Harmony: A Review of Rocket Man (the novel)

In June of 1995, Richard Ford released what one source called a "dull, jaded, satirical view of suburban life...", a novel called Independence Day. The New York Times' overly serious review of Independence Day carried the weighty headline, "Afloat in the Turbulence of the American Dream."

I loved Ford's earlier (1986) novel, The Sportswriter, but I found Independence Day to be a bit too dry and slow of a read. So when I saw that the novel Rocket Man also deals with suburban angst, I worried that it might be a long trek through its 377 pages. This fear was groundless...

From the very first, I was hooked on this story by William (Bill) Elliot Hazelgrove and I made it straight through to page 370 before putting it down for the day. Hazelgrove smartly starts the tale with some laugh-out-loud humor before settling into the more serious sections. When it dawns on you that the story has become less amusing, it doesn't matter - you just want to know what happens next.

I'm not a fan of book or movie reviews that give away the entire story, but a few things should be mentioned about the plot. The lead character, Dale Hammer, is a former novelist, currently a mortgage broker, who has moved his family form the old, established, city of Oakland, Illinois to the "far west suburb" of Charleston, Illinois. In one week his life goes from being on automatic pilot ("I feel the surprise of a man who occupies a life he is not familiar with.") to one in which he faces multiple and substantive challenges. His life, as Paul Simon might have sung, is on fire and on the evening news.

The one positive in Hammer's situation is that he's been selected (or maybe simply volunteered for the role) to be Rocket Man, the adult who supervises dozens and dozens of scouts on the day they meet in a public park to launch their working rockets. Hammer is trained for the assignment by his predecessor Dale Heinrich, a man both highly intelligent and organized and so strange that Hammer is unsure "whether to shake (his) hand or call for the boys in the white suits."

Does Hammer meet and overcome the challenges in his life? Does he, as a non-conformist, buckle down to succeed in his new role as the Rocket Man?

You'll have to read the book yourself to find out, but for me the ending came together as smoothly as Elton John's song Harmony. I look forward to the next good read from Hazelgrove.

Highly recommended for book clubs.

A Retro-Review of Brian Wilson's Smile...

Note: I originally wrote this record review in early 2004, when the long-delayed Smile was released. However, at that time I had no place to post it; now I do.

"God is not subtle." Albert Einstein. But could God have a sense of humor?

A REVIEW OF SMILE

OK, so first of all, forget everything you've read or heard about this being Brian Wilson's Sgt. Pepper's album. This is not Sgt. Pepper's - Pet Sounds was that and more - but another Abbey Road, side two.

Side two of the Beatles' Abbey Road was basically a collection of unfinished songs, ideas for songs that Paul McCartney called "bites." Brian Wilson called his song ideas "bits" and today, in the age of digital recording, they might appropriately be called "bytes," but that's another story. (The idea of playing song pieces derives from the English music hall and American burlesque halls, where musicians who ran out of sheet music to play filled in with their ideas for future songs.)

Smile is a collection of bites and bits and more; and like Pet Sounds and Sgt. Pepper's the work is more than the sum of its parts. It is a collection of musical ideas intended - like the Who's Tommy or Chicago II - to be experienced by the listener as one piece, from start to finish, for better or worse.

Let me get the worst out of the way right now. The biggest flaw with Smile is Brian's need, then and now, to show us what a comprehensive student of music he is. The pivotal and repeating "Heroes and Villains" theme borrows from Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf." Further, as we listen we hear the influences of Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copeland, Gershwin, Erik Satie, Mozart, Dvorak, movie soundtracks such as How the West Was Won, casino crooners, Spike Jones and his City Slickers, and the colored vinyl children's records that Brian first digested. Some also hear Bach and/or Schubert.

It is all, at first, a bit too much, a kitchen sink approach to music. Just like the 23 tracks on the symphony-like Chicago II was at first too much, especially with the producer's note: "This endeavor should be experienced sequentially." But the more you listened, the more the whole effort made sense and eventually you couldn't consider re-arranging the track order.

This is what happens with Smile. Initially, it seems too cute, too bloated and busy. But then you remember the very appropriate title of this collection, and the original album art that looked very much like the cover of a children's book.

Oh... This isn't meant to be SERIOUS, this is for fun, deliberately childlike and childish in a deliberately non-grown up way.

Come to think of it, too much of our music is far too serious. From Springsteen's post-9/11 The Rising, to Sinatra's aging album September of Our Years ("Tonight is not for fun, tonight is for serious..." said the liner notes), to personal and brilliant but troubling confessionals like Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks and Joni Mitchell's Blue, it is all too serious. It is all so tiredly adult.

So, Smile isn't Paul Simon's Graceland nor Peter Gabriel's Us, but it is equally life-affirming when heard with a different ear; a child's ear, before the end of the innocence. (Interestingly, like those two albums, Smile is acceptingly multicultural and not Anglo-Saxon ethno-centric.)

Smile is not one of those hard to absorb albums about the weariness of life or life's losses or heavy lessons. It's not a divorce album or an album about eventual survival or death. It is a simple collection of songs about enjoying life simply ("eat your vegetables") and having fun. Let's play that funny horn and make silly noises! Let's pretend to fly! I'll be Davy Crockett!

Smile is an album dedicated to the enjoyment of music, the enjoyment of life no matter how short - even if your siblings (like two of Brian's) pre-decease you. Enjoy life even if the worst is going to happen, when you grow up someday.

Smile tells us that music is enough. Smile reminds us that life is a miracle and so this music is Brian's prayer, his tribute, a child's contribution to God. A simple prayer, a fun prayer, a prayer meant to make even God smile.

Smile is not a masterpiece, but for human beings it is close enough.

Thank you, Brian.

This time Starbucks brews it up right...

The used CD/album store that I frequent doesn't seem to accept Hear Music (Starbucks) CDs as trade-ins. In a way, this isn't surprising as the sound quality on the early Hear releases was sub-par. On those Hear Music compilations - and there were a lot of them - the individual songs often sounded worse than they did on the original albums/CDs. In other words, remastering and improving the sound was not part of the equation.

Well, things have now changed and for the better. On January 3, 2009, Hear Music and Rhino released a new collection called This Is Us. This compilation has 17 tracks and the sound is superb. The sound is mid-range all the way through with just enough bass and a positive lack of any overly high-range sounds. The sound is quite comparable to that on the excellent The Definitive Collection series from Universal Music.

The content isn't bad, either. There are two tracks from the highly talented Aimee Mann, one from the early-electric period Bob Dylan, the best song written for the Byrds by their best-ever songwriter (Here Without You by the late Gene Clark), a Paul Simon favorite, Once from the film of the same name, and Guinnevere - a great early track by Crosby, Stills and Nash. Yes, this song sounds better here than on the recent CS&N first album re-release on Rhino.

There's also a fine track from David Gray who sounds like Van Morrison II, and Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris team up on the title song. The lyrics of This Is Us are a bit too close to Paul McCartney's That Was Me, but this track rocks in the style of Dire Straits.

Mark Geary's Ghosts sounds like Lindsey Buckingham, which is all good.

Sure, there are a few quibbles. The CD notes indicate that George Harrison's song, If Not for You, is a Bob Dylan cover. Not so, as Harrison and Dylan co-wrote the piece; thus, neither of their versions is a cover. She & Him's stripped down cover of You Really Got A Hold on Me is interesting and creatively performed but it sounds like it was recorded in a tin-can mini-van (it is definitely the track with the worst sound). The Constantines & Feist contribute an OK cover of Islands in the Stream, but the note writer doesn't realize that the songwriting attribution to Gibb-Gibb-Gibb equals a Bee Gees song.

We're also told that Shelby Lynne's I Only Want to Be With You, an exemplary cover of a Dusty Springfield song, is virtually equal to the original. Well no, as this is like saying that someone recorded an Elvis, Sinatra or Beatles track that's equal to or better than the original. Not gonna happen, as the first president Bush might have said on Saturday Night Live.

Finally, I could have done without the final track from Jennifer Warnes with Leonard Cohen. Oh, she sings fine and Cohen's lyrics are interesting but I've never "got" whatever it is we're supposed to get from the "deep" songwriter Cohen. Maybe it's because he recites rather than sings his lyrics. Or maybe it's the memory of what his album covers looked like.

All in all, this is a very good collection which provides a nice balance of old and new music (every listener will find something new here). In these recessionary times, paying $12.95 for 17 tracks is a pretty good bargain.

If you received a Starbucks coffee card for Christmas, use it to pick-up this CD and it will seem like you got it for free. Best served with a bold Starbucks brew.

A Retro Review of Paul Simon's Surprise CD/Album

Paul Simon's Surprise CD was released in 2006, and we'll bet that there are a lot of his fans who own Graceland and Bridge Over Troubled Water who don't have it in their collection. So as a public service we're reprinting this review by Martin Bandyke of the Detroit Free Press from two years ago:

Rating - 4 out of 4 stars

What suprises could folk-rocker Simon have left in him at this stage of his career? Well, how about collaborating with experimental rock guru Brian Eno?

The founding member of the arty Roxy Music and producer of classics by U2 and Talking Heads might have little in common with Simon musically, but Eno's open-minded approach might have fired a creative spark in Simon, who delivers his best album since the 1986 masterpiece "Graceland."

Simon's plea for understanding among naysayers and doubters on the stunning "How Can You Live in the Northeast" might be carried by the unusual, Eno-esque backdrop of fuzzy, distorted guitars and clattering drums, but these touches serve the strong images in the lyrics perfectly.

Spritual themes dominate the emotional "Wartime Prayers," "I Don't Believe" and "Once Upon a Time There Was An Ocean," while "Outrageous" and "Sure Don't Feel Like Love" are as funny as they are thought-provoking.

But whether the subject matter is serious or lightweight, it's obvious that Simon was having a fantastic time in Eno's London studio. His vocals are filled with energy, and his lyrics are particularly smart and insightful.

Quiet

I am heading for a time of quiet
When my restlessness is past
And I can lie down on my blanket
And release my fists at last...

And I am heading for a place of quiet
Where the sage and sweet grass grow
By a lake of sacred water
From the mountain's melted snow.

- Paul Simon

(Click on the photo to see a larger version.)