Past Prime Quarterly
Brian Wilson, John Olerud, Blue Öyster Cult, Jason Molina & Deep Purple
In case you need a tonic giggle after this Counting Crows-ishly long winter, let me refer you to a couple turgid misfires from Blue Öyster Cult & Deep Purple. Alternately, if it’s a purging cry that you need, Jason Molina’s farewell transmission & Brian Wilson’s prolonged second infancy should get the water working. But if you need something more cleansing — like a real emotional colonic — sit down & let me tell you a story.
Eight years ago — having not seen the the first movie — I proudly, albeit naively, chaperoned my five year old twins to a matinee screening of “Paddington 2.” For about three minutes (or however long the opening credits lasted) everything was fine — I was just a gently shushing, Swedish Fish doling dad. But soon enough I realized that I was in real trouble — that Paddington had somehow reached into my chest cavity & was holding my heart in his adorable little paw. Ninety-five minutes later I was a bawling blob, helpless to conceal the gutting I’d just experienced.
I swore that it would never happen again — except it did. Last weekend I brought my cusp of too old for Paddington son to see “Paddington in Peru.” And for ninety-eight minutes I held strong. Really strong. In 1991, Sports Illustrated1 ran an article claiming that (then) Blue Jays’ rookie John Olerud's resting heart rate was forty-four beats per minute. That’s how steely cool I was for most of “Paddington in Peru” — John Olerud resting heart rate cool. But alas, I could not hold on forever. With just five minutes to go, when that sweet Tremarctos Ornatus reunited with his Peruvian bear tribe only to then say farewell & reunite with his London human tribe, my levee broke. It was bad. Wheezing bad. If there was a soundtrack to my blubbering, it would heavily feature Air Supply.2
The Beach Boys “The Beach Boys Love You”
For decades, promiscuity & excess have been the gold standard for rockers running from the middle age slump. But there’s a less common strategy that can also be effective: regress further. Past adult, past teenager, past kid. Go full baby. Wear only a bathrobe. Write a song called “Ding Dang.” Build a sandbox in your bedroom & put your piano in the middle of it. For Brian Wilson, this return to an infantile state was more trauma side-effect than deliberate strategy. It allowed him to circumvent the pitfalls of trying to recapture his peak — like turning the odometer back to zero, he sort of beat the system. You don’t need to be a Beach Boys’ expert to take one listen to “The Beach Boys Love You” & see that Brian was the only Wilson who had anything to do with this one of a kind, deeply personal, strangely wonderful but totally bat-shit Beach Boys in name only album.
John Olerud “Un-unforgettable”
There are several permutations of the “Rickey & Oly” story, including hysterically far flung versions wherein the latter is basically Jesus. But, regardless of the version, the fundamental premise remains consistent. And as short stories go, this one is a formal marvel. It’s got a great setup & an even better kicker. It’s succinct & hysterically funny. It confirms our assumptions that Rickey Henderson was both extremely perceptive & completely oblivious — that he was operating on a different plane & dimension from “normal” stars. But most of all, it acknowledged the thing that every baseball fan knew to be true but which none would say out loud: that John Olerud was un-unforgettable.
Blue Öyster Cult was a band whose concept had always outpaced their reality — a signified connected to a signifier by a silent umlaut. Today, more than five decades since they were born, Blue Öyster Cult are remembered for three things. First, a couple of horror-inspired Rock radio hits (“Don’t Fear the Reaper” & “Godzilla”) from the mid-Seventies. Second, an unexpectedly au currant proto-New Wave single (“Burning for You”) from 1981. And third, but probably most of all — Christopher Walken feverishly demanding more midriff & much more cowbell from Will Ferrell on SNL’s retelling of “Don’t Fear the Reaper.” What they are absolutely not known for, however, is “Imaginos” — a baffling Rock Opera dreamed up by their former drummer, based on the collegiate poetry of their former manager. “Imaginos” is not really a Blue Öyster Cult album. Yes — it features the same five men who played on their beloved Seventies albums. But no — those five men did not actually write, play or record the album together. And yet, it’s important because the material not only predated the existence of Blue Öyster Cult, but actually invented Blue Öyster Cult.
Magnolia Electric Co. “Josephine”
It was a long & sickly couple of years for the patron saint of Secretly Canadian Records who’d been recently eclipsed by Justin Vernon as the spiritual heir to the Secretly Canadian Empire. By 2009 Molina was just barely holding on, confirming something we of course knew but which we wanted to forget — that before there could be “No Depression” there had to be “Yes Depression.” In the end, his return proved to be shaky & short lived. Soon after “Josephine’s” release, the man who’d tried to say “farewell” many times before indefinitely cancelled his tour plans. Over the next three years, aside from the occasional warning flare & false hope, Jason Molina was basically a living ghost.
Deep Purple “The House of Blue Light”
In “This is Spinal Tap,” documentarian Marty Di Bergi reminds the band that their 1980 album “Shark Sandwich” had once famously received a review which read simply: “Shit Sandwich.” But in (cinematic) fact Spinal Tap were always loathed by the critics & “Shark Sandwich,” which featured “Sex Farm” and “No Place Like Nowhere,” was actually something of a return to form. Like “Shark Sandwich,” Deep Purple’s “Perfect Strangers” did not fare well with the mainstream press. In 1985, Rolling Stone printed a two star review that read like a one star review that did nothing to deter long time fans. But, if “Perfect Strangers” was Deep Purple’s “Shark Sandwich,” it would follow that “The House of Blue Light” was their “Smell the Glove” — an ill-fated document of disunion about a band spiraling into mid-life crisis, starring a shirtless, forty-something Ian Gillan & a glowering, inebriated Ritchie Blackmore. It was must see TV. But it was inessential listening.
“A Gentleman and a Slugger” by Hank Hersch
Completely unrelated to Air Supply, but we’ve added piles of new tapes to the shop that won’t make you cry — Pink Floyd, Tom Petty, Led Zeppelin, Grateful Dead & Eagles.