Butch
On February 11,
On Valentine’s Day,
Leavin’ the Game on Luckie Street would have been a perfect live document, except for a nearly fatal flaw. A live album is supposed to make the listener feel like they are at the show.
Butch
Butch
On February 11,
On Valentine’s Day,
Leavin’ the Game on Luckie Street would have been a perfect live document, except for a nearly fatal flaw. A live album is supposed to make the listener feel like they are at the show.
Butch
Every great theory begins with tremendous doubt. Galileo was condemned by the Catholic Church for his heliocentric view of the universe. Charles Darwin was labeled a heretic for his theory of evolution. Freud’s interpretation of his dreams was declared to be pseudo-science. As time went on, the controversy and doubt faded. These theories became the basis for modern science. The theory I am going to present in this essay will also be greeted with doubt, ridicule, and disbelief. However, I believe in it with every fiber of my being: Cheap Trick is the greatest rock n’ roll band that
“Cheap Trick? The ‘I Want You to Want Me’ band? John, are you out of your mind?”
This is the general reaction I get from friends and colleagues when I present this theory. I admit it seems a bit far-fetched. There are certainly bands that have sold more records than Cheap Trick. There are bands that have had more hits and have sold out more arenas than Cheap Trick. Hell, there are bands that are more popular than Cheap Trick. I am aware of all these factors, but I still say that Cheap Trick is
Rock n’ roll has existed for half a century. In those 50 years,
March, 2003: It’s a gorgeous day in early spring and I am standing under the marquee of The Recher Theatre in downtown
Doors open at 7:00 PM, and I take my usual spot in the front row. I am minding my own business when I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turn around and see a man about my dad’s age. He even looks like my dad: Button down shirt, khaki pants, glasses. His most distinguishing feature is his jacket: A vintage satin baseball jacket with the Cheap Trick logo on the back.
“Is this your first time brother?” he asks with a grin.
“Yup. Are they any good live?” I sheepishly ask.
“Unfuckingbelivable,” Almost-Dad says. “You are going to be blown away my man. I first saw them when I was your age, and I had no idea who they were. I was so impressed I bought the jacket.”
In my experience, adding the word “fucking” to an adjective usually means that you are about to see something monumental. The fact that the word came from my dad’s long lost brother confirmed it. This guy obviously used such words sparingly, and the fact that Cheap Trick warranted an obscenity was intriguing.
The house lights go down. Almost-Dad begins to pump his fists in the air and lets out a mighty “YEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!” He’s not the only one. These fans are in complete and total ecstasy, and a note hasn’t even been played. This is commitment.
Guitarist Rick Nielsen and drummer Bun E. Carlos appear onstage first, followed by bassist Tom Petersen and lead singer Robin Zander. They tear into “Hello There,” and I am absolutely mesmerized. These guys are the same age as my parents, but are performing with the passion of a band in their early ‘20s. Robin Zander’s British Invasion-style vocals sound exactly like they do on the records. Rick Nielsen looks and acts like a crazy uncle, jumping around and telling dirty jokes in between songs. Tom Petersen stands in the background looking pretty, while Bun E. Carlos holds it together with his simple, steady drum beat.
The music is three decades old, but sounds as if it was written yesterday. Even though I don’t know any songs besides “I Want You to Want Me” and “Surrender,” I find myself singing along. The tight harmonies and heavy guitar riffs go together like peanut butter and chocolate. This is one helluva band.
The week before, I saw The Used at
The show ended with “Surrender,” and when the band left the stage Almost-Dad tapped me on the shoulder again.
“Whadja think Bro?” he asked.
“Amazing,” I breathlessly replied. “Absolutely amazing!”
“Toldja!”
With that, Almost-Dad left, his Cheap Trick jacket waving me goodbye.
I left the Recher and went around to where the tour bus was parked. I didn’t have anything cool for them to sign; I just wanted to tell them what I thought. After awhile, Robin Zander emerged from the bus. He flashes me his million-dollar smile and comes over. I sheepishly give him a piece of notebook paper to sign and he obliges.
“Y-you guys were really great tonight,” I said, aware that I was in the presence of greatness.
“Thanks,” he replied. “I appreciate you coming out.”
He shakes my hand before attending to the other fans waiting for an audience.
Rick Nielsen comes out next, and flashes me his demonic grin. As he signs the paper I ask him a question.
“Can I take a picture of you?”
“Yeah man! Snap away!”
I take out my Kodak disposable camera and take a picture of Rick gritting his teeth like a deranged R. Crumb character.
I immediately went out and bought the core of the Cheap Trick canon: Cheap Trick, In Color, Heaven Tonight and At Budokan. As I got deeper into their catalog, I wondered why Cheap Trick was not in the pantheon of great American rock n’ roll. It seemed odd that a band like Aerosmith was lauded with massive critical respect, but Cheap Trick languished in the Recher Theatres of the world. I wondered why.
June, 2006: Record and Tape Traders. It’s my weekly trip to the record store. While thumbing through the new releases, I stumble upon
I listened to
I realized that this was a ridiculous statement the moment I made it to myself, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Like an evangelical preacher, I began preaching my theory, and was labeled a heretic. Maybe I am a heretic, but my argument stands on solid ground.
One of the pillars of American life is consumerism. From the moment Cheap Trick was conceived in Rick Nielsen’s wonderfully warped mind, they were already a brand. The ingenious stamp logo was plastered on everything from t-shirts to panties as early as 1976. To move the merch, the band created a subtle but effective image for themselves. Pretty boys Robin Zander and Tom Petersen were strategically placed up front, their adorable Midwestern faces greeting impressionable fans from an album cover. The not-so-pretty Nielsen and drummer Bun E. Carlos were relegated to the back. This strategy not only sold records, it gave the band personality. Personality was scarce in the late ‘70s rock scene, and the band stood out.
This strategy especially worked in
However, Cheap Trick’s image was much more than a marketing ploy. Early press releases featured fabricated stories of exotic backgrounds and exaggerated deeds. This was meant to give Cheap Trick a level of mystique that few bands had in the mid-‘70s. They were touted as a band without a past, and any journalist that attempted to get information out of them were promptly given a more outrageous story than the last.
Consumerism and branding are an aspect of American culture that Cheap Trick has mastered, but musically it is a bit hard to make a case. Each one of the bands that I mentioned in my introduction have a distinctly American sound. Aerosmith plays blues-influenced hard rock. Tom Petty plays electrified folk. The Dead is heavily influenced by jazz, while Sknyrd and the Eagles are influenced by the sounds of the south.
Cheap Trick is from the
The majority of Trick’s musical influence comes from
Finally, Cheap Trick’s music is totally devoid of the pretension that plagues most great American rock bands. All of them play completely unpretentious music, yet when you talk to them, they act as if they are talking about writing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. When Steven Tyler talks about writing “Dream On,” he talks with reverence about how that song launched a thousand make-outs. That’s all well and good, but it’s just another garden variety power ballad. It’s not like he wrote “In My Life” or “God Only Knows.” He has completely fallen for his own hype machine. It’s incredibly lame to see a nearly 60 year old man pretend to be relevant when his last decent record came out in 1979 (I am aware that Aerosmith is far more popular now than they were in the ‘70s, but I refuse to consider sober Aerosmith Aerosmith.) . Meanwhile, if you ask Rick Nielsen about “Surrender,” there is no pretension. He will tell you that it is a kick-ass rock song and then proceed to play it, complete with five-necked guitar.
In many ways, Cheap Trick is the embodiment of
August, 2007. Virgin Festival. It is 105 degrees in the front row. My throat is sore, I have a pounding headache, and my nose is running. I have gone through the two bottles of water that I was allowed to bring in. Fountains of
“But what about the Fratelli’s?” He asked.
“Trust me on this one.” I assured him.
The background music fades out, and the MC introduces the band. I realize that I have stepped into the role of Almost-Dad, and Jon is my pupil. The band steps onto the stage one by one, with Robin appearing last. I look up at Jon, who has skepticism written all over his face. I wait with baited breath for the first power chord, because once he hears that, it’s all over. The band tears in to “Hello There.” I look up at Jon, who is now picking his jaw up off the floor.
After a blistering 45-minute set, Cheap Trick leaves the stage. I am mentally and physically drained. Jon stares into space for a few seconds, and then speaks.
“I don’t know about you, but I think that kicked ass.”
The cycle begins again.
The final word count was 4,011. I had never written anything so epic. I e-mailed the piece to my editor, and took a deep breath. I was exhausted. I put aside everything in my life to focus on that article. I locked myself in my room and lived on a steady diet of Goldfish and Mountain Dew, pausing occasionally to sleep and shower. For one month, I was consumed with Elvis Aron Presley.
Elvis and I have a long and complicated history. When I was in the third grade, my dad came home with a box of records that he inherited from an elderly client. The records were pretty terrible. My dad went through the box, periodically rescuing treasures and commenting on the oddity of the collection: “Who in their right mind buys two Dr. Demento albums?”
I didn’t have any interest in anything that contained “I’m My Own Grandpa,” but two records caught my eye. The covers featured a man wearing a white-sequined jumpsuit and a helmet of black hair. The man apparently had one name: Elvis. At eight years old, I had a vague idea of who Elvis Presley was. I had never heard any of his music, but I knew that he was pretty important. I put the record on, and the moment I heard “Jailhouse Rock,” everything clicked. My friends listened to bands like The Spin Doctors, Counting Crows and Toad the Wet Sprocket, but I immersed myself in the music of the King.
As I grew older, I moved on. I stopped listening to Elvis all together and moved my posters down to the basement. In my late teens, I even subscribed to the revisionist theory that Elvis was nothing more than a wilder version of Pat Boone. I didn’t understand his impact. Sure his ‘50s work was fantastic, but pap like “It’s Now or Never?” The terrible films where he always seemed to be playing a race car driver? How could he be considered the king of anything, let alone rock n’ roll?
I don’t think anyone from our generation can truly grasp what an impact Elvis had on our culture. We’ve grown up in a world where sex is no longer a dirty word. When Elvis hit the national stage in 1956, male singers stood stoically at the microphone crooning sweet ballads and novelty songs. Elvis threw that notion out the window with swiveling hips and a hiccupping vocal. Male singers had never been sexy, and in the conformist world of the mid-‘50s, that was threatening. His sneer still implies danger a half century later.
Unfortunately the image that most people have of Elvis Presley is not the “Hillbilly Cat,” of 1956. Elvis’ fall was so stunning that people only think of him a fat drug addict who died in his bathroom. To place him in that box is not only insulting to the man, but also insulting to our culture. Elvis gave us some of the greatest music of the 20th century, and we take it for granted. We take it for granted because it has always been there. However, there was a time when it wasn’t there. Elvis Presley is the root of all modern music. Everyone has been influenced by him, consciously or unconsciously. As legendary rock critic Lester Bangs once said, “Elvis threw “Doggie in the Window” out the window, and the rest of us are still reeling from the impact.”
I decided to write about Elvis because I wanted to understand his impact. I have a firmer grasp on it, but I don’t think I’ll ever fully appreciate it. However, I am fully aware of one thing: Elvis’ early records encapsulate everything that is wonderful about rock n’ roll. He will never leave the building.
When critics discuss Van Halen, they usually focus on their self-titled debut or the multi-platinum juggernaut of 1984. This makes a lot of sense, because those records sum up everything that was great about Van Halen. The riffs, the songs, and the attitude were perfectly in place. Both records established the myth that Van Halen was
The early Van Halen records follow an arc. Van Halen I and II show a young, hungry rock band desperate for stardom. The songs are carefree, energetic and eager to please. On Women and Children First, Van Halen are legitimate rock stars, indulging in all the spoils. A year later, the stardom was beginning to take its toll. Fair Warning shows a band under considerable strain. It is not so much an album, but a war between two dominant personalities.
The tension between David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen has always been the force behind Van Halen. Their partnership follows an age-old rock n’ roll cliché: The extroverted showman and the guitarist with mystique. Roth and Eddie were able to keep the peace for three albums, but by Fair Warning they were jockeying for position.
Eddie’s intense solo in the beginning of “
Eddie’s guitar is the most dominant trait on Fair Warning. Roth attempts to rise above it with his usual chatty banter, but Eddie’s guitar chops him down to earth with a blast of distortion. Eddie’s guitar solos are still technically brilliant, but are much more focused. The signature hammer-ons, pull-offs and two hand tapping are structured so every note means something.
Eddie’s tougher guitar sound gives way to tougher songs. David Lee Roth tries hard to keep up his heavy metal lounge singer persona, but it seems transparent. “Dirty Movies” is the most obvious example of this. On an earlier record, this song would have been a joyous ode to adult entertainment. On Fair Warning, Diamond Dave is clearly getting sick of hotel room VCRs loaded with the finest in silicone based cinema.
Fair Warning’s greatest moment comes in the middle. If “Unchained” is not the best song Van Halen ever recorded, it is certainly the heaviest. It is the one moment on the album where Eddie and Dave come together. Eddie’s riff tries to subdue Dave, but Dave’s personality finally breaks through with a triumphant “ALLLLRIIIIGHT!” When Dave says that line, you can imagine him jumping off a drum riser. It is the most vivid moment of the Roth era.
Fair Warning is the lost album of the David Lee Roth era. It is an album of anger, resentment and weariness sandwiched between albums about pretty women and dancing in the street. Fair Warning gave us the real Van Halen, not the myth that we all wanted to see. This was Van Halen unchained.