of Daisies, which sounded conspicuously like a self-conscious response to the unforgiving darkness of its predecessor Electro-Shock Blues (how the hell else do you explain song titles such as “I Like Birds” after an album that featured such ditties as “My Decent into Madness“?). To its credit, though, Daisies didn’t entirely look away from the bitter ruin of Electro-Shock. Check out these lyrics from the great “Something is Sacred”:

Taking a walk down to the mall
Smelling piss and beer and gas
that could be me in a couple years
Suckin’ fumes under the highway pass
On a rainy day

Yeah–sorry folks–E just doesn’t do “happy.” But in case anyone still thought he did, E grew a big scary terrorist beard just in time for the 9/11 attacks–some speculate that this was the reason for the album’s delayed release in the States. Whatever. Did The Patriot Act explicitly ban the growing of beards too? Maybe this explains the “Mom won’t shave me / Jesus can’t save” me lyrics in the album’s opener. With Big Scary Terrorist Beard in full bloom, E announced that he’s mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore. Souljacker proves that the guy doesn’t fuck around–when he says he’s pissed, he’s pissed–from the first note the album explodes into a frequently enraged collection of rockers with the rancorous opener, “Dog-Faced Boy.” Make no mistake: there would be no “Daisies” this time. “Welcome, friends, to the hardest rocking substance known to man: Souljacker,” writes DJ Killingspree in the album’s notes. Fair enough.

Big Scary Terrorist Beard

None of the band’s previous three projects foreshadowed the direction Souljacker took. That seems to be the way “E” likes it — unpredictable, brazen, new–given his difficult autobiography, maybe that’s just the only way E knows how to do it. And it worked: The London Times’ crowned Souljacker “Album of the Year,” and if the new sound alienated fans of past albums, still the cantankerous “What is This Note” and “Souljacker Pt. I” rock you straight out of your skin, “Dog Faced Boy” is as raw as its title, and “What is This Note,” the album’s coda, is so feral as to be unlistenable–but gloriously so.

The Eels: “Souljacker Pt. 1,” Souljacker (2001)

But E is still, well, E, and Souljacker’s lyrics–if not its music–make that abundantly clear: Lines like “in this world of shit / baby you are it” confirm that E never purports to be more than he is: a nostalgic, forlorn and occasionally bitter teenager at heart. So critics who deride “E’s” writing as diary entries miss the point. “E’s” songs are direct and enact a tasteful restraint that many other young bands could learn from, as in these lines from the gorgeous Daisies title track:

Watching the movie
The world’s gonna end
And there ain’t no place for
A boy and his friend to go

I’ll pick some daisies
From the flower bed
Of the Galaxy Theater
While you clear your head
I thought some daisies
Might cheer you up

He sings with his dusty voice as the jangling guitar licks and coy percussion wane to a stirring hush. This formula — touchingly pathetic narratives adorned by a musical backdrop delicate enough to snap in a breeze — establishes Eels as one of modern music’s most authentic acts. Souljacker further solidified the band’s now-epic reputation abroad with the atmospheric majesty of tunes like “Woman Driving, Man Sleeping” or “Bus Stop Boxer.” Taken as a whole, however, the Eels oeuvre, of which Souljacker is just one stirring if overlooked piece–comprises a musical statement of unusual honesty and emotional urgency.

The Spill on The Eels’ new Greatest Hits and B-Sides Collections:

The Guardian: “More important than Everett’s tragic historical peculiarities are the particular peculiarities of the present - and the way he’s filling his time with them. The Eels are presently promoting their new B-sides and greatest hits compilations. Whereas most bands would do Jonathan Ross and maybe present an award at the Brits, Everett’s been taking the road less-travelled . . . ”

inthenews.co.uk: “this is a best of album that promises to deliver wholeheartedly to fans and the uninitiated alike . . . ”

QRO Magazine: “The Eels deliver a full and fair compilation of decade’s worth of tunes on their greatest hits collection . . . ”

Tiny Mix Tapes: “The two exclusives aren’t gonna be enough to push them over the edge, not in our internet age, but the bonus DVD of 12 videos will surely win over the unacquainted and completists who can look past the old “unreleased tracks on a greatest hits” cash-grab . . . ”

Angry Ape: “It is usually around this time of year that public tolerance starts to wane for greatest hits releases, representing nostalgic back-gazing over past glories. However, exceptions can be made and that is likely to be the case with this celebration of ten years (1996-2006) of the Mark Everett led, melancholic, eccentric and colourful indie dirge from the Eels . . . ”

Indie London: “EELS fans are in for a real treat as the band celebrates its first decade in the music industry . . . ”

Metro Times: “Meet the Eels expertly condenses the group’s six studio albums and one live offering into 24 primo cuts . . . ”

Stuff: ” It’s never been a better time than now to feel the Eels. The music that is. And what I’m referring to is the release of a very strong greatest hits album –Meet the Eels: Essential Eels Vol.1 – a single disc that takes in the decade 1996-2006 . . . ”

All Gigs: “The song choice on this album is impeccable, given that this collection could easily have contained double the 22 tracks on offer . . . “

When you’re talking about an artist like Neil Young, whose muse suffers from the most acute schizophrenia any songwriter’s ever experienced—a countrified Pantera one minute and Tim Hardin the next–you don’t have to look too hard to find the criticism of pot-bellied goobers who tolerate only what they hear on one of those “classic rock” stations they turn up in their rusted trucks on the way to a beer pong tournament.

Take this poor bastard’s attempt at criticism of Neil Young’s Reactor, the greatly misunderstood garage rock tutorial he put out with Crazy Horse in 1981, in an amazon.com customer review—typos preserved. “There is one song on it ‘T-Bone’ where he repeats the same lines over and over. That ain’t song writng,” he says, supporting it with the equally misguided assertion that you “Never see Bob Dylan write something like that. You know it stinks becasue I’ve never seen Neil play any of the songs from this album live,” he continues. The problem, of course, is that “Southern Pacific,” Reactor’s most recognizable single, is actually a mainstay in Neil Young’s live shows (I’ve got the bootlegs to prove it.) And when he does perform it live, the crowd always responds with a roar of familiarity.

This is just more of the entirely unfounded pretense with which so many close-minded fans fuel misinformed criticism. Reactor, like 2003’s brilliant Greendale, only asks that his audience expands their minds and tastes just enough to accommodate a muse whose range continues to widen despite age. While many of Neil’s peers languish in the dust of past triumphs, Neil is not afraid to indulge newer visions and look forward–both as an artist and as a man (For once, Rolling Stone got it right when they voted Greendale the #2 album of 2003 just behind Warren Zevon’s highly emotional swan-song, The Wind. At least someone still knows the sound of art when they hear it.)

Those who express disappointment in albums like Reactor or Greendale because they didn’t mail in yet another collection of “Neil Young-ish” singles the way Silver & Gold or Prairie Wind did were never fans in the first place. They crave merely a single patch in the quilt of Neil’s total artistic range. They are the morons shouting “Judas” at Dylan in 1965 whose hopeless anonymity is a fitting fate.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse: Southern Pacific

“That ain’t songwriting,” some say about tunes like Reactor’s epic “T-Bone” in which, yes, Neil howls “ain’t got no t-bone” for nearly 10 minutes, “Never see Bob Dylan write something like that.” Really? Let’s take these lines from Dylan’s song, “Wiggle Wiggle,” the opening track from his 1991 album, Under The Red Sky.

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like satin and silk,
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a pail of milk,
Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, rattle and shake,
Wiggle like a big fat snake.

Now, call me crazy, but I’m fairly certain that this fails to meet the aforementioned reviewer’s standards for “songwriting”. That is exactly the point: Neil Young’s Reactor is much-maligned for applying an aesthetic fraught with ruthless feedback and distortion to a weak selection of songs, but to object to Reactor on those grounds completely misses the point.

If this album’s flaws are more of the same-old Neil Young “flakiness”, it is the same “flakiness” that characterizes rock ‘n roll’s legacy–a legacy Neil Young defines as accurately on Reactor as on any other record. Reactor’s snotty abandon and feedback-laden indifference constitute the kind of temperament that great rock ‘n roll thrives on, and if it fails to conjure greatness on Reactor, then it is, at worst, a powerful tribute to the soul of rock music.

A boundless ambition pervades Reactor that is at once charming and confounding: the frenzied wail and shriek of “Shots“, the thumping, deceptively political railroad anthem, “Southern Pacific”, the 10 minutes of Neil Young shouting “ain’t got no t-bone!” amid Crazy Horse’s famous thrash-and-grind sound. These performances exemplify what is great about rock ‘n roll far more powerfully than any of those contrived classic rock anthems poisoning FM radio every day.

Neil Young: “Be The Rain,” Greendale

Reactor and, later, Greendale, are miraculous examples of a musical and lyrical ambition that refuses to give in to the ravages of time and age. If people would get a grip on their attention spans for long enough to engage with a story that lasts longer than the 3-minute FM radio single, the rewards are great. People who don’t have the capacity to do so need to toss their Neil records and listen to more chick-rock.

Take a chance on Reactor. Listen to something different, something that refuses to make friends, something too sincere to earn air time on any of America’s thousand shitty classic rock stations. Few experiences are more gratifying than getting weird looks from other drivers when you crank up this album on your car stereo at a red light with the windows down. It proves you’re listening to something that’s true. Reactor is the real thing: are you?

Special Treat: The excellent blog known as That’s Fucking Dynamite recently posted an mp3 for this killer and extremely rare Neil Young tune called “Sea of Madness,” which appears to be a live take from Neil’s appearance with CSN at the original Woodstock. Check it out here.

UPDATE (6-2-08): Here is yet another special treat, courtesy of Andrew Ronan–a live, solo acoustic performance of “Shots”–the song that would later appear on the Reactor album–performed here in a live set from 1978. It is an absolute must-hear. Download it here.

If skipping town in a cross-country skid from Brooklyn to San Fransisco with a mobile photo booth in tow doesn’t sound like fun to you, then you need to get out more. Specifically, you need to get out more with Low Water, the latest band to earn Culturespill’s distinction of “Best Band You’ve Never Heard Of.” Fresh off of filming the video for their new single, “Sister, Leave Me,” for which they dragged a photo booth across the country and implored the nearest bystander to step inside and sing on camera, they’re taking it to the streets with an upcoming third release called Twisting the Neck of the Swan; and judging from how effortlessly their music stands up to the hype, they just might bank with this one.

Continuing their breezy brand of simple and stripped down pop rock that marries Spoon and The Long Winters in a musical brew they can call their own, “Sister, Leave Me” plays like a reliable follow-through on the trio’s established glories, a back-to-basics rock ‘n roll that awakens you to just how desperate you’ve been for a band that’s not afraid to sound this real. Think Hot Hot Heat without the adolescent frenzy. Cowboy Junkies with balls. A long-overdue musical retort to Wilco’s 1995 debut, AM. In other words, think a really fucking good band you need to hear NOW.

We’re admittedly stretching the rules for these guys, though, because all sorts of people are hearing about them these days. The Pittsburgh Gazette: “Gritty post-Replacements rock with style and substance.” Amplifier Magazine: “Bridging modern Americana with rock ‘n roll out of the garage.” The Davis Enterprise: “Elevated above your average Emo rock . . . tasteful guitar playing, subtle humor, and masterful and clever wordplay.” Origivation Magazine: “Beautiful. Just beautiful.” Hell, they even got their own spot on NPR’s All Songs Considered recently. You don’t get much bigger than that. Er, OK, maybe you do–but they’ll get there too. And in a big damned hurry.

Low Water: “Strange New Element”

For a band that vows to “write . . . solid unpretentious songs that reflect where we’re from,” it’s no wonder some people find nothing more to say other than “beautiful, just beautiful” in futile attempts at putting into words the miracle this band puts to tape, reduced to the inarticulate wonder of a drooling infant (I’m raising my hand.) The flawless pop-rock gem “House in the City,” a tune you can check out on the band’s myspace page, opens with a meaty and irresistible crunch of guitar. By the time Johnny Leitera’s laid-back vocals transport the song to some Sunday afternoon on a backwoods porch with a fatty and a can of moonshine, the song locates an unlikely bridge between punk and alt-country under a hard rain of influence that never obscures the band’s vision. Collapsing into a lo-fidelity jam worthy of the Black Keys–though not quite that low-fi–a syrupy burst of synth sweetens the tune on its way to a sparkling and vaguely grungy close.

Yet no single flourish of the band’s deceptively nuanced sound clutches you by the throat to throng you in their desperate genius; they’re that rare young band that knows how to let the music speak for itself, delighting in an unassuming restraint they ride through every song with the unwavering confidence that drives a great Neil Young album (most of their material offers a composite of Comes A Time and Zuma.) As far as Johnny’s concerned, though, Low Water are “a rock band of the same mold as The Kinks.” While we’re always leery of bands with the balls to boast a resemblance to The Kinks, whom we at Culturespill believe is the greatest band to ever grace a rock ‘n roll stage, the comparison isn’t entirely hyperbolic.

They may not be producing work of such lyrical mastery as “Waterloo Sunset” or “Shangri-La,” but they do write songs of enough quality for one to suspect that these guys have read almost as much as they’ve played. In a musical climate dominated by teeny-bopping Emo-bots who swoon over a Ben Gibbard lyric only out of ignorance of the covering cherubs of songwriting that paved his path forty years ago, that’s a welcome change of pace. And Johnny’s homage to those aging angels of rock is clearly more substantive than boastful, as he acknowledges an ambition not just to return to the sound of The Kinks, but also to embody the literate ethos they brought to rock ‘n roll. “I wanted to convey the blue-collar, working class aspect of the band,” he says of their name, “Low Water is a slang term from the ’40s for not having any money. It’s amazing how that’s proven to be appropriate,” he elaborates. Amazing indeed–both in song and in spirit–how closely this band comes to encompassing the hard-nosed paradox of indifference and empathy that rock ‘n roll was founded on.

Of all the 60s legends who took baffling artistic detours through the decade Kris Kristofferson described as “shipwrecked,” Neil Young’s was by far the most fascinating. And Lord knows there were some “detours.” By the time Landing On Water came out in ’86, Dylan continued to languish in the alcoholic aftermath of a schizophrenic religious identity that produced material both interesting and intolerable (mostly the latter—and if you doubt that for one second, give a listen to Slow Train Comin’s “When You Gonna Wake Up” and let me know how you feel in the morning. Typical side effects include severe nausea, blurred vision, and sudden death.) The Stones, for their part, long-before settled into a steady offering of McSingles on albums they recorded with gritted teeth from opposite ends of a studio, tolerating one another only out of greed to produce records like Dirty Work, an album full of furiously delivered songs whose titles reflect the animosities of the band—“Too Rude,” “Had it With You.” You get the picture.

After responding to the epic success of the Rust albums with characteristically unpredictable forays into inaccessible pseudo-punk (Reactor) and rickety folk meanderings (Hawks & Doves)–exchanging main stream acceptance for the worship of anonymous new wave dorks in the underground clubs of New York and L.A.–Neil Young journeyed to places few of his fans were willing to go: the electronica beats of Trans which, we later learned, featured electronically distorted vocals that emerged from attempts at communicating through a computer with his son Ben, a quadriplegic suffering from cerebral palsy (Neil’s charitable efforts to defeat the condition are legendary and ongoing.)

In retrospect, the 80s are as legendary a period in Neil Young’s career as his 70s heyday–not because the music was great, but precisely because it wasn’t, culminating in the now-infamous lawsuit David Geffen filed against Young for making music that didn’t sound Neil Young enough (Geffen won.) Many like to call Landing on Water Neil’s worst album, but that distinction–if we really must make it–belongs to the morbidly produced Everybody’s Rockin, the musical middle finger to Geffen Records Neil recorded a few years earlier. While Springsteen and Joel discovered new voices with 50s nostalgia pieces like “Pink Cadillac” and “Uptown Girl” around the same time, Neil’s flirtation with similar curiosities reflected, if anything, a voice that had become all but irretrievable.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse: “Sleeps With Angels”

It is hardly a surprise, then, that Landing on Water further exemplifies the erratic artistic indulgences Young favored at the time, with its characteristically grungy licks and riffs laid over a jarring and misguided cacophony of synthesized drums and rhythms. It isn’t just that the album sounds dated in 2008; the production is so insular that it was destined to sound dated before the year of its release came to a close.

And yet, despite all this, Landing on Water contains three essential performances that open-minded fans will learn to appreciate. “Hippie Dream”–with its moving eulogy for the bygone days of flower power–is a biting indictment of an era he helped define. “Another flower child / goes to seed / in an ether-filled room / of meat hooks. / It’s so ugly, / so ugly,” Young sings of his cocaine-addled brother in arms, David Crosby, a disturbingly prophetic anticipation of the liver transplant Crosby would receive nine years later. Other tunes like “Drifter” and “Touch the Night” showcase a Neil Young who almost finds his groove amid the album’s synth-laden idiosyncrasies.

These songs are treasures of an artistic vision stretching to fathom the boundaries of its expression, and the ambition of the material it produced at that time is, to my ears, every bit as beautiful as Young’s best work. It may not always have sounded great—in fact, it usually strained just to sound listenable. But Neil’s refusal to look away from less familiar artistic terrain is exactly the kind of edginess his reputation is founded on, and it is the good fan who understands that glories like Sleeps With Angels, Freedom and Ragged Glory could not have been possible without the misadventures that preceded them.