The Wall DVD: Waters Mucks it Up

I recently considered writing a review of Elvis Costello’s self-indulgent, smug and laborious book, Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink (a conclusion in stark contrast to that of The New York Times and other reviews), but decided not to dwell on a man who when I last saw him told the audience at the Chicago Theater to “fuck off,” thereby ending an era during which I shelled out good cash to finance his illustrious career.  He hasn’t made a dime off of me since. (I borrowed his book from the library.)

Then there’s Roger Waters, another self-indulgent musician, who just released the long-awaited DVD of The Wall, recorded on Waters’ worldwide tour that I completely missed and have been kicking myself for ever since.  I know Pink Floyd fans who think very little of The Wall, but for me it’s among the greatest achievements in rock history and it was a hugely important album for me when it came out in 1979.  So why didn’t I see the show?  I don’t know.  It was a weeknight, I didn’t know anyone who wanted to go, my wife was traveling and I had three kids at home.

In other words, I was being a lame, old suburbanite.

So it was with eager anticipation that I opened the DVD last night, turned off the lights, put on the headphones, leaned back and pressed play.  And look, it was good.  But @@leave it to the ever self-important Waters to muck up what could have been a terrific vicarious concert-going experience.@@

I knew that the film wasn’t only a concert and that it included scenes of Waters talking about his father who died in World War II.  That’s cool.  I get it.  But he didn’t just include these scenes at the beginning and ends of the film (or better yet, as a completely separate film), but rather interjected the scenes throughout the concert!  He’s not the first to commit this sin (Paul McCartney’s In Red Square, Joe Jackson’s 25th Anniversary Special), but interrupting the flow of concept album like The Wall completely detracts from the experience, akin to playing the album in shuffle mode.  It utterly misses the point.  Other bands have released remarkable concert DVDs that include a documentary in the extras, and that would have made much more sense for The Wall.  At the very least the menu should have given the viewer the option of watching the concert with or without the documentary footage. 

So, yes, I’m glad the DVD was released.  Yes, I teared up during various tunes.  Yes, I loved being able to finally witness the technological advances Waters added to the production since last performing the show in Berlin in 1990.  And yes, I even didn’t mind the highly staged scenes in which Waters visits the graves and/or memorials of his father and grandfather.  I just didn’t need to see them between songs during one of the most spectacular tours ever staged.

What a bummer.

Record Night - The End of New Wave

Record night traveled south last Friday to the Heinz household, allowing for ping-pong, barbecue and s’mores, but music was still front and center.  Kevin attempted to answer the question: what happened to new wave, when did it end, and what did it morph into?  He came prepared, even going month by month from October of ’85 into 1986 to illustrate what was happening musically at that time (our senior year).  Turns out there was more going on than the classic rock I was listening to.  Go figure. 

John brought a 45 grab bag.  We primarily stuck to the following rule: grab a 45 without looking and play the B-side.  By this method, we heard some of the worst Tom Petty songs ever recorded.  Also, the “no Pink Floyd” rule was also broken for the first time.

Paul’s theme was pick any song he felt like playing, resulting in the first Carpenters song ever played on record night, and neighbor Kevin came to offer a few selections as well. 

Without further ado, here’s the list.  Note that we warmed up with a few tunes prior to beginning the various themes. Forgive any typos or erros.

Kevin                    Stevie Nicks                       Voilet and Blue

Kevin                    Peter Gabriel                     Walk through the Fire

Paul                      Tom Petty                          Rebel

John                      Buddy Holly                        Not Fade Away

John                      Falco                                   Auf Der Flucht

Kevin                    ABC                                      How to be a Millionaire (beginning the theme, 10/85)

Kevin                    Kate Bush                           Running up that Hill

Kevin                    Dream Academy               The Party

Paul                      Graham Parker                  Discovering Japan

John                      Queen                                 Radio Gaga (A-side)

Kevin                    Arcadia                               Goodbye is Forever

Paul                      Everly Brothers                 Love Hurts

Paul                      Everly Brothers                 Cry, Sigh, Almost Die

John                      Bruce Springsteen            Shut out the Light (B-side of Born in the USA)

Kevin 2                 BoDeans                             First side of Outside Looking In

Kevin                    Dokken                               In my Dreams

Kevin                    Motley Crue                       Too Young to Fall In Love

Paul                      Producers                           She Sheila

Paul                      Rolling Stones                   Miss You (12 inch disco remix)

John                      Rolling Stones                   Emotional Rescue

John                      Elvis Costello                     Veronica

Kevin 2                 Alison Moyet                     Resurrection

Kevin                    Level 42                              Something About You

Kevin                    Falco                                   Vienna Calling

Kevin                    Art of Noise                       Peter Gunn

John                      Rod Stewart                       I’m Losing You

John                      Supertramp                        Rudy (B-Side of Take the Long Way Home)

Paul                      Fleetwood Mac                 Beautiful Child

Paul                      Fleetwood Mac                 Gypsy

Kevin                    Chameleons UK                Mad Jack

Kevin                    REM                                     Superman

John                      Rolling Stones                   All the Way Down (B-side of Undercover of the Night)

Paul                      Led Zeppelin                      Celebration Day (live version)

Kevin                    Ministry                              We Believe

Paul                      Simple Minds                     Up on the Catwalk

Kevin                    Peter Gabriel                     Ga Ga and Walk into the Fire (B-sides of 12 inch Red Rain)

John                      Pink Floyd                           One of my Turns (B-side of Another Brick in the Wall)

Paul                      James Taylor                     That Lonesome Road

Kevin                    Billy Idol                              Don’t need a Gun

John                      Tom Petty                          Heartbreaker’s Beach Party (B-side of Change of Heart)

John                      Tom Petty                          Change of Heart

Paul                      The Carpenters                 Goodbye to Love

Kevin                    Peter Murphy                    Bauhaus

Kevin                    Sigue Sigue Sputnik          Love Missile F1-11

Paul                      Stevie Wonder                  You Haven’t Done Nothin’

John                      Tom Petty                          It’s Raining Again (B-side of Refugee)

Paul                      Supertramp                        It’s Raining Again

Paul                      Supertramp                        Crazy

Kevin                    The Cure                             Just Like Home

John                      Supertramp                        Just Another Nervous Wreck (B-side of Logical Song)

Paul                      Elton John                          Sweet Painted Lady

Kevin                    Elton John                          Funeral For a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding

Marking Time with Music

(note: this originally posted on www.planetback.com in 2008.  I've editted it for this posting)

Quick.  What’s the first thing that comes to mind when I mention the year 1979?  A birthday?  A graduation?  Your first kiss?  A song by the Smashing Pumpkins?  If you’re like me, and God help you if you are, your mental timeline is marked not so much by life’s personal milestones, but by album release dates.  It’s my way of attaining order in a random universe. 

Take the year 1975.  Springsteen’s Born To Run and Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti come to mind, though I was only seven years old that year.  Age doesn’t really matter when it comes to marking time (at least it didn’t until I turned forty); I’ve retroactively pegged years from long before my birth.  1954?  Bill Haley’s “Rock Around The Clock” (not an album, per se, but you get the idea).  1967?  The Beatles’ St. Pepper and Hendrix’s Are You Experienced.  Of course, more recent years have the added benefit of intertwining personal experience with album release dates.  Peter Gabriel’s So and Paul Simon’s Graceland came out the year of my high school graduation, and Ben Folds Five and Alanis Morissette both debuted albums in 1995, the year I was married.

1979 stirs up memories of my very first album purchases.  I started boldly, with a live double album from Aerosmith, graduated to Supertramp’s Crime of the Century and Led Zeppelin’s In Through The Out Door, and finished off the year with Pink Floyd’s magnum opus, The Wall.  This was the album that had everybody talking.  Whatever side of the Floyd fence you fell on, there was no disputing The Wall’s significance. 

Memories of my family’s trip to Florida the following spring are inextricably linked to the unwavering play lists of rock stations from Milwaukee to Tampa: “All of My Love,” from Zeppelin, “The Devil Went Down To Georgia” by Charlie Daniels (with the phrase “son of a gun” replacing “son of a bitch” for radio play – oh the innocence!), and the ubiquitous “Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2.”  This is the Floyd song that features a disco beat and a children’s choir singing “We don’t need no education” (both moves a stroke of production genius).  It was an unmelodic piece, almost childish, but that didn’t stop me from buying the sheet music to expand by blossoming piano repertoire.  When I handed the music to my appalled piano teacher, Mrs. Trotier, she produced a sigh that could have signified the end of society, but to her credit, she helped me plod my way through the song, deciphering the complicated rhythms of David Gilmour’s transcribed guitar solo.

Meanwhile, schoolteachers from all around the country feared mutiny.  The lyrics to “Another Brick In The Wall, Part 2” clearly had appeal to any student with an ounce of deviance, but my sixth grade teacher, Mr. Middlestead, didn’t quite see it that way.  He decided to facilitate a class discussion on the topic, an admirable move except when considering his audience.  He copied the song’s lyrics on the chalkboard at the front of the classroom and asked the students to read along while the song played.  After pressing stop on the tape player, he asked, “What is it about this song that you find appealing?”

We offered nothing except shoulder shrugs and blank stares.  None of us really knew why we liked the song.  We just did.  It was on the radio, and it was sort of funny.  But no one was brave enough to say so.  Finally, after watching my teacher die a slow death in front of the classroom, something inside me – probably vanity – provoked me to speak up. 

“This song isn’t even as good as the other two.  Part 3 is way better.”  I was referring to an almost identical song with slightly different lyrics on the album’s second side. 

My teacher’s eyes widened.  “That’s what I’m trying to get at.  You think this is the worst of the three ‘Another Brick In The Wall’ songs, and yet this is the one that’s attracted so much attention.  Why?”

“I don’t know…but Part 3 is really cool.  It starts out with a guy smashing his TV!” 

I raised my hands to mimic the action, but halted when Mr. Middlestead placed a hand on his forehead.  Then, starting to sense my own death, I turned to my classmates for support and distinctly remember Jon Lewis giving me a look that he’d previously reserved for the class dork.  I had just doubled the number of dorks in our classroom and completely negated any crumb of respect I’d garnered from my classmates all year. 

Damn you, Roger Waters!

So what’s the upshot of all this?  Nothing really, except to say that while 1979 is a highlight in my mental timeline, and could be for almost any music fan, I don’t imagine today’s kids will look back at the year 2014 with the same fondness.  And that’s not just because I’m an old guy hankering for the old days; today’s kids are already wallowing in the past.  Look around and you’ll see teenagers wearing t-shirts with the logos from Zeppelin, Rush, The Who, Nivana and the Stones.  It reminds me of a conversation I had at a party back in 2008 when a familiar song began to play in the background. 

“Oh, I like this song,” a woman said.

“Yeah, Warren Zevon,” I said.

“Who’s Warren Zevon?”

“The guy who does this song.”

“No.  It’s someone else.  Kid somebody?”

“It’s Warren Zevon.”

And then a voice began singing an alternative melody right on top of Warren Zevon’s original classic!  So all 2008 had going for it was a hit by Kid Rock based on based on samples of two songs from long ago: Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” from 1974 and Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London,” from 1978. 

Wallowing in the past.