The "Influential Records" Game Commentary, Part 1

I know that claiming Are You Experienced as one of the records that influenced you, especially as an electric guitar player, is a bit clichéd. But I still recall viscerally the first time I saw and heard this record! I’ve already told the story in my “addenda, part 1” notes, but I’ll tell it again: As the eldest child of a Baptist preacher, there was no way I was going to find out about Pop music except via TV, so I became a Monkees fan. One afternoon when I was about 11, a friend of mine and I snuck into his older brother’s room and put this record on. It changed my life. For one thing, living in an all-white suburb of Atlanta, I had never really seen a black person up close, and certainly never seen one dressed the way this guy was dressed! I stared at the gatefold photo of Jimi flanked by Noel and Mitch in matching afros for a long while, and pored over the cover art imagery and that crazy psychedelic photo on the front. The music was like it was from another star system! It took a while for me to process the changes that took place in my soul that afternoon, but changed it was! I have tended to favor trio configurations in my bands ever since, and have learned tons from Hendrix’ tone and technique. This record (and all his others) never get old. There’s always something new to find. I’m sure I was never the same again.

Record number two in the list has got to be Iggy And The Stooges Raw Power, the original version with the weird-as-hell mix by David Bowie. During my second year at college, I made friends with a guy who was a few years older than me. He had a good friend who ran the record store off campus, so he had managed to put together an impressive record collection numbering in the thousands. He read esoteric writings on consciousness and parapsychology; it was he who exposed me to the Julian Jaynes book The Origin Of Consciousness In The Breakdown Of The Bicameral Mind. He also always had a few different varieties of pot on hand, for different kinds of “high”. He immediately set about bringing my music awareness up to speed. This was one of those records that came from out of nowhere. I had no idea that there were bands in the US (or anywhere) that were making raucous, extreme, blasphemous music, let alone that had been doing it since 1969! Plus, the mix had the effect of rendering the recording as more than just a record of an event, but an artifact to be absorbed in its own right. This was a thing that was outside of time and space, and listening to it rendered the listener similarly “eternalized”. Not an easy thing to pull off! This was the record that would be a point of connection with anyone else who was starting to get into Punk Rock just a couple of years later.

My older friend also introduced me to David Bowie. I had been aware of him through late night FM listening in Dallas, but he was not in regular rotation so my friend had a lot of work to do catching me up. Now, after all these years, I can see that the careers of David Bowie and Iggy Pop have more in common than just Bowie’s early fascination with Iggy. They both, for me, succeed or fail based on the people they are working with. In Iggy’s case, it’s whoever he happens to be writing with. The music that backs his lyrics and presentation either drives him to maximum effort or drags him down. There is no real “in-between”. With Bowie, it falls to the guitarist that he’s working with, in my opinion. So anything with Mick Ronson was going to be god, And The Man Who Sold The World was the first and most coherent, for me. Don’t get me wrong; I love Ziggy (“Moonage Daydream” will always be a favorite) and Hunky Dory has some great tunes (“Oh! You Pretty Things”, “Andy Warhol”, and “Queen Bitch” are my faves), but Sold The World just feels more like a band kicking ass all the way through. I’m also partial to any Bowie records with Fripp on them, for the same reason, although by that point it’s obvious that it’s the David Bowie show all the way. I will also state the obvious effect that Eno has had on Bowie. Low in particular shines due to his influence; it doesn’t hurt having Ricky Gardiner on guitar either. And yes, I concede that Carlos Alomar is an awesome guitarist also, but his rhythm playing alone, while holding things together, couldn’t push them over the top into the mind-blowing area that those others have. For me.

My fourth pick is Radio Ethiopia by Patti Smith Group. Horses came first for me, again courtesy of my older friend (let’s call him my mentor), and I have noted it’s profound influence on my life elsewhere in this blog. But when Radio came out, it seemed to capture a comprehensive artistic statement in that particular moment. It had her most obvious punk tunes leading off each side, but also confidently broke with format to explore mid- and slower-tempo grooves and themes of drug use and scatology as well. I also feel that the multichannel layering of her lyrics in stream-of-consciousness style, competing for attention and carrying one along on the waves of words, are profound and unprecedented. Plus she included the acid-drenched improv of the title piece to prove that she couldn’t be stuck in a labeled box. Modern poetry music. Brilliant. I’m a lifelong fan.

I saw Patti Smith Group on the Wave tour at the Austin Opera House, and I saw her again, with just Tony Shanahan from her band accompanying her, alternately reading from her book and singing selected songs at The Paramount in Austin a few years back. In both instances, and especially the latter, she was so personable and intimate in her interaction with the audience as to make one feel that she was somehow talking only to you, and not a packed house. It was amazing, and just confirmed what a profound artist and human she is.