On this day...

[Phenomenal Cat]

Can I create my own Classic Thread?

Ha! I just did!

[Sneelock]

impressive!
with the benefit of hindsight, when did you first know your thread would be a classic?

[Sneelock]

will the inclusion of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles add to the threads classic status or detract from it?

[Phenomenal Cat]

I was checking to see if I could start compiling all these "On this day..." threads, which I will now start doing

After my nap.

[Minnie the Minx]

Did you write it in an attic?

[Phenomenal Cat]

by Sir John San Juan » Wed Apr 15, 2009 12:40 am

...in 1975, pop singer Lou Reed vows never to sing another word. The forward thinking orator parlays this brave move into critical gold for a further 30+ years.

[Phenomenal Cat]

Wed Apr 15, 2009 3:24 pm

...in 1980, pop star Denny Laine violates the probationary terms of his "three strikes" contract with English bandleader Paul McCartney by attempting to fulfill lucrative Japanese tour dates as vocalist for Wings (having unsuccessfully argued to bandmates Steve Holly, Laurence Juber, and Linda McCartney that "Wings is a band"). Past infractions include dancing onstage the preceding year in Glasgow during a performance of the band's hit "Mull Of Kintyre", and having asked for a raise at the completion of 1973 sessions for the Band On The Run LP.

Laine is unceremoniously dismissed, and is eventually forced to work under the pseudonym Brendan Benson in order to avoid McCartney's notorious blacklisting.

[Phenomenal Cat]

Thu Apr 16, 2009 6:44 pm

...in 1977, disgruntled pub rocker Elvis Costello fails his audition for the lead vocal spot in pop group The News. With a little help from his buddies at Stiff Records, he releases the audition tape as My Aim Is True ( curiously omitting the set's most commercial track, "Hip To Be Square", which The News will take to the top of the charts nearly 10 years later), and begins a career now stretching into its fourth decade, and filled with a series of similarly "collaborative" works (the bespectacled wordsmith has now shared billing with former Beatles, classical musicians, the Philadelphia Gay Men's Choir, Sebastian Bach, and Burt Bacharach).

[Phenomenal Cat]

Fri Apr 17, 2009 3:18 pm

...in 1995, Canadian "godfather of grunge" Neil Young begins recording sessions with alternative supergroup Pearl Jam. While the resultant LP, Mirror Ball, meets modest success (not dissimilar to that which greeted their contribution to the Wayne's World 2 soundtrack earlier in the decade), Neil Young archivists and collectors (informally known as "rusties") later hotly debate the relative merits of the various rough draft versions of the LP which slowly begin leaking in the 21st century - attempts which find the notoriously perfectionist Young attempting many of the LP's songs with such ensembles as Live, Everclear, Bush, Local H, Creed, and Better Than Ezra.

[Phenomenal Cat]

Sat Apr 18, 2009 5:44 pm

...in 2001, multi-platinum pop group Limp Bizkit are released from their recording contract with Interscope Records. The story receives virtuously no press at all, and is rumored to have been squashed by powerful Interscope president Jimmy Iovine. While the band later intimate to the press that they have split due to personal differences, persistent internet gossip (most of which is curiously deleted) suggests that the group's latest LP was rejected by their label as having been "too weird", "suicidal" and "uncommercial" and that even producer Kid Rock had warned them that "If you make this record with me, you're gonna get dropped." Having spent over a year on the project (intriguingly titled Faggot Sandwich Denouement, and claimed by insiders to have been songwriter Fred Durst's "own Sister Lovers"), during which time the band were also filming a still unreleased silent documentary (entitled Hey! That Was MY Fucking Beer, Bitch!), it seems entirely plausible that the band were just too drained and defeated to continue. As they are highly rumoured to be reuniting this summer, there are whispers among the fan community that Jello Biafra's Alternative Tentacles imprint may be - finally - releasing both the film and LP to coincide with the reuinion.

[Phenomenal Cat]

Sun Apr 19, 2009 2:29 pm

...in 1977, a calamitous open air concert in Boston inspires a best selling fusion of rock, opera, and pinstripes.

After his failed bid to bring The Beatles to Shea Stadium, Sid Bernstein licks his wounds and arranges for an extravaganza of almost equal proportion – delivering Pink Floyd’s monstrous Bring the Boys Back Home tour to Boston’s Fenway Park.

The Floyd has an extended break after their European dates in late March, not having to play their first U.S. date until late April. For one million dollars, a guaranteed sell-out, and a taco bar, Bernstein convinces Pink Floyd to fly over early in order to play the legendary Boston ballpark, home of the "Green Monster", an enormous green padded wall that served as the end point of left field. Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell Bernstein that the Red Sox were playing the Tigers that same day.

The noon baseball game becomes a sideshow to the makeshift lighting rigs, numerous semi-trucks coughing out diesel exhaust just outside the gates, an inflatable pig hovering before the scoreboard, and a 14-tiered stage which was to be helicoptered in from the parking lot. The Red Sox beat the Tigers 8-5 as the pungent clouds of pot smoke and cries of "Run Like Hell!" descend upon the playing field.

Miraculously, the show begins on time, the Floyd performing in center field as the distant horizon absorbs the evening sun and a half-dozen Tigers players scramble to collect their mitts. However, all is not well. The acoustics of the park are awful, numerous wiring snafus render vocals inaudible and leave the band in total darkness at crucial moments, and - perhaps most damagingly - the band's inflatable pig launches prematurely during “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” (a tribute to estranged Floyd founder and baseball fanatic Diamond Joe Floyd).

Worse yet, Schaefer Brewing Company has a contract with Fenway to sell their sufficiently tasty malted beverage for 25 cents a cup on this date, leading to numerous scuffles on the field and a rash of ejections from the stands for drunken behavior. The show reaches a horrifying climax as Roger Waters becomes increasingly perturbed at the constant cries for “Money! Money! Money!” raining down from from atop The Green Monster.

Not realizing that fans are actually just scraping together pocket change in the communal Fenway spirit to buy more delicious Schaefer beer, Waters becomes enraged and repeatedly spits upon the Boston crowd in disgust. The ensuing melee to catch his oral projectile leads to a crush at the front of the stage, where avid fans are trampled and pummeled. In the aftermath, close to a dozen fans have spilled their beers, and dozens more are hospitalized.

Waters eventually documents his feelings about this tragedy on Floyd’s next studio set, The Wall. However, due to legal pressure, the album cover is changed from a green gatefold with “379” in the lower right-hand corner of the cover and “310” on the album’s rear left-hand corner, to a stark white design. The first 1000 copies include a coupon for a free malt cup.

[Phenomenal Cat]

Mon Apr 20, 2009 2:28 pm

...in 1972, singer songwriter and former Elephant's Memory vocalist Carly Simon released the biggest hit of her career, the enigmatic "You're So Vain" (sales of which would exceed nearly 2 million 45 records in the United States alone, while the parent album, No Secrets, reached number one and stayed there for a small eternity - largely due to the prominence of Simon's erect nipples on the record jacket). Much of the song's appeal derived from the veiled and impenetrable identity of the song's subject. Simon's sexual affairs numbered in the hundreds at this point, and more than a few of those lovers were well known entertainers themselves. Initial speculation hinted strongly at both Grand Funk Railroad drummer Don Brewer and Bloodrock guitarist Lee Pickens. Sugarloaf's Jerry Corbetta denied that the song was about him, but some felt that the vocalist was merely being gallant. Ditto Allman Brothers Band roadie John "Scooter" Herring.

Over the decades, speculation and rumors continued to thrive, with many deciding that the mystery lover could only be Wet Willie vocalist Jimmy Hall (Hall's uncredited but unmistakable backing vocals on "You're So Vain" only furthered this suspicion). Simon wisely felt that the mystery allowed listeners the opportunity to project their own lives into the song, and vowed never to reveal a thing about the song. It can't have been lost on her that the mystery also allowed listeners an opportunity to continue talking about both her and the song for ages after her career dried up.

Shockingly, on August 5, 2003, Simon auctioned off this coveted information to television executive Dick Ebersol, in exchange for his promise that he would stop calling her once and for all.

While Ebersol did make good on his agreement to stop bothering Simon, his promise to keep the subject's identity to himself tended to dissolve after two or more martinis, and there are innumerable residents of both Martha's Vineyard and New York's Hamptons who tell the tale of a booze breathed Ebersol "close talking" to them while spilling these coveted beans.

To a man, each of them claims that the song was written in a fit of angry, tearful, bitter jealousy about contentious Canadian songbird Joni Mitchell after Mitchell won Rolling Stone magazine's coveted "Old Lady Of The Year" award for two consecutive years (1970 and 1971). According to these sources, Ebersol told them that Simon - having "fucked up a storm" during the years in question - felt that the award was rightly hers.

[Phenomenal Cat]

Tue Apr 21, 2009 4:13 pm

...in 1984, infamous “non-musician” Brian Eno adds another title to his already-bursting CV: non-producer.

On the cusp of imminent stardom, Irish rock band U2 decides to risk their reputation and promising sales by insisting to label boss Chris Blackwell that their next producer be a man of impeccable artistic credentials, if little commercial value. As bassist Adam Clayton recalls, "We were looking for something that was a bit more serious, more arty”.

The Edge made overtures to Brian Eno at a Saskatchewan seal habitat fundraiser, and singer Bono eagerly seconded the choice: “We knew the world was ready for another mega supergroup on the level of, say, The Who. All we had to do was to keep doing what we were doing and we would become the biggest band since Led Zeppelin, without a doubt. But something just didn't feel right. We felt we had more dimension than just the next big anything, we had something unique to offer. The innovation was what would suffer if we went down the standard rock route. We were looking for another feeling.”

Blackwell insists the band retain Daniel Lanois as engineer believing Eno would "bury them under a layer of avant-garde nonsense.” Thus began a collaboration not only lucrative for all parties, but especially rewarding for the notoriously materialistic and follicle-challenged Eno.

Day One of the sessions begin in an old Irish castle. Eno notes the “good vibes” of the initial session, but things quickly go sour, as they often do, when the impunctual drummer walks in the room. Larry “Deadwood” Mullen, having done little to prepare for the sessions, offers to show Eno his “obliques”. A befuddled Eno stands gape-mouthed as Mullen pulls up his shirt to rub the protruding muscles of his belly, where a fresh tattoo of a flaming skull undulates and heavily-heaves. When Eno refuses to show his belly in return, Mullen calls him a “pansy” and slugs him so hard in the breadbasket, Eno is doubled-over for nearly 10 minutes, writhing in pain. An apologetic and annoyingly-diplomatic Bono can do little to soothe the wound, and the day’s sessions produce nothing of value other than pronounced sores on Eno’s obliques and ego.

A quick call to Chris Blackwell produces a solution satisfactory to all – Eno will fly home with a cashier’s check for services rendered in return for the artistic credibility his name shall lend to U2 on the back-cover album credits of what would become The Unforgettable Fire (produced by Daniel Lanois, in all actuality).

Thus began a tacit arrangement still in practice today, not only with U2, but with various acts such as Dido, Sinead O’Connor, James, and most recently, Coldplay. Brian Eno continues to fund his own pet projects by occasionally attending interviews and photo-ops with his “non-clients”. In the case of his most lucrative "clients" - U2 - he has gone so far as to appear in several documentaries. The only band turned down thus far is Radiohead, with whom he refused to be photographed, claiming they were “poisonous to his reputation” and even uglier than him.

And somewhere in sunny L.A., Rick Rubin is cashing a check for an as-yet-unrecorded Red Hot Chili Peppers record.

[Phenomenal Cat]

Wed Apr 22, 2009 5:59 pm

...in 1980, songwriters Joe Walsh, Neil Young, and Bob Dylan are taken into custody when Walsh's Chicago apartment is raided by FBI men acting on a tip from neighbors that the residence is housing the decomposing remains of a human body. The various powders, pills, and other narcotics in abundant display are "overlooked" by the arresting officers (all baby boomers, as it happens), who seem selectively and zealously discreet in their efforts to shield the three musicians from unfavorable attention or scandal.

No body is uncovered, and suppressed FBI records admit somewhat reluctantly that the crippling odor followed the three men to local intelligence headquarters. The trio are allowed to resume their work - collaborating on a handful of songs for former Beatle Ringo Starr's planned comeback LP Former Beatle Ringo Starr - after signing a handful of autographs, yet nothing further comes of the planned collaboration, and no usable material surfaces. While neither the three veteran musicians nor the law wish to make a stink of the debacle, Starr can't help but reference the event slyly and subtly by titling the eventual album Stop And Smell The Roses.

[Phenomenal Cat]

Thu Apr 23, 2009 1:37 pm

...in 1976, Sly Stone is scheduled to appear on The Muppet Show during its premier season. The timing couldn’t have been better – The Muppet Show was an off-shoot of the children’s show Sesame Street, yet this prime time offering was intended for viewers of all ages. The show was hard-pressed to find guest hosts who a) weren’t already involved in children’s programming, or b) well-known enough to draw an audience. Sly Stone was attempting his umpteenth comeback with the album Heard You Missed Me, Well I’m Back, and his management was eager to get him back on prime time television, even agreeing to the performance of one of his hits from the 60s, “Everyday People”.

The day of shooting, the nervous puppeteers rehearse the high concept number with an array of different shaped-and-colored Muppets – but no Sly. Frantic calls to Sly’s handlers are returned in the affirmative. Sly will be there – in time. Four hours late, Sly arrives disheveled but well dressed in a white sequined jumpsuit, accompanied by his loyal pit bull, Gun. Jim Henson recalled Sly as “upbeat, even charming”, but the mood turns once rehearsal begins.

Sly is led to his piano where he will duet with Rolf the Dog. Almost immediately, Sly asks to use the bathroom. Realizing that he is surrounded by puppets, Sly quickly exits towards the closest lavatory, not realizing he is on a set. The chosen door simply opens to another soundstage, and Sly slams it in a huff. Finally, Sly is coaxed back to the piano and the taping begins.

Frank Oz recalls the ensuing events: “I was working Rolf, so it was a dummy-piano with me inside. As soon as the tape of “Everyday People” starts, Sly starts kicking at me frantically with his white platform boots. He’s like ‘Whatcha doin’ down there, Jack? What’s this white dude doin’ in my piano? I tried to explain the set-up, but again he went off in search of a bathroom, muttering, ‘Fuck it. It’s a puppet’”

Sly goes missing for another 40 minutes as the crew turns their attention to other matters. Finally he returns, proclaiming, “I’m ready, motherfuckers. Let’s do your puppet tune.” After 28 takes, the shoot is still unusable. Sly becomes fixated on Fozzie Bear and keeps trying to strike up a conversation with the stuffed bear during various takes. Once Sly is convinced that the bear is not “holding”, he again disappears, this time for good.

Animal control is called soon after when Gun is found backstage fucking a Gonzo puppet.

The Sly Stone episode of The Muppet Show was never aired, instead being pre-empted for a rerun with Beverly Sills and Mummenschanz.

[Phenomenal Cat]

Fri Apr 24, 2009 1:10 pm

…in 2003, Coldplay begin a successful US tour. Having finally “broken” the States, the ‘Play decide to document this stage in their career with a documentary concert film and a live album which features new and old material alongside some collaborations and cover versions which explore their relationship with America.

Filming the gigs in black and white with the assistance of documentarian Martin Scorsese, the group capture some beautiful and captivating performance images. This was a band made for stadia, and early rushes of Silent Thunder (as the film was provisionally titled) show the band looking downright heroic on these massive concert stages.

In the process of discovering the United States (and before you scoff, let us not forget the sheer enormity of the place), the group made some new friends. REM vocalist Michael Stipe was eager to help Coldplay in their quest to capture the “soul” of their new spiritual and financial home and gave them massive guidance with the new film/album project.

Understanding that the group wanted to duet with a genuine legend of Chicago blues, Stipe arranged for the band to meet with vocalist and blues enthusiast Jim Belushi and to record a track live onstage at Belushi’s House of Blues nightclub, located just a few feet from the muddy waters of Chicago’s glorious river. Though the performance of planned single “(There's No) Walkin’ To The Shops With A Broken Heart” went well (Belushi was “pumped” by all accounts), the finished result was held back by the band, prompting Silent Thunder recording engineer and science fiction buff Steve Albini to smear the group as "pussies" in the press while the project was still in production.

A second attempt at a blues number (titled simply “Mama”), featuring a duet with Chicago poet, painter, and vocalist Wesley Willis scarcely fared better. While the footage, shot in a disused ATM booth graciously loaned out by it’s tenants - local power trio Urge Overkill - does capture quite a moment, with Willis repeatedly encouraging Coldplay vocalist Chris Martin to butt heads with him, the innumerable profanities and suggestions of bestial relations would have killed the song at Alternative Radio.

Slightly discouraged, Coldplay continued the tour and film, under the paternal advice of Stipe. At Toronto’s legendary Massey Hall, they performed and recorded a powerful version of the Beatles’ “The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill” - if somewhat confusingly dedicating it to “the late Paul McCartney”. In Memphis, they attempted a session at the legendary Stax studios, only to be repeatedly interrupted by visiting tour groups - forcing the band to abort every single attempted take of “Long Island Angel”, a stirring tribute to troubled American jazz singer Pat Benatar.

The project lurched on with the group nearly killed while playing atop a New Orleans building which was demolished during the performance, condemned by bystanders while attempting a singalong of Bob Dylan’s “Yea, Heavy And A Bottle Of Bread” at the former site of New York’s World Trade Center (now referred to by tragedy buffs as “Ground Zero" - and most certainly not the former site of Big Pink, as Stipe had promised), and, lastly, booed while performing their hit “Clocks” with atonal backing by a deaf gospel choir (Harlem‘s esteemed Praise Who?).

The band cancels all remaining dates halfway through the tour and returns home to lick their wounds. Both the group and their label agree unanimously to scrap both the film and the album, and their once warm relationship with Stipe comes to an abrupt and chilly end.

It will be another two years before another Coldplay release sees the light of day - X and Y, a record which consciously favors more decidedly European and electronic idioms. No evidence remains of their ambitious documentary and voyage, save for a cowboy hat, a Steak and Shake menu and a spice rack now gathering dust in Martin’s closet.

[Phenomenal Cat]

Sat Apr 25, 2009 7:22 am

...in 1999, Ben Folds, the namesake singer of The Ben Folds Five, is booted from his own band.

According to reports, Folds had been behaving erratically during a promotional tour for The Unauthorized Biography of Judge Reinhold (an utterly vapid and pointless song cycle, a development which both his commercially-minded bandmates and management suddenly and arbitrarily found distressing). An obsession with delicious sweets leads Folds to isolate himself from the band. Rehearsals become fractured and unproductive as Folds cannot even sit still on his piano bench, complains of a “burning, churning stomach”, and habitually sneaks away to gorge on Little Debbie snack cakes. There is talk within the band of hiring a second piano player to double Fold’s parts on what will prove to be an abbrieviated tour. A paranoid Folds is arrested after he barracades himself behind the counter of a Baskin-Robbins, and is rumored to be collecting firearms and a cache on jujubes.

The breaking point is reached when The Ben Folds Five land a coveted spot on Rosie O’Donnell’s popular daytime talk show. Scheduled to perform their single “Army”, Folds locks himself in the green room until minutes before the performance, emerging with a combination of hair gel and crushed Frosted Flakes atop his head.

Strangely dressed in army fatigues and swimming flippers, Folds bangs away at an unmiked piano as his clearly-troubled band looks on. Most camera shots are cut-aways to his drummer and bassist, while Folds is only filmed from the neck up, sugar and sweat dripping into his crazed eyes. In a bizarre after-performance interview, Folds babbles about Pez and Reggie bars, and warns O’Donnell to arm herself against “the impending attack”. O’Donnell, a strong anti-gun activist and snack cake enthusiast, has Folds removed from the studio.

A handful of U.S. tour dates is completed with a second, hidden piano player, but soon Folds is summarily dismissed from The Ben Folds Five. His eternally "in progress" masterpiece SMiRK - hyped prematurely as an "infantile symphony to fudge" - is aborted, his former bandmates superstitiously destroying the master tapes as both piano and Huggies sales inexplicably spike in every town in which the group has recorded.

Folds continues to record occasionally brilliant yet painfully juvenile solo records with the help of a pre-Five collaborator, Millard Powell. They attempt several shambling gigs as 'Bricks, but with little fanfare or acclaim. The Five is thrown a lifeline unexpectedly when their track "Battle of Who Could Care Less" is used in the heavily-hyped Star Wars prequel Attack of the Clones.

Today, a heavily medicated Folds is back with his original band, and is rumored to be ballooning up by the day.

[Phenomenal Cat]

Sun Apr 26, 2009 2:37 pm

...in 1998, Thom Yorke meets with the members of Radiohead and producer Nigel Godrich to plan the follow-up to the wildly successful and critically lauded OK Computer. Yorke, ever restless in his creativity and having acquired a new muse, suggests the band alter its approach. The new thing now, he says, is “found sounds”. Instead of guitars, drums, keyboards, etc., actual sounds from nature are sliced and diced to create a sonic palette onto which Yorke will create melodies and ultimately full-fledged songs for a new album. Sessions have already begun, so Yorke’s volte face is greeted at best with muted enthusiasm.

Band members are ordered to search their country estates for these “sounds”, which can be recorded to create a mosaic of nature’s eternal music. Upon meeting a week later, the results are anything but promising. Yorke arrives to find a table littered with leaves, various stones, handfuls of dirt, pine needles, a rutabaga, and a Sham-Wow. Yorke feels the band is not taking this new project seriously and flips out, pointing his finger and promising to “finish you all”, snatching up the three master reels of early demo sketches and storming out of the studio. Godrich shrugs and suggests they return to the mid tempo guitar based sound that had made them successful. Without the tapes, however, they would have to begin from scratch. Guitarist Ed O’Brien punches a wall. The guy who sometimes plays drums fucks off to the pub. Johnny Greenwood drinks a bottle of Lambrusco alone in his London flat, drunk dials Stuart Murdoch, and falls asleep biting his pillow. Weeks pass with no progress.

Meanwhile, Yorke is greeted at his home in Cockfosters by his muse and new squeeze,Icelandic quirk-queen Bjork. While Yorke peruses the unfinished tapes on the fireplace mantel, Bjork enthuses about her trip to Japan, and her love of their “miniatures”.

“Everything is miniature! A watch can be a T.V! A button can be a home! Rottweiler filibuster!”

So Yorke and Bjork begin creating a dollhouse full of miniature chairs and tables made from toothpicks, flatscreen televisions made from matchbook covers, with tiny versions of haystack paintings adorning the walls.

“This is fun!” Thom proclaims, smiling for the first time in years. “Everything in its right place!”

“Pineapple parmesan!” Bjork enthusiastically barks.

“I feel like a boy again”.

“Yes”, Bjork smiles, gluing a small squirrel to a pipe cleaner. “I too am a boy. We are like two urchins.”

Thom jumps up excitedly. “Let’s make a record together!”

Bjork wriggles in her robe – “Yes! Let’s make BABIES!!!!”

“.....Babies?”

“We will make a dozen or more! We will give them many beautiful names, like R and T and Z and B and Q!”

And so Thom Yorke and Bjork record their lovemaking as the new Radiohead project still lay untouched on the fireplace mantel.

At 2:00 a.m., Thom’s mobile rings. It is Nigel Godrich, the only member of the Radiohead camp composed enough to speak with Thom. The mixing and overdubs are scheduled for the following morning, leaving Bjork and Yorke scant hours to complete the “found sounds” experiment. Slaving through the night and into the next morning, they complete what they can, Yorke dashing through London’s West End on bicycle with the master tapes in a satchel strapped to his side.

The members of Radiohead plus Godrich pace nervously as Yorke threads the 2” analog tape onto the machine. He hits play, and almost immediately, jaws drop and fists clench. Johnny Greenwood manages to mutter something through his bangs. The found sounds used were indeed sounds taken straight from nature – the “Jingle Cats” CD from Bjork’s mini.

Yorke is dismissed from Radiohead until he promises to quit his hobbies, quit Bjork, and refrain from speaking of either his impending lovechild or his proposed solo album - the jacket of which will picture Bjork and Yorke dressed as chickens standing before a dollhouse. Eventually, Yorke is reinstated, while his infant son, Kid A (or “Byorke”, as Thom’s band mates derisively refer to the boy) remains in seclusion in Iceland or possibly Pilsen, IL.

[Phenomenal Cat]

Mon Apr 27, 2009 2:21 pm

...in 1976, the band Queen begins rehearsals for what will become the follow-up to their international smash-hit album, A Night at the Opera. The first song aired is Freddie Mercury’s paean to the civil rights struggle in the U.S. and around the globe, simply titled “Black Man”. As a child, Freddie benefitted from the comfort of his father’s position as a cashier for the British Colonial Office in Zanzibar, but the family was forced to flee to London during the Zanzibar Revolution. Having been steeped in white-guilt like most of the British citizenry, Freddie felt it his duty to redress the balance and pay tribute to the oppressed Africans of the world.

“Black Man” detailed the history of great Africans around the globe, and was for a time listed on rehearsal tapes simply as “Nigerian Rhapsody”. Freddie’s interest in black culture not only inspired the gospel sounds of “Somebody to Love”, but led him to embrace the emerging disco scene in New York City. It was here that the band visited Stevie Wonder at The Hit Factory, where he was also recording a song titled, ironically enough, “Black Man”. Wonder’s album was slated for release in September 1976, while the notoriously slow-footed Queen would not release A Day at the Races until year’s end. In this particular race, it seemed the Wonder had the pole position.

Mercury toyed with the idea of making the song a tribute to black pioneers like Wonder, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and Ray Charles, titled “Blind Man”, but it was drummer Roger Taylor, the band’s ardent heterosexual, who suggested a song about the plight of the American Indians because they “partied hard” and “looked cool”. The song became, as we know it today, “White Man”.

Freddie Mercury and Queen never did stop trying to promote the black race, producing unifying anthems like “We Are the Champions”, “I Want to Break Free”, and “Fat Bottomed Girls”, naming a noticeably jazz-free album Jazz, liberating Chic’s “Good Times” from its disco ghetto for “Another One Bites the Dust”, and performing at Sun City. From Brian May’s omnipresent afro to the legal castration of Vanilla Ice, Queen were ever-diligent in their dream for a color-blind world.

[Phenomenal Cat]

Tue Apr 28, 2009 5:57 am

…in 1993, genre hopping alternative superstar Beck enters into an unusual and unprecedented arrangement with his financiers (hereinafter referred to as DGC). This unusual agreement will spawn an even stranger renegotiation in five years time.

DGC - alarmed that their flagship band, Nirvana, were shifting fewer units with each subsequent release (despite good natured songwriter/Pisces Kurt Cobain penning such blatantly commercial efforts as “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter”) - set their sights on a newer model Nirvana/Cobain. In honor of the changing face of music - largely the product of such forward thinking DGC strategies as a) signing up such modern artists as Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Nelson, Counting Crows, Warrior Soul, and Sloan, and b) suing “godfather of grunge” Neil Young and attempting to have Young’s fingers broken if he played so much as one more solo for the label - much ballyhoo would be made of this act and this signing. This “new Cobain” would ideally demonstrate every facet of the post-Lollapalooza utopia of the new and improved music business. Provided they found a superstar young enough, fresh enough, alternative enough, eclectic enough, quirky enough, “indie” enough, and - crucially - white enough to improve flagging income, DGC would make quite a show of offering this artist every contractual perk befitting of a post-Nirvana superstar in the brave new world of mid ‘90s entertainment commerce.

As luck would have it, Geffen A&R bigwig Gary Gersh happened to meet just that artist while parking his car at a Hollywood Blvd. Church of Dianetics. The young man who accosted Gersh with an acoustic guitar and a rambling monologue about chimpanzees was also a Scientologist, and offered to stop singing if Gersh would promise to listen to his demo tape. Gersh declined to listen, but - ecstatic at the cessation of song - promised the kid a massive recording contract with “the hippest major on the planet” if he made good on his promise never to sing in Gersh’s presence again. Certain that he had found the next Cobain (with an added dash of this Daniel Johnston fellow that Cobain was constantly raving about), DGC immediately set him up with hotshot producers and the promise of a high profile slot on the following summer’s Lollapalooza tour. True to their word, the label made quite a splash in the press by offering their new signing the freedom to record for less powerful labels in exchange for any royalties he might someday be due. A stoned looking Beck duly smiled for Sassy magazine’s cameras and waited for this “timing” with which his bosses seemed so obsessed.

Assuring Beck that his record (named Mellow Gold in tribute to both the current Unplugged craze and the golden lettering of that fateful Scientology center) would “fill a void”, both the album and catchy hit single “Loser” were unleashed on the world just days before Cobain a) threatened to leave his band and void their Lollapalooza slot, and b) met his to-this-day mysterious demise. As promised, a nation of teens and twenty-somethings found solace in Beck’s gentle outsider art, much as America’s youth had 30 years earlier when the Beatles came along to serenade them through the mourning of their own Kurt (charismatic president John F. Kennedy).

Beck’s second LP, 1996’s Odelay (so named after a rebuffed Scrabble play, and described by the artist as “A Paul‘s Boutique for the 90‘s“) was an even bigger smash than the first had been, spawning a) innumerable ejaculatory reviews and plaudits, and b) a total of 20 separate top ten singles. Beck had arrived. A two month engagement on NBC’s Saturday Night Live (turned down by label mates Slash’s Snakepit as “overexposure”) made Beck ubiquitous, and it became clear to his bosses that he alone could keep DGC in the black for decades to come.

Suddenly, their offer to allow their biggest artist to record for other labels seemed like the most dangerous type of folly. His next record, Mutations (reportedly “a Sweet Baby James for the ‘90’s“), had already been promised to indie label Bongload, and Gersh’s successors were kicking themselves, furious with such frivolous intoxication.

Desperate to negotiate with Beck, several top ranking DGC officials met with the artist for a re-tooling of his contract. Beck, well aware of his increasing stature with the label, promised his future masterworks to the label under the provision that they unconditionally fund his next pet project - “a Hysteria for the 90’s”. Intrigued by the legendary perfectionism and cold-hearted mercenary commercialism of the perennial selling Def Leppard blockbuster (certain lead vocals were rumored to have been refined over a seventeen month period), Beck offered the label semi-annual contract fillers in exchange for the freedom and budget to make his masterpiece with similar nitpicking detail. Such a deal was hammered out in record time.

And so it came to pass. Beck teamed up with such legendary song doctors as Jim Steinman, Dianne Warren, Linda Perry, and Desmond Child for intense composing sessions which rigidly involved “lyric night” and “metaphor night” (Beck had taken a special liking to Child’s work with Aerosmith, particular the similes of “Angel”, “Dude (Looks Like A Lady)”, and “Rag Doll”).

10 different studios in the Los Angeles area were block booked for indefinite periods, so that Beck and payrolled co-producers Bob Rock, Bruce Fairbarn, and Mutt Lange could tweak the record’s performances, songs, and mixes ad infinitum. All on Geffen’s dime.

As the project creeped on year after year, Beck made good on his end of the bargain, shoving out such makeweights as Midnight Vultures (“a Lovesexy for the 90’s“), Sea Change (“a Desperado for the modern age“), Guero (“an Odelay for the 21st Century”), The Information (“a Mutations for the 2000‘s”), and Modern Guilt (“a Midnight Vultures for the new millennium”), all the while continuing his painstaking work on a sexy hard rock blockbuster which would fill a massive consumer void in the decade that fun forgot.

There were innumerable casualties along the way. Fairbairn - hired for his immaculate work on Jackyl’s Push Comes To Shove - passed away of exhaustion in 1999. Many of Beck’s long term sidemen, notably “some guy from Jellyfish”, were dismissed from the project early on due to insufficient chops. Musicians came and went, most scandalously children’s entertainers The Flaming Lips whose tour as Beck’s backing band in 2002 came to an acrimonious end as Beck revealed to them that a) the tour had been a test run for a handful of rhythm tracks for his work in progress, and that b) their shockingly amateurish musicianship had no place on a professional record, least of all his own. Lips front man Wayne Coyne - sworn to secrecy regarding Beck’s recording plans - could do little more than pout vaguely in the press about Beck’s meanness for the next 5 or 6 years. Lange - hired for his outstanding work on Billy Ocean’s Love Zone (at one point a working title for what is still being called “the Beck project”) - eventually sacrificed his marriage to Canadian songwriter Shania Twain as a consequence of spending year after year locked in intense sessions with Beck. Singer Axl Rose - hired for his efficient work on Guns ‘N’ Roses’ The Spaghetti Incident - leaves “the Beck project” after two painstaking years spent doubling Beck’s vocals on a handful of key tracks. Calling the sessions “indulgent”, “wasteful”, “excessive”, and “Roman”, Rose sees the experience as cautionary and vows to finish his own long running “masterwork” as quickly as possible.

Rose's Chinese Democracy is released on Thanksgiving 2008 to little fanfare or acclaim.

As for Beck, his management will only allow that he is "hard at work" on new music.