Concert Review: Ryan Adams and The Cardinals, July 27, 2007 at Moore Theatre, Seattle

What a difference a year makes.When I saw Ryan Adams last year here in a solo acoustic setting at Seattle's Moore Theatre, the performance was an absolute train wreck. In a weird sort of way, it was actually fascinating to watch as Adams forgot the words to his own songs, and occasionally forgot he had sung them altogether. But it was also sad, as it became more obvious as the night wore on that — brilliant songwriter that he is — Ryan Adams was far from being, well, you know — "well."

He even "performed" a few of his songs twice — forgetting he had done them the first time around at all. And this was in between slipping behind the amps onstage, to take a hit of whatever "medication" he was apparently taking, only to return to the stage to chase it down with a hit of the wine bottle that he never strayed too far away from.

Like I said, an absolute train wreck.
By contrast, in his performance at the same Moore Theatre here in Seattle last night, Ryan Adams was strictly business. Performing with his great backing band The Cardinals in the sort of "small band" setting you might see on MTV's Unplugged, Adams barely spoke to the audience for the first half of the show — outside of a mumbled "nice to be here again" some 50 minutes after the scheduled 8:00 start time (there was no opening act). Which, as I sat twitching in my seat with one eye cocked toward the bar, I was not exactly taking as a good sign. Fortunately, an apparently now clean Ryan Adams chose to just let the music do the talking once he finally took the stage.

As a result, on this particular night Ryan Adams was absolutely mesmerizing — and for all of the right reasons this time around. Performing several of the songs from his brilliant new Easy Tiger album, much of this concert had the same sort of down home, twangy feel as that album. These songs were also equally balanced with a pretty fair smattering of songs from albums like Cold Roses "Easy Plateau," and "Dear John" from Jacksonville City Nights.

The band setup was about as basic as it gets. You had Adams on an acoustic guitar, augmented by another guitarist, bass, piano, pedal steel guitar, and a drummer playing one of those miniature sort of trap kits where you won't be getting anything fancier than a nice fill or two. This worked perfectly in the context of this particular material, as the focus was strictly on the songs themselves stripped to their barest essentials. This also meant that everything about this performance was zeroed in on Adams voice, and his vocal delivery, which, like on the Easy Tiger album, was stronger than on any of his releases I can remember prior to this new album.

There are songs from that album I would have loved to hear in a live setting — most notably "Rip Off" and "Halloweenhead" — that never came.The thing is, I have my doubts that a song like "Halloweenhead" — which actually stands out on the Easy Tiger album simply because the damn thing rocks so hard — would have even worked in this particular setting anyway.

None the matter. On the songs from that album that were performed, Adams came through like a champ in the vocal department. On "The Sun Also Sets," Adams' anguished howl on the key line "next time, next time, oh be sure" was every bit as pained as the version on the record. "Two," Adams recreation with Sheryl Crow of the sort of twangy duets Gram Parsons used to do with Emmylou Harris, was fleshed out by the entire band singing some absolutely beautiful harmonies.

As the concert wore on, Adams also began to loosen up. During "Magnolia Mountain" from the Cold Roses album, the Cardinals got into a nice improvisational mode, trading off licks with one another.

As he got further loosened up, Adams began to interact with the crowd more, telling the story of how Seattle's Moore Theatre is rumored to be haunted, which is a story I can actually somewhat back up, having once worked for the Moore's former manager. If you are ever in Seattle and happen to attend a show at the Moore, the top balcony is where the ghost is known to hang out. Just in case you were wondering.

As the concert drew to a close just before the encores, there was also a point where Adams had to take to a bullhorn to quiet some of the rowdier members of the audience screaming for some "rawk and roll."

"If you'd be patient for five minutes, we could start a song," Adams admonished the no doubt beer-fueled boogie brethren through the horn to considerable applause. But that's what you've got to love about Seattle.

As if to quiet the more restless portions of the crowd, Ryan Adams pulled out a cover of Seattle grunge icons Alice In Chains' "Down In The Hole" during the encore.

A perfect ending to a great concert. Like I said, what a difference a year makes.

Setlist:

Games

Please Do Not Let Me Go

Magnolia Mountain

Off Broadway

Cold Roses

Oh My God Whatever, Etc.

The Sun Also Sets

This Is It

Nightbirds

Easy Plateau

I Taught Myself To Grow Old

Wildflowers

Carolina Rain

What Sin

Dear John

Two

Encore:

Blue Sky Blues

Down In The Hole

Ryan Adams: Best Album Of The Year? (So Far, Yes)

Music Review: Ryan Adams - Easy Tiger

So with this new record, I think I can say I finally "get" Ryan Adams.

Not that I didn't like him before or anything. But I guess I just couldn't really understand what all the fuss was over this guy. I mean, he put out decent enough records — and at one point it seemed like he was releasing them at the rate of about one every month or so. So part of the problem there may have been simply keeping up with the output.

But while records like Cold Roses and Jacksonville City Nights certainly had their share of fine moments, there was also an uneven quality about them. For every near-great song, there'd be others that sounded more like castoffs from an artist who seemed hellbent on releasing every single song he ever committed to tape. Most of all, to my ears, some of Adams' songs also lacked the one thing separating him from real greatness, which was a natural sounding quality of genuine warmth. Maybe, all of that well documented anger had something to do with it.

Regardless, by this time I was still really trying hard to "get" Ryan Adams because so many people I respect were busy singing his praises. I even went to see him play live for the first time last year, and ended up witnessing an acoustic show that was one of the biggest trainwrecks I have ever witnessed on a concert stage.

I'll have much more to say about that in my review of the Ryan Adams show I'll be seeing here in Seattle this weekend. Because based on the strength of Adams' new disc Easy Tiger, I'm giving him another shot. This new record is so good, that I'm really liking my chances of seeing a great concert this time out.

The biggest difference between Easy Tiger and all of the previous Ryan Adams discs for me is just how organic, warm, and natural sounding this record sounds. Not a note of these thirteen great new songs sounds the least bit forced or contrived. Despite the fact that a myriad of influences ranging from Gram Parsons and Neil Young, to the Rolling Stones and Wilco inform the relaxed singer-songwriter sort of vibe which permeates this album.

Personally, I've always liked Adams best when playing the country rock troubadour sort of role, and the twang factor on Easy Tiger is considerable. The guitars crackle with a Byrds like jangle from the get-go on "Goodnight Rose," while the harmonies recall something more like The Band circa Big Pink. That easy, backporch vibe continues with "Two," which finds Adams harmonizing with Sheryl Crow about how "it takes two, when it used to take one," as a lonely sounding steel guitar punctuates the bittersweet sentiment.

Ryan Adams has never sounded stronger, and more confident as a vocalist here. Whatever sort of catharsis he has experienced while he reportedly spent this past year "getting clean," it has apparently bled over into his music. For the first time, this is a Ryan Adams who seems to be quite comfortable and reconciled with the idea of living in his own skin.

As relaxed as many of the songs on Easy Tiger are, on the song "Halloweenhead," Adams shows he can still rock, even as he looks the devil straight in the eye without blinking in the song's brutally personal lyrics. With a chorus that repeats the phrase "Here comes that shit again, I've got a Halloweenhead," Adams runs through a litany of dark images and places from "black cats and falling trees," to "places where junkies meet" before concluding "what the fucks wrong with me, God, I'm a Halloweenhead."

If this song is what I think it's about (and that concert I saw last year supports this), then this is some of the most darkly personal sounding primal scream therapy I've heard in a song this side of John Lennon's "Cold Turkey."

Then just like that, Ryan Adams switches gears up to the understatement of "The Sun Also Sets." Probably the most beautiful track on this record, "The Sun Also Sets" finds Adams going from bittersweet longing for a past love where "I didn't know people faded out so fast," to a plea that soon turns to an anguished howl of "when you get these feelings, next time, next time, oh be sure."

This is the most passionate vocal performance on the album, and one where you get the unmistakable feeling there is a true personal experience lurking behind the words Adams sings here. Ryan Adams sounds so good here you can almost hear his heart breaking.

Adams continues the self-examination on the song "Rip Off," yet another gorgeous song where Adams seems to be confessing past sins. "I make these promises, but all my promises hurt, it's like they never get a lift off," he explains. Then in the very next line, he qualifies this by saying "So if it seems I'm being honest with you, and it seems like I'm being cruel, at least you didn't get a rip off."

The album closes with "I Taught Myself How To Grow Old" in which a lonesome harmonica soon makes way for another of those lovely steel guitars. Once again, Adams seems to be coming to terms with himself here in the lines "I taught myself how to grow, now I'm crooked on the outside, and the insides broke."

Easy Tiger is at this point, an easy candidate for the best album I've heard this year.

Ryan Adams backing band The Cardinals get into a twangy, relaxed groove pretty much from the gate, and they remain in that same unrelenting pocket throughout. The songs are absolutely first rate — there's not a single clunker in the lot — and they represent a new maturity, that in my mind should finally allow Adams to take his seat right alongside the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young as one of the great American songwriters. Ryan Adams has also never sounded anywhere near this good as a singer.

I think I finally see what all the fuss is about now. And I can't wait for the concert this weekend.

Getting The Band Back Together Forty Years Later

This past weekend was a weird one by all accounts. I think I already mentioned the nasty business of being unable to post anything here for 48 hours as the good old folks at Blogger sicced their spam robots on this blog for suspicion of being a "spam blog."

That was the sucky part of the weekend. But let's talk about the other thing that happened this weekend -- the "cool part."

You see, when I was in junior high school I actually briefly sang in a band. We weren't very good, but what we lacked in actual musical talent, we more than made up for with attitude.

Our guitar player was famous for knowing only half of most of the songs we played, so as a singer I often had to improvise a chorus with out a bridge anywhere to be found. But "Roy" was a tough-guy who'd just as soon kick my ass if I voiced so much as a peep of protest about his playing. Besides he owned the amps, and his Mom let us use his basement for rehearsal space.

Briefly, we also had a bass player with the self-explanatory name of "One Riff Billy."

The one guy who was any good--the drummer--cost me my original job in the band, because he was so much better than I was on the skins.

Fortunately, the band needed a singer and I was the only guy in the band goofy enough to get out there and make an ass out of myself by fronting the band. Plus, I owned the drum kit.

We went through a variety of names, before we decided on the name "Blast Furnace," and then finally settled on just "Furnace." Good name, we thought. And certainly one that summoned a number of cool things like "metal" and "hot."

There are so many stories associated with my junior high psychedelic heavy metal band Furnace I couldn't begin to recount them all.

There was the time we played the YMCA and I almost got my ass kicked because for some ungodly reason I decided to wear a Nazi Flag as a cape (basically I thought it looked cool--kind of like Mick Jagger at Altamont--and I was too young and stupid to understand that a Christian organization like the "Y" might be offended, to say nothing of any Jewish folk in attendance).

Then there was the time we did a "gig" in a neighbour kid's backyard, where his father got drunk and stole my microphone. Which led to our first "original" band composition -- which the world has since come to know and love as the world wide number one smash, "Please Give Me My Mike Back." Yeah, baby!

Anyway, I lost contact with my bandmates in the mighty "Furnace" over the years, but I did hear stories. "Roy," that mean ol' guitar playing tough guy of mine, got throat cancer and survived it. Another one-time guitar player of ours went to prison when he killed a guy he caught in bed with his wife. "Leon" our keyboard player was found dead under circuimstances that best remain unsaid.

In fact, about the only guy who played in Furnace and survived--other than me anyway--that I heard was still living a more or less normal life was my old drummer Huey.

Huey was also my best friend as a kid, and probably one of the best friends I ever had truth be told.

So Huey did what normal people do. He got married to a nice girl, and had a boatload of kids at about the same time that the only thing I was married to was the music business. We've been out of touch for something like thirty, maybe even forty years.

I don't have any pictures of Huey, and the one you see here is about the closest thing I could find on the internet to what he looks like behind a drum kit. So for now, it'll have to do.

So anyway, imagine my shock when out of a clear blue sky, Huey calls me this weekend. The circuimstances weren't the best --the call was to invite me to a memorial service for his Mom (who I was loved as a kid growing up). So we went to the memorial service, and the years just melted away as we got caught up on all that's happened in our lives, while reliving some of our best memories as kids.

Most of which revolved around that damn junior high rock band of ours. You remember, "Blast Furnace" which later became "Furnace."

So, as it turns out Huey never stopped playing. After the memorial, Huey then revealed his real reason for calling. He asked me if I still wrote songs. I did I replied, adding that they are even a little more sophisticated these days then "Give Me My Mike Back" was back when I was thrirteen years old.

So one thing led to another, and I soon found myself in a rather nice rehearsal studio built by Huey's brother Steve (who also is a very decent guitarist) with a mike in front of me. I guess I finally got that damn mike back after all.

Over the course of several hours--and several more beers--our makeshift band with Huey and his two brothers knocked out two pretty good original songs. One of which we wrote right there, with the other being one of mine that I brought along to the jam for the other guys to try. And to my absolute surprise the other guys picked up pretty quickly (bare in mind I'm not really a musician so I had to kind of sing it to them).

Huey has become a monster drummer, and his brothers Arnie and Steve aren't half bad either.

I never was that great a singer, and still don't claim to be now. But I can carry a tune, I write good songs, and know something about how the music business works. Plus it's great to be reunited with Huey, who was always such a great friend. Huey himself said that he had been planning to contact me for awhile because the "band" needs a singer, a writer, and some direction.

So don't look now, but I think we just might be getting the band back together.

I doubt very much that we will be keeping the name "Furnace," but whatever happens I'll keep ya posted right here.

Raspberries Go All The Way Back With Live On Sunset Strip

Music Review: The Raspberries - Live On Sunset Strip (Deluxe Version: 2CD With Bonus DVD)

There are certain songs you hear as you go through life, and time simply stands still.

For me, fortunate as I was to grow up in the musically rich, golden age of rock and roll in the sixties and seventies -- there were more than a few such songs I heard during my adolescent years. "I Wanna Hold Your Hand," which signaled the arrival of The Beatles in 1964 was one of them. Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone" was another, and Bruce Springsteen's "Born To Run" yet another one.

The thing is, with the exception of "Born To Run," I was probably too young to fully understand any of these songs when they first came out. I was seven when I saw The Beatles perform "I Wanna Hold Your Hold" on The Ed Sullivan Show. I was only a few years older when I first heard "Like A Rolling Stone." And although both songs changed my life forever, it wouldn't be until years later that I fully understood in just how many ways that was true.

Even "Born To Run," which I first heard just after high school, was a song placed just slightly out of time for me. If I'd heard it just one year earlier as a high school senior, I think the song would have resonated with me even more, than it did as such during my first year of so-called adulthood.

Then there was "Go All The Way."

I'm not sure exactly what year it was that I first heard the power pop classic by The Raspberries -- I want to say it was the summer of '72. But I'm positive I was in high school. The Raspberries were only making records from 1972 to 1974, which happens to coincide exactly with my high school years.

I'm equally sure the first place I heard "Go All The Way" was on an AM car radio, which is exactly the place where this song should've been first heard. Because, if ever a song was created that was meant to be heard on an AM car radio during your high school years, "Go All The Way" was, and is, that song. With a crashing guitar riff somewhere slightly north of The Who's "Can't Explain," combined with harmonies crossing The Beach Boys and early Beatles, "Go All The Way," was an invitation to ecstasy.

You can view a video of the song played live on The Raspberries reunion tour (and a live performance of it from 1973 as well) by going here. Here's another clip from !973 of the Raspberries performing both "Go All The Way" and "I Wanna be With You."

But Bruce Springsteen (yes the Boss is a fan too) sums up the lyrics pretty well on the liner notes he wrote for their new Live On The Sunset Strip album, recorded at the House of Blues on October 21, 2005. Bruce describes this, and all of the Raspberries songs, as being "simultaneously innocent, lascivious, and all about sex, sex, sex."

Not much I can add to that.

But if "Go All The Way" is one of the greatest pure pop singles ever made -- and it most surely is -- its creators are equally one of the most misunderstood bands ever. With perfectly constructed three and four minute pop masterpieces that owed more to The Beatles and The Beach Boys than to the oh, so serious rock of the seventies, The Raspberries were like a band caught somewhere out of time.

The songs didn't end with "Go All The Way" either. For those two years between '72 and '74, The Raspberries racked up an impressive string of pop-rock gems, mostly penned by lead singer/songwriter Eric Carmen, who revealed himself to be a master of his craft. "Tonight," "I Wanna Be With You," "Ecstasy," and the brilliant (and very Brian Wilson-like) "Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)" are only the tip of the iceberg with these guys.

Carmen himself remains criminally under-appreciated as a great pop songwriter. He would later enjoy brief success when his record company briefly cast him as a Barry Manilow-styled pop songsmith for solo records like "All By Myself." Well, at least they got the pop part right.

Still, with New Wave and Power Pop bands ranging from The Ramones to Cheap Trick still a few years away, it would still be some time before the rock world caught up to The Raspberries, and recognized them as the true pop/rock pioneers they were. All of the hits mentioned above and more are included on this album, which reunites Carmen with his original Raspberries bandmates Wally Bryson, Jim Bonfanti, and Dave Smalley for the first time in thirty years onstage. There are also some well-chosen covers here. What Raspberries gig would be complete without a raucous version of "Can't Explain" for example?

As the bonus DVD opens with the words "They said it couldn't be done. They were wrong,'' time seems to stand still as the band launches into "I Wanna Be With You." Well okay, time doesn't quite stop. The Raspberries are after all some thirty years older and at least one of them looks more like Sam Kinison here, than the foppishly dressed and stylishly coiffed lads we remember from the seventies.

But they still sound pretty damned good. On the hits like "Tonight" and "Ecstasy," they also rock quite convincingly. Most impressive are the way the intricate harmonies of "Go All The Way" and especially the more complex "Overnight Sensation" are recreated onstage (albeit with help from backing vocalists Jennifer Lee, Billy Sullivan, and Paul Sidoli).

The harmonies on "Overnight Sensation" are instantly reminiscent of several Beach Boys classics, and of "Good Vibrations" in particular. There is even a part where the harmonies come through an AM transistor radio placed onstage (you can see this on the bonus DVD), which is a clever touch. When Carmen intros the song, he makes direct reference to that transistor radio, tying it to the songs lyrics about "wanting a hit record, wanna hear it on the radio."

Carmen himself sounds great here, and still hits the notes the way he used to (well, most of the time anyway). Wally Bryson is as sharp as ever on guitar, and Smalley and Bonfanti anchor it all down on bass and drums respectively.

In its deluxe edition, Live On Sunset Strip includes the full concert on two CDs, with five songs ("I Wanna Be With You," "Tonight," "Overnight Sensation," "Ecstasy," and of course "Go All The Way"), showing up on the bonus DVD. There's also a booklet that contains Springsteen's liner notes (as well as additional notes by John Lennon's one-time girlfriend May Pang talking about Lennon's love of the band). Most noteworthily, this set gathers the lyrics to some of The Raspberries best songs -- since they are all performed here -- together in the booklet.

There's nothing terribly deep about most of these lyrics. Still, what spells "ecstasy" better than a line like this one:

"I never knew how complete love could be,

Till she kissed me and said

Baby, Please Go All The Way

Feels So Right,

Being with you here tonight."

The Raspberries Live On Sunset Strip will be released next Tuesday, July 31.

Porcupine Tree's Steven Wilson Waxes Melancholic On Blackfield II

Music Review: Blackfield - Blackfield II

About three months ago now, I made one of the most pleasantly unexpected musical discoveries I've made in several years. Porcupine Tree is a band I discovered more or less by accident when I wrote a couple of articles here about Marillion — another prog-rock band from England — and several readers urged me to check out PT in comments they left.

So check them out I did.

Actually dove in head first is more like it. After purchasing Porcupine Tree's newest CD Fear Of A Blank Planet, I was so knocked out I bought several more of their CDs. Three months in, and I am still constantly hearing something new that I missed every time I put on one of their CDs. Honestly, for a band that has been around for as long as Porcupine Tree has — they've been putting out records since about the early nineties now — I am absolutely amazed they are not more of a household name in this country.

But what I find most inexplicable is how a guy like Steven Wilson — PT's principal singer, songwriter, guitarist, and all around resident genius — hasn't received wider recognition, both critically and otherwise. Not only is Wilson a great guitar player and singer, he is also an extremely prolific and multi-faceted songwriter. On Porcupine Tree's records alone, Wilson goes from the Floydian atmospherics of early albums like The Sky Moves Sideways, to the beautifully crafted pop of something like Deadwing's "Lazarus," to the all out metallic shredding of Fear Of A Blank Planet's eighteen minute opus "Anesthetize."

On Blackfield II, Wilson's second collaboration with Israeli songwriter Aviv Geffen, Wilson reveals yet another side of his musical personality. I'm not sure exactly when or how I heard this was more of a quieter, acoustic sort of record than the heavier sounding stuff that Wilson does with Porcupine Tree. Because the truth is, it is anything but.

To be sure, Blackfield II is nowhere near as heavy as Porcupine Tree can be, but neither does it resemble anything that sounds stripped down in any way. The sound here is every bit as full as a Porcupine Tree record, but is lush with beautifully sweeping string arrangements and romantic sounding pop tunes, the same way that Porcupine Tree leans to the proggier side of metal. However where the sound is sweet, the lyrics are full of darkness and melancholy.

Steven Wilson sings the lead parts solo on six of this album's tracks, and produced the record. But before you think this may be just be a Wilson solo project, think again. Aviv wrote fully half of the songs here — many of which were translated from his original Hebrew. He also handles all of the string arrangements — which as I've already said, play a dominant role on the album. So Aviv is not just playing Andrew Ridgely to Wilson's George Micheal here.

But back to those dark lyrics. Much of the album seems to deal in themes of dark or outright doomed love. On "Epidemic," for example, the happy chorus goes something like " An epidemic in my heart takes hold and slowly poisons me, her will won't let me breathe, it comes in waves and bleeds me dry." The thing is that even though the song begins with a simple minor chord sequence played on piano to match the melancholy lyrics, it builds into a beautiful guitar driven crescendo.

The song "Where Is My Love?," asks the musical question "Endless fields of emptiness in my dark and wounded heart, where is my love?" Meanwhile a wall of guitars swirl about in a sweeping arrangement that contrasts the somewhat depressing lyrical tone. Likewise, on "My Gift Of Silence," the lyrics plead "If I compiled all my crimes and lies into amnesty, would you come back to me?," even as the song builds to yet another of this albums many grandly sweeping arrangements.

Honestly, if I wasn't already convinced that there is a grandiose masterwork along the lines of a Sgt. Pepper or Pet Sounds lying in wait somewhere in Steven Wilson's brain, the beautifully crafted pop of this album has pretty much sold me.

The best track on the album however is "Christenings," which appears to be the tale of a faded rock star who "I used to see all the time on MTV," but who is later met "in a record store, you had slept in the clothes you wore." Another of the lyrics here seems to refer to Led Zeppelin with the line "Black Dog sitting in a park, odd looks from the mothers of the devil's own." Musically however, the song sounds far closer to the British glam-pop of Ziggy era David Bowie than Led Zeppelin.

Simply put, Blackfield II is an album where melancholic and sad sounding songs have never sounded so good — wrapped as they are in the gorgeous sounding pop arrangements here. And Steven Wilson as a songwriter and all around talent continues to both surprise and amaze me.

Remembering The Night I Knew I Had "Made It" In The Music Biz — The Mick Jagger Party

This weekend here in West Seattle where I live, we are celebrating the annual summer street festival. It's a time when a lot of us old farts who live here come out of our cubby holes, and go up to the "junction" — our two block long shopping district — and drink a lot of beer, listen to a little live music, and generally have ourselves a grand old time.

It's also a time where we inevitably run into a lot of folks we haven't seen in awhile — kind of like a class reunion. And that's when the stories come out. In my particular case, this almost always involves recounting the old war stories from my years in the music business.

So let's get one thing straight. I never made it to the levels I once imagined, as an idealistic kid who loved rock and roll, I would. But I came close. So close, you could almost touch it. I played a significant part in the development of at least one act who came out of humble beginnings here in Seattle, to become — albeit briefly — a major superstar in music.

That would be Sir Mix-A-Lot.

The story behind that is one far too long to recount here — and I promise that at some future point we will get into all of that. But let's just say that my association with Mix-A-Lot eventually led me to a gig in L.A. working at American Recordings for the biggest record producer in the world — one Rick Rubin.

At American, I ran national retail promotions for artists ranging from Mix-A-Lot to the Black Crowes to Johnny Cash. It was a very short time I spent at American — just under three years. But in those three short years, my life was forever changed. As a somewhat still naive guy from Seattle — despite being thirty something years old with a fair amount of music biz experience already under my belt — nothing on earth could have prepared me for what I experienced there.

I was like a kid in the biggest candy store in the world. And I have never been quite the same since. So like I said, there are numerous stories I can relate from my time there. The experience changed me forever.

But on a night like tonight at the West Seattle Street Festival — when some old acquaintance asks me to retell an old story from those days — there is one I always come back to, and one that I never tire of telling. When I retold that story earlier tonight at the Rocksport Bar and Grill for the hundredth time, I realized that I had never actually written it down for the world to read.

So here it is. The night I went to the Hollywood record release party for Mick Jagger's solo album Wandering Spirit, produced by my boss at the time Rick Rubin.

When I got the invite, I was of course absolutely thrilled. But I was also warned. As the new kid on the block from Seattle, I was told in no uncertain terms that there would be no "gushing" over Sir Mick allowed at this party.

No big deal, I thought to myself. By this time, I had already rubbed shoulders with rock stars ranging from Rod Stewart to Bruce Springsteen as part of my music experiences in Seattle — and I even counted a few of them among my friends. Sir Mix-A-Lot certainly so, but also guys I'd come to know as occasional drinking buddies like Soundgarden's Kim Thayil (who, if you think about it, looks a little like Rick Rubin).

Like I said, no big deal. But hold the freaking boat. Nothing could have prepared me for what was to come on this night.

When I arrived at the house located high in the Hollywood Hills, I was met by a diminutive lady holding a flashlight who checked to see if I was on the guest list. Shining her light onto the clipboard she held, I said that my name was Glen Boyd and that I should be on Rick Rubin's list of guests. Once she checked my name and waved me in, she flashed me an inviting smile and said "have a nice time."

Once I was inside this nice lady's world, I had no idea of what I was in store for. Standing in a line for drinks at the bar set up outside, a voice behind me asked "who do I have to blow to get a drink here?"

When I turned and realized it was Cindy Crawford, my immediate reaction was to offer up myself. Wisely, I kept that particular thought in my pants. When leaving one of the outside bathrooms set up on the lawn I bumped into none other than Jack Nicholson — wearing a rumpled looking suit and clutching a drink in one hand and a joint in the other — I resisted the urge to ask him about his role in Easy Rider. Which was probably a smart decision, considering the beefy looking bodyguard he had shadowing him.

Later that night as I was preparing to leave the party, I went looking for Rubin to thank him for inviting me. Once I found him, I simply said "nice party, Rick." Then from behind me, I heard another voice echo my parting words in a clipped British accent:

"Yeah, nice Pahhhty Rick," the voice said.
It was Mick Jagger himself.

So that night, as I drove myself home through the Hollywood Hills in a decidedly drunken state, I found myself leaning out my car window and screaming to an empty sky about how I had arrived. Honestly, at that moment I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming.

Sadly, that "arrival" was never meant to be. Some three years later, I left L.A., American Recordings, and my career in the music business under what I will readily admit were less than ideal circumstances.

Still, I have my memories and my stories. And this one has a particularly good punch line that I never grow tired of telling.

Remember that diminutive lady who met me at the gate of the party? As a short guy myself, I was particularly struck by the fact that she came up to about my chin at the time. Well, a few nights later as I watching the evening news, I noticed a story where I recognized both the house, and then the lady whose house I had apparently partied at.

The lady was Heidi Fliess.

And I had apparently partied at her house just a few nights before she was busted as the "Hollywood Madam."

These days I may be a bump on the proverbial bar stool at my local watering hole. But it remains a story I never tire of telling.

The Rockologist: These Are A Few Of My Favorite Guitar Solos (And Guitar Players)

If you grew up loving rock and roll as I did, then you grew up loving guitar solos.

In fact, I consider myself really fortunate to have grown up in the sixties and seventies, which was a time when the guitar solo absolutely ruled music. So when it comes to narrowing things down to who were the obvious candidates for the best of the era, there are no shortage of choices.

Just go ahead and pick em'.

You've got your Jimmy Pages, your Eric Claptons, your Alvin Lees, and your Eddie Van Halens. And of course, looming large above this entire group, you've got the two ton gorilla that is Jimi Hendrix.

So yeah, I grew up loving all of these guys. But there is only a select few whose music spoke directly to my heart and to my soul. And I'm not even going to get into the bass players here. At some point in the future though, I promise you that we will go there -- and get into just why guys like Jefferson Airplane's Jack Casady and Uriah Heep's Gary Thain played such a crucial role in the sound of this particular era.

But for now, we are going to narrow our focus to guitar players -- and more specifically to the greatest guitar solos of the rock era. The candidates here are as numerous as they are obvious -- from Page, to Clapton, to Hendrix. But my criteria in picking my personal favorites is just a little bit different.

Rather than going for the most obviously groundbreaking solos -- from Clapton's use of the wah-wah on Cream's "White Room," to Mike Bloomfield's ingenious raga styled take on the blues in Paul Butterfield's "East West," -- I'm going to narrow in on the guitar solos which spoke most directly to me when I first heard them. And just why they did.

So in descending order, let's start with the guitar mechanic.

5. Jeff Beck: "Beck's Bolero"

When I first heard Beck's solo on the Yardbirds "Shapes Of Things," I was immediately taken aback by the violin like sounds he got of his axe. But what he does on the classical influenced "Beck's Bolero" is something else entirely. Going from hard rock, to classical, to hawaiian styles over the course of this song's four or so minutes, the performance here really doesn't do the song the justice it deserves. Beck makes the guitar sing like a bird on this one.




4. Carlos Santana and Neal Schon: "Jungle Strut"

The key element in pretty much any Carlos Santana guitar solo is fluidity. There is plenty of that here, as well as the other things which make Santana's playing so distinctive -- there are elements of everything from Spanish sounding flamenco to Wes Montgomery inspired jazz here. In this song from Santana's third album though, what really sticks out is the interplay between Santana's ultra-clean delivery, and then 16 year old prodigy Neal Schon's much edgier style.




3. Jimi Hendrix: "Machine Gun"

The first Hendrix solo I heard that really knocked me on my ass was "Voodoo Child." But with "Machine Gun," -- originally recorded for the Band of Gypsys album with Buddy Miles and Billy Cox -- Hendrix took things to an entirely different plane. Hendrix's guitar work here is simply amazing -- emulating the sound of machine gun fire at times during this politically charged song protesting America's involvement at the time in Vietnam. The version here comes from one of Hendrix's final performances at the Isle of Wight festival in England in 1970.




2. Neil Young: "Like A Hurricane"

The thing about Neil Young is that while nobody could ever accuse him of being the cleanest sounding guitar player, there is just something downright transcendant about the noise he makes when he cranks "Old Black" up to eleven and lets things shred. There are numerous candidates for great Neil Young guitar solos -- from "Cowgirl In The Sand," to "Cortez the Killer" -- but "Like A Hurricane," in all of it's fuzzed out glory, remains his defining moment.




1. Steve Hackett (Genesis): "Firth Of Fifth"

Hackett's use of sustain is, in my opinion, simply unequaled in all of music. Genesis were -- and are -- all incredible musicians. But Hackett's solo here is an absolute standout. There is not a hint of excess in this performance, where Hackett instead uses tonal color to add just the right amount of dramatic shades in what is for my money is his signature guitar solo. Since living Genesis some years ago, Hackett has made something of a career of similarly understated, yet breathtaking performances on solo albums like Spectral Mornings.