On October 30th and 31st the World Thoroughbred Championships aka Breeders' Cup comes to Keeneland. On Versailles Road, just west of downtown Lexington and next door to historic Calumet Farm, Keeneland is at the very heart of thoroughbred country. For those two days in October, many (but not all) of the world's greatest thoroughbreds will - on Saturday the 31st in particular - compete in the richest day of racing anywhere on the planet. Horses will converge from all corners of the globe (yes, I know that a globe has no corners) at scenic Keeneland; from Canada, England, Ireland, France, Japan, Australia, Argentina and these United States. The much-deserved hype has already begun and over the course of this year I will try my best to not wear you out on the subject.
With the interwebz and ever-expanding cable/satellite channel offerings, watching races or race replays from Europe and elsewhere becomes easier with each passing year. Those recently introduced to The Sport of Kings may have heard of Royal Ascot and perhaps Epsom Downs or even Longchamp. When reading a past performance from Newmarket, for example, it would be easy for the uninitiated to presume that the racecourse itself is of a fairly standard design following the ubiquitous oval that we North Americans are familiar with. After all, can you name one New World racecourse that is not laid out in oval form? Yet, horses race on tracks that look very different in the Old World. Indeed, horse racing across the pond might as well be from another galaxy.
It may be a long way to Tipperary but at least the race course there is recognizable:
If only tracks were so uniform. Variety may be the spice of life but it must confuse the thoroughbreds.
Thurles:
Naas:
Ascot:
Epsom:
Hamilton:
Goodwood:
Newmarket:
You can view more European racecourse randomness at the same website from which I absconded with the above images at racinguk.
Obtuse and irregular layouts are one thing, but these Old World racecourses - in another contrast with New World tracks - are not level. In some cases, far from level. Check out this flyover of the Epsom Derby as narrated by the greatest jockey in the world, Frankie Dettori. This video of Newmarket might better illustrate the undulating nature of the European course. Newmarket is the English version of Lexington, Kentucky.
Make no mistake; Lexington is second to none.
Roll the credits!
While slaving over the research that eventually developed into the "Harmonic Convergence, 1975" posting, I had an early suspicion that The Who, Rush, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd were again all active to some degree in 1980 [they were] and that, furthermore, both The Police and U2 might have been recording and/or touring. Upon opening the Pandora's Box of 1980 album releases I couldn't resist a compilation of that year's most notable vinyl. Herewith, a distillation of that list beginning where the last posting left off:
It is worth noting that 35 years ago, in 1980, a similar if not quite as spectacular Harmonic Convergence [sic] occurred. The Big Four of The Who, Rush, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd toured once again (although, among them, only Rush released a studio album that year; the masterful Permanent Waves). Also releasing studio albums and/or touring that year were, arguably, the two leading bands that came to define the 1980s (and 1990s for one):
The Police (Zenyatta Mondata, #1 in the UK, #5 In the US)
U2 (Boy, #52 UK, #63 US)
1980 was a memorable year in music (weren't they all?) - a year that saw competing and disparate styles of music rivaling one another for popular preeminence:
The Clash (Communista! Sandinista!, #19 UK, #24 US)
The Pretenders (Pretenders, #1 UK, #9 US)
Christopher Cross (Christopher Cross, #6 US)
Journey (Departures, #8 US)
Van Halen (Women and Children First, #6 US)
Genesis (Duke, unknown chart positions)
Billy Joel (Glass Houses, #1 US, #9 UK)
Pete Townshend (Empty Glass, #5 US)
Judas Priest (British Steel, #4 UK, #34 US)
Waylon Jennings (Music Man, #36 US)
Devo (Freedom of Choice, #22 US, #47 UK)
AC/DC (Back in Black, #1 UK, #4 US)
Hall & Oates (Voices, #17 US)
Johnny Cougar (Nothin' Matters and What If It Did, #37 US)
Ozzy Osbourne (Blizzard of Ozz)
Kool & the Gang (Celebrate!, #10 US)
Talking Heads (Remain in Light, #19 U, #21 UK)
Bruce Springsteen (The River, #1 US, #2 UK)
Dire Straits (Making Movies, #4 UK, #9 US)
Motorhead (Ace of Spades)
REO Speedwagon (Hi Infidelity, #1 US)
The Jam (Sound Affects)
Blondie (Autoamerican, #3 UK, #7 US)
The Blues Brothers (Made in America)
For those of you who think I'm far too harsh on two of the better-known British Invasion bands and their individual membership, feast your senses on this junk from '80:
Rolling Stones (Emotional Rescue; Ronnie Wood deserves so much better)
I can't bring myself to identify by name this garbage.
Roll the credits!
2015 marks the 40th anniversary of the true harmonic convergence and it has nothing to do with celestial bodies nor astronomy. Rather, 1975 was the only calendar year in which The Who, Rush, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd all released studio albums. Additionally, each of these four bands toured North America in 1975.
Ergo, 1975 was the greatest year in the history of rock music.
Before I continue, at great length and minute detail, I should define my parameters.
Firstly, I am limiting my definition of studio album to mean a long-play record (or records, in the case of a double album) of newly-recorded, previously unreleased material as opposed to, for example, a compilation album of older material, such as a "greatest hits" album or a "live" album of songs from some past concert or tour.
Secondly, I have limited the time frame for both released albums and concert tours to an admittedly arbitrary constraint which I shall label as a band's Productive Epoch which is meant to convey the conceptualization of a band's best-known, most influential, most vibrant, most-successful period. This Productive Epoch would see a respective band's most stable, recognizable and enduring membership and also coincides with a (mostly) uninterrupted period of activity and creativity (as far as could reasonably be applied to the assorted vagaries of rock stardom). Thus, any activity following a "break-up," such as reunions, reunion tours or one-off charity appearances do not qualify. As for specific, fully arbitrary examples applicable here; Led Zeppelin's Productive Epoch ended with the untimely passing of drummer John Bonham in 1980 and the cessation of normal band activities at, roughly, that point. The Productive Epoch for Pink Floyd ended when founding member Roger Waters quit following the 1983 release of The Final Cut album. I am defining the end of the Productive Epoch for The Who, not with the death of drummer Keith Moon in 1978 but rather with the conclusion to their 1982 North American tour (despite the demise of Moonie, The Who immediately soldiered on with a replacement [ex-Faces drummer Kenney Jones] and sustained sold-out stadium tours and Top 10 albums and Top 40 singles for another four years, right up until they walked off the Toronto Maple Leafs Garden stage to thunderous ovations December 17, 1982). As for Rush, excusing a five-year hiatus from 1997-2002, the Canadian power trio essentially has been an unstoppable force since drummer/lyricist Neil Peart joined in 1974.
It is important to note that, as a big fan of all the preceding examples, I am personally happy that the bands - or their surviving members - did continue at later periods. In the mid-1990s I traveled across the country to see Jimmy Page and Robert Plant perform Led Zeppelin songs together. I remain an enthusiastic fan of the post-Roger Waters studio releases from Pink Floyd (I'm a Dave Gilmour fan, anyway, but that's a discussion for another day). I've traveled great distances to see The Who perform on assorted reunion tours as far back as 1989, and I've purchased the various recorded material they've produced since their (initial) break-up. So it Is not that I am hostile towards the later efforts from these giants of rock music, nor unappreciative, I just define their later periods - arbitrarily, it must always be recognized - as being different (favorably excluding Rush which, under my terms, as yet has no post-break-up "later period").
Thirdly, for my purpose here today I am not going to fathom the murky origins of these bands in order to define a precise starting point to their respective Productive Epochs. Where and when each band may have gotten their respective starts playing high school gymnasiums or local bars/pubs or in the basement of Andy "Coach" Hughes is beyond the scope I am presenting here and, further, those periods would have been unknown to the national public at-large. I do have a day job and so I must apply constraints somewhere. Here is one of those constraints. I am starting the clock of Productive Epochs with the first studio album release.
Fourthly, it is my bias that these four bands represent the best of the best. There can be no question as to the significance and influence of either Led Zeppelin or The Who. Nor of their respective merits in terms of artistic vision, musicianship and performance. I am not the student of Pink Floyd that I am of The Who and Rush, but it probably is safe to say that Pink Floyd possessed a level of influence that few other bands achieved. One only has to look at their sustained record sales decades beyond their own Productive Epoch or Johnny Lydon's "I Hate Pink Floyd" t-shirt (or was that Aaron Kuertz?). Fair minds might question the influence of Rush, but even a casual viewing of the documentary Beyond The Lighted Stage would put to rest any such doubts. There can be no serious question as to the musicianship or vision of Rush.
Fifthly, I never have uttered nor written the word fifthly so I needed to find use for it here. Fair minds may question my exclusion of essentially solo artists like Chuck Berry or Bruce Springsteen (E Street Band? Come on.) or noted contemporary bands such as The Beatles or Rolling Stones or later supergroups like U2, The Police or Run-DMC. The Beatles were crummy. The Rolling Stones were/are mostly awful (excluding the spectacular Ronnie Wood). They have no place here. I like U2 as much as I do Pink Floyd, perhaps more so, but their Productive Epoch, as was true also for Chuck Berry et. al., was almost entirely of a different chronological period. The four dinosaurs rock gods I have chosen to spotlight here bestrode the earth during, largely, concurrent Productive Epochs. That said, we will revisit the subject of certain (slightly) later supergroups at the end of this piece.
Sixthly, (another new one for me), I do not consider the albums released in 1975 by Led Zeppelin and, especially, Rush to be my favorites from those bands. I would not suggest that these '75 albums are definitive examples of their oeuvre. This is probably also true in the case of Pink Floyd. Although the Pink Floyd release in this highlighted year might be 1a for me. The studio album released by The Who in 1975 has, with maturity, grown in my esteem more so than any other Who album since I became a Who fanatic all those decades ago in Junior High School. Whereas I would not have, as a teenager, suggested this album as the one to get, today I think I probably would.... after one had already acquired Who's Next. That said, The Who Live at Leeds is the greatest album of all-time. As to the quality of performance exhibited on tour that year, Rush would see many better days in their future. Live Zep and Floyd from this era is something which I don't have enough familiarity to authoritatively contextualize or quantify. The Who, long recognized as being the greatest live band of all-time, were in peak live-performance form in 1975 (and 1976, too, but that is beyond my scope today).
On February 15, 1975 Rush released their second-ever studio album (the first with new drummer/lyricist Neil Peart), titled Fly By Night.
That is album cover artwork (above) deserving of being a mural on the side of a full-size panel van. Fly By Night maxed-out on the Canadian charts (evidently this exists) at #9, the U.S. charts at #113 (you read that correctly; one hundred thirteenth) on the strength of its title track "Fly By Night." Whether you are laughing with or at Rush for their peculiar mid-1970s sartorial and hirsute sense, "Fly By Night" has had a lasting impact on pop culture. The great appeal to Fly By Night, however, was rock fandom's introduction to Neil Peart's brand of grand thematic expression and the expansive musical explorations of Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson as thrust upon the listener via the album's boldest musical foray "By-Tor and the Snow Dog." "By-Tor and the Snow Dog" was the template by which so many, later (and greater), Rush epics would be cast.
Barely more than one week after the release of Fly By Night, on February 24, 1975 Led Zeppelin unleashed its double-album Physical Graffiti. This was Led Zeppelin's fifth consecutive #1 album on the UK charts (shockingly, the so-called Led Zeppelin IV album stalled at #2 in the United States back in 1971. Say what?!).
And immediately we find ourselves walking a tightrope of qualifications.
Upon the conclusion of recording sessions for Physical Graffiti, Led Zeppelin found themselves with more than enough new material for just the traditional single-album but not quite enough for a double-album. Accordingly, they included some previously unreleased songs that had been recorded - in some cases - as many as 4 or 5 years earlier. Since the majority of Physical Graffiti consists of new material, I think it qualifies for inclusion.
While some of the older songs on Physical Graffiti are meritorious, such as "Houses of the Holy" (recorded in 1972 during studio sessions for the Houses of the Holy [1973] album), it was their newly-produced material that was Led Zep-exemplary; the funk-ified "Trampled Under Foot," "The Wanton Song," and the iconic "Kashmir" (all staples of FM radio airplay). If you find that you are unable to sit through eight and one-half minutes of "Kashmir," watch this 4-minute video of Jimmy Page guitar-god goodness and all will be revealed.
On September 12, 1975 Pink Floyd released their ninth studio album. Wistfully titled Wish You Were Here, it proved to be Pink Floyd's second #1 album in both the U.S. and U.K.
Not too dissimilar thematically or musically from their immediately previous studio album, the legendary Dark Side of the Moon (1973), the Wish You Were Here album opens with "Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V)" at 13:38 minutes long and closes with "Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts VI-IX)" at 12:29 in length, both almost entirely instrumental in style. Here is the epic, uninterrupted 26-minute version. You're welcome. Both Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here were the sonic backdrops against which I wrote all my high school and college essays, argumentative and research papers - in particular (and no doubt alarmingly to the members of Pink Floyd themselves) all my pro-capitalist, pro-military industrial complex, Right Wing incendiary-isms that all of you enjoy with so much mirth and contempt. Go figure. My all-time favorite Pink Floyd song is the album's title track "Wish You Were Here," a veritable masterpiece.
Just two weeks later, on September 24, Rush released Caress of Steel, their second album of 1975. Yes, you read that correctly, their second album of 1975. Those were the days!
There is a comical passage in the Rush documentary Beyond the Lighted Stage where the guys in the band lament the negative reaction to Caress of Steel upon its release. They were quite proud, naturally, of their work. Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson recounts the time they played the album for their friend Paul Stanley (of KISS infamy) and, as Alex puts it, "He didn't get it. A lot of people didn't get it." I am a Rush fanatic and I find myself squarely in that camp. It's the Rush album I've least listened. Duty requires that I link at least one track for your edification. I'll forgo "I Think I'm Gong Bald" and the homage to French independence, "Bastille Day" and link "Lakeside Park," Neil Peart's reflective look back at his own youthful days. What Caress of Steel has going for it is one of the best-ever heavy metal album titles. As a Rush fan it pains me to say this, but even the 12-minute "The Necromancer" and the twenty-minute, side-long "The Fountain of Lamneth" can't save Caress of Steel. "The Necromancer" isn't as bad as it may sound, in fact the concluding section of this tripartite epic was released as a single [!] is surprisingly AOR mainstream (minus the ominous opening narration), it's just that you have earn your easy-listening reward by navigating the first two sections (here, Rush fans will hear preludes to "2112" and "Cygnus X-1; Book 1" in this song, itself a kind of sequel to "By-Tor and the Snow Dog"). As for "The Fountain of Lamneth," well..... the section titled "Part II. Didacts and Narpets" requires courage on the part of the listener and "Part III. No One at the Bridge" requires a stiff drink and "Part VI. The Fountain" is impervious to all known forms of anesthetization. Of course, the risk you run from altogether skipping "The Fountain of Lamneth" is that you'd miss the bright, mid-tempo swing of "Part V. Bacchus Plateau."
Caress of Steel staggered to #60 on the Canadian charts and #148 on the U.S. charts. As suspect as its conceptualization and production may have been, without Caress of Steel there would not have been, released the very next year, the universally admired 2112.
It should also be obvious that 1975 was an epic year for epic-length songs.
The best album of 1975 was released on October 3; The Who by Numbers.
Album cover artwork by the multi-talented John Entwistle.
To be fair, The Who by Numbers was the lowest charting Who studio album of the 1970s; #7 in the U.K, #8 in these United States.
If, by this point, you've had your fill of lumbering heavy metal riffage or synthesizers or concept albums or mysticism..... so was Pete Townshend. Feeling some sense of exhaustion after birthing the major motion picture version of Tommy (1974), along with its star-studded soundtrack, Pete Townshend said in interviews that he wanted to get as far away from synthesizers as he could. Rather, he sat down with his acoustic guitar, a bottle of brandy, ignored the ringing telephone and wrote the songs that would become The Who by Numbers. The result is the most straight-forward, stripped-down studio album The Who were ever to release. And it is, simply, wonderful. The lyrical themes were drawn from Pete's having (then) recently turned 30 years old and thus finding himself at a personal and professional crossroads. The lyrical content of The Who by Numbers is introspective, reflective and self-critical. Yet these elements are borne more lightly with Pete Townshend's own brand of observation, wit and with a musical performance that is driving and energetic.
The Who by Numbers opens modestly with a sparse drumbeat, cowbell, hand claps and Pete Townshend counting-in the band on "Slip Kid" where Pete expresses his discovery that, counter to what his generation had earlier thought, there's no easy way to be free. No matter what the 'Sixties counter culturalists may have believed - or wished to believe - with maturity comes inescapable responsibilities. Even for rock stars.
The second track on the album proved to be Pete Townshend's most transparently honest. Originally titled, as a demo, "No Way Out," the final album version is titled "However Much I Booze." Reportedly, Who lead vocalist Roger Daltrey refused to sing the song's brutally self-critical lyrics and so Townshend himself recorded the vocals. An excerpted sample of the lyrics illustrates Daltrey's point:
I see myself on TV - I'm a faker,
A paper clown.
It's clear to all my friends that I habitually lie,
I just bring them down.
I claim proneness to exaggeration,
But the truth lies in my frustration...
...But however much I booze,
There ain't no way out!
I lose so many nights of sleep worrying about my responsibilities.
Are the problems that screw me up,
Really down to "Him or me?"
My ego will just confuse me,
Some day it's going to up and use me.
Dish me out another tailor made compliment,
Tell me about some destiny I can't prevent.
And however much I squirm,
There ain't no way out!
And the night comes down like a cell door closing.
Suddenly I realize that I'm writing now more honestly.
While sitting here all alone with a bottle and my head a-floating.
Far away from the phone and the conscious,
Going on at me, and on at me
But I don't care what you say,
There ain't no way out!
The upbeat musical performance serves as a necessary counter balance to the song's darker lyrical tone. And Pete's howl at the moon near the end of the song, before pleading for someone to give me the key, is both evocative of his own nocturnal inclinations as well as serves to lighten the song's overall mood.
The fourth track on The Who by Numbers is "Dreaming From The Waist" (titled "Control Myself" in demo form) and may be equal to the most powerful studio tracks which The Who ever recorded, unquestionably so in live performances. Moon's pounding assault on his drum kit, Entwistle's untethered bass soloing compliment Townshend's triple-tracked guitars; a droning twelve-string electric guitar, driving acoustic strumming and the ubiquitous lead six-string electric. Over all this musical detonation, Roger Daltrey's full-throated vocals battle for recognition.
Lyrically, "Dreaming Form The Waist" is as essentially red-blooded Who as it gets;
I feel like I wanna break out of the house,
My heart is a-pumping, I've got sand in my mouth.
I feel like I'm heading up to a cardiac arrest,
I wanna scream in the night, I wanna manifest.
I've got that wide awake - give or take,
Five o'clock in the morning feeling.
I've got the hots for the sluts
In the well-thumbed pages of a magazine.....
Well, perhaps it's best to leave off the opening verses at that.
The song's lyric grapples with those base urges against the acceptance that those behaviors are for a younger person and not those of the song's author (Townshend). This is better understood in the chorus:
(I'm dreaming) From the waist on down,
(I'm dreaming) But I feel tied and bound.
(I'm dreaming) Of the day that a cold shower helps my health,
(I'm dreaming) Dreaming of the day I can control myself.
And in, perhaps, the song's most cutting/revealing line:
I know the girls that I pass - they just ain't impressed,
I'm too old to give a-..., but too young to rest.
The third song on Side B of The Who by Numbers is titled "Blue Red and Grey" and it begins, jarringly, with Pete Townshend unaccompanied on a ukulele and singing in a higher register. The Who, by this stage, had long been known for the inclusion of joke songs on albums or on the b-sides of singles and so the listener might be forgiven for expecting more of the same when this song begins. However, the lyrical content here is quite serious and ultimately proves to be a celebration of all the small things in life which are so often overlooked. When, behind the song's second verse, John Entwistle's brass arrangement comes drifting in, the song takes on a surprising air of elegance and reverence. Allegedly a full-band version was recorded and discarded and has been lost to the ages. One is left to wonder how different it may have sounded.
Speaking of bassist John Entwistle, his lone song-writing contribution to The Who by Numbers was a song titled "Success Story" and which makes some light of the sacrifices a band makes on its way to the top and how ultimately unsatisfying the experience turns out to be. It merits inclusion here due to the excellent video clip which, most recognizably to music fans today, appears in The Kids Are Alright rockumentary and gives viewers a brief glimpse inside Entwistle's Cotswold estate and of his massive guitar collection. Plus, Entwistle shoots a machine gun. So there is that, too.
The songs on The Who by Numbers pointed to a promising road ahead for The Who in the sense that Pete Townshend found a way to transition from rebellious youth to maturity. In the years ahead this would find its best outlet more through the solo career of Pete Townshend as opposed to being a vehicle for future Who evolution. Musically, the album provides its listener with the clearest, most undiluted example of how The Who could sound as an accomplished, truly professional four-piece band (plus the odd multi-tracked instrumentations. You get my point.).
All four bands toured North America in 1975. Unless I have miscounted (the possibility of which you should not discount); Led Zeppelin made 38 North American tour stops as the major part of a 40-date concert tour, Pink Floyd played 28 North American concerts on a 29-stop tour, The Who made 20 North American tour stops on a 42-date world tour, and Rush played 141 concerts in Canada and the United States. One hundred forty-one! Plus or minus any errors I may have made in tabulation.
All four bands played in Canada, but most '75 tour dates (including for Rush) were in the United States. The Who had two tour stops in Ohio in 1975 (playing Cincinnati's venerable Riverfront Coliseum on December 8th), Led Zeppelin once (in Cleveland, boo!), Pink Floyd skipped Ohio entirely, Rush performed nine different times for Buckeye state fans (March 22nd in Cincy).
For a little more perspective on the barnstorming tactics of Rush, in 1974 they had 146 tour dates (eight times in Ohio) and in 1976 they performed 130 concerts (seven times in Ohio). In terms of their attention to the great state of Ohio, in those three years alone (1974-1976) Rush played Ohio 24 times. During their respective Productive Epochs, Led Zeppelin played Ohio seven times in total, Pink Floyd 11 times and The Who performed in Ohio 26 times (ten tour stops in 1967 alone). You should love the bands who love you back, Ohio! If you think to yourself, "Wow! I'll bet Rush has played Ohio 100 times!" you'd be short two concert dates.
However, I'm getting too far afield. Back to 1975.
The North American concert tours for the Big Three Brits (Who, Zep, Floyd) did not overlap. Led Zeppelin toured the New World from January to March of '75, Pink Floyd from April to June and The Who from October through December. With so many Rush concert dates in 1975, you would be correct in thinking there must have been some dates Rush shared with The Big Three. By my count, 38 dates in total. No, I won't go through all of them. Of note, on four occasions Rush played in the same state as either The Who or Led Zeppelin (never with Pink Floyd). On November 28th Rush was in Asheville, North Carolina and The Who were playing Greensboro. December 14th, Rush had a concert in Boston on the same night The Who had a tour stop in Springfield, MA. Earlier in the year, on February 27th, Rush and Led Zeppelin were both in Texas (Rush in Dallas, Houston for Led Zeppelin).
If you agree with my postulation that 1975 was the greatest year in rock, than you must also accept the corollary that January 31st, 1975 was the greatest night of that year as both Rush and Led Zeppelin had concerts in Detroit that evening (as for the single greatest day/night in the history of rock, determining that occasion would require more research time than my responsibilities permit).
It is worth noting that 35 years ago, in 1980, a similar if not quite as spectacular Harmonic Convergence [sic] occurred. The Big Four of The Who, Rush, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd toured once again (although, among them, only Rush released a studio album that year; the masterful Permanent Waves). Also releasing studio albums and/or touring that year were, arguably, the two leading bands that came to define the 1980s and beyond:
The Police (Zenyatta Mondata, #1 in the UK, #5 In the US)
U2 (Boy, #52 UK, #63 US)
Roll the credits!
