Ask Greil: March 27, 2023

When you ran through the “Season of the Witch” cover versions [March 6], you didn't mention a version the Dream Syndicate did it in studio at KPFK in 1982. It takes the song places I've never heard anyone else get to—a prolonged out-of-tune stumble until the 4:45 mark when the guitars start to rage and the song ascends into a frenzy that builds until the singer comes back in screaming like someone being murdered, or someone committing the murder and loving it. Anyway, wanted to bring it to your attention, in case you weren't aware and in the hope that you might get something out of it etc. —SCOTT CRENEY

I didn’t know this, and I’m glad I do now. I think it opens up the box of why cover versions fail—or at the least fail to add anything to the story already told.  

The laconic, everyday, what’s-the-big-deal tone of the vocal as it opens is new, refreshing, in its way taking for granted the world Donovan’s record left behind. Living on that map. It’s the bucking up of the chorus that’s the mistake: by now, it’s just cheap melodrama, but continuing the song on the same flat plane as the verses would have made it new, something the musicians and the listener hadn’t heard before—a new map. And that opens back to what the first problem really is.

In his clipped tone, Donovan sang the words of his song so clearly, with such insistent precision, and the song was so immediately disseminated by others, that it’s almost impossible to hear any new version without the defining sense that you’ve heard the song before. The Dream Factory almost get out from under that—with that distracted drawl, as if the singer is having a thought he hasn’t had before, I can really see some bored teenager strolling down a street in his or her hometown that hasn’t changed a leaf or a door in his or her lifetime—and then the street turns into a video game and the spell of the ordinary is broken.

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Goats Head Soup has “Winter,” though [March 6], top-ten Stones for me. Maybe that has a lot to do with the circumstances under which I first heard it, walking my grandparents’ pasture, harboring crushes, in my early teens, but this is poetry: “And I wish I’d been out in California / When the lights on all the Christmas trees went out.” —MICHAEL ROBBINS

It’s as if they thought, we had this arrangement back in ‘73 for a number that never got off the ground. But maybe it would work with this Memory thing I’ve been working on...

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By some quirk of the cosmos, shortly before I read your comments here on Del Shannon I happened to see a CNN interview with former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, occasioned by former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan's announcement that he wouldn't seek the Republican nomination for president in 2024. Hogan's reasoning is that having too many primary candidates would ensure that Donald Trump recaptures the nomination. 

Hutchinson disagrees, favoring "more voices" in alternative to Trump, but, "hats off to Larry, for what he's done."

He added that he will be making his own decision on whether to run next month. —STEVE O’NEILL  

Priceless.

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When I saw the title of your Substack newsletter, “Letter in the Ether,” my immediate thought went to "Letter's in the Post" by Mekons. But not long after I flashed on "Ether" by Gang of Four. Were either/both of these on your brain when you devised the title? —TERRY

Not at all. The notion of ‘in the ether,’ as in nowhere, as in floating without motive or purpose, has always appealed to me.

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Do you agree or disagree with the general consensus that Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr make for one of rock music's finest rhythm sections? —BEN MERLISS

I don’t rank. They were up there—with Al Jackson and Duck Dunn of the MGs, Carlton and Ashton Barrett of the Wailers, Benny Benjamin and James Jamerson of the Funk Brothers, Earl Palmer and Hal Blaine of the Wrecking Crew, just to keep it to the Beatles era at its far reaches. And, the ultimate, Keith Richard on bass and Charlie Watts on drums and Rocky Dijon on congas on “Sympathy for the Devil.” But really just the bass.

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I want to join the chorus of people letting you know how much your writing has meant over the years. Your guide to punk/new wave/whatever in the April 7, 1980, issue of New West magazine (with the Gary Panter Jimbo cover) changed my life as surely as any Clash or Sex Pistols record. For a kid without older siblings or cool friends growing up in a pre-internet small town, it was a treasure map. It opened doors I didn’t know existed. In many places/ways, punk was over by that point, but for me it was just beginning. I’m curious to know whether there are any records you would now add to (or subtract from) the Classics list in your “Grit Parade”? Any changes you would make, whether from the benefit of hindsight or because the records came out after the magazine’s deadline, or just because you now have infinite column inches… (e.g., X had yet to put out an LP at the time… and maybe the early Mekons singles have grown in stature, looking at them from the far side of Fear and Whiskey?) I’m also curious about how your Legatees section might shape up today if you were to add records released after publication. —HOVA NAJARIAN

It's more than humbling to find that a piece like that carried you so far. Rereading it, I think I was somewhat cowardly, too many times using the meaningless "new wave" instead of punk (the issue was supposed to be about New Wave). My categories are off, if not meaningless in their own right. If I had to do it again I'd drop the Precursors (nothing I said wasn't obvious) and go with the Out of Nowhere feeling. I'd do the California section myself, with singles by the Avengers, VKTMS, X, and more. I'd change the section name "Classics" to something else; Explosions, maybe. I'd include the Mekons Fast Product singles "Never Been in a Riot"/"32 Weeks"/"Heart and Soul" and "Where Were You," and Gang of Four's Fast Product "Damaged Goods" EP, plus Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures and Closer on Factory, the essential and absolute Buzzcocks’ “Spiral Scratch” EP on New Hormones and the Slits’ untitled so-called official bootleg on Y, which has always sounded as if it were recorded the day the band was formed, though Viv Albertine remembers it being around the time the band broke up.

I'd drop the Jam. And the whole idea of "Legatees" is really off. There's some arbitrary line being drawn. Maybe best to drop all categories, put Marianne Faithfull and the Wailers' "Punky Reggae Party"right there with Howard Devoto. But to go farther than the date of the issue of the magazine would mean writing a whole new book.

I've always thought the best piece in that issue was Charlie Haas's punk travelogue "Anger to Go," all fun and speed, as in time: "You think people have time to grow their hair long? Time to listen to 15-minute guitar solos? People have to be someplace in 15 minutes."

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New to this forum but not to your great work! For years, I’ve wondered whether The Doors really had any friends at all in the rock and roll world! Morrison’s caddy behavior, especially toward women, and constant whacked out state might make it clear why he didn’t, but what about Ray, Robbie and John? They’re three hugely talented players, and Ray seemed especially articulate, outgoing and good humored, but I’ve never seen a thing about them pal-ing around with any other bands. Thoughts? Thanks! —JIM MURPHY

I really don’t know. It could be that the band’s instant and overwhelming success and then the Miami scandal made people feel superior, i.e., jealous. I can tell you that when I saw them, other than Morrison they were usually in the crowd to hear the opening acts.

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Hello Greil! I just wanted to say I’ve been getting more familiarized with your work since I first read Lipstick Traces, which I thoroughly enjoyed. One thing I wanted to ask is that I’ve noticed in your music writing in recent years you don’t write many contemporary artists that have made such a big impact on this generation critically and commercially. So with that said, I wanted to ask your opinions about the music of the following artists who have made that impact and who I’ve never seen you discuss before: Kendrick Lamar / Frank Ocean / Lorde —SEBBY

I had trouble framing thoughts about Kendrick Lamar—it’s no wonder he won a Pulitzer, he’s more literary and formally ambitious than Bob Dylan or perhaps even Barack Obama. And after I read Hanif Abdurraqib in They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us and the social meaning of “Alright” there was no point: he was already in deeper than I was going to get, and it was clear he had staying power. Frank Ocean struck me mostly as a face, a model, an ad. Lorde to me performs as queen of all she surveys and I’ve never heard a note from her that wasn’t self-advertising.

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What are your views on Aerosmith and AC/DC? — BEN MERLISS

I always liked the Bon Scott AC/DC. “It’s a Long Way the Top” is a firestorm, and funny too. I remember being in Seattle at the height of Nirvanamania and seeing a huge and excited crowd on First Avenue. What’s that for? I asked someone, thinking it must have been Pearl Jam or even the Neverminders. AC/DC! he said.  

Aerosmith were better than REO Speedwagon because they had a better looking guitar player.