The disappointing outcome of Rock Town Hall’s latest Mystery Date got me thinking: Ever follow an instrumentalist in a band for years and think to yourself, “Boy, I’d love to hear what this cat could do on his own!” I used to feel that way about friend of Rock Town Hall, Richard Lloyd. I didn’t have to wait too long for his first solo album, which was about as exciting as a pile of wet cardboard, but in dribs and drabs over the years, he’s gotten his act together enough to put out some decent, hard-driving recordings under his own name.
Another guitar slinger from the punk era I badly wanted to hear fly solo was Robert Quine! Why wait for those 14-second bursts in Richard Hell and Lou Reed songs, I used to think (this was before he unleashed 14-second bursts of fury on Matthew Sweet albums), let’s hear Quine cut loose, unencumbered by verses and choruses! Then I found two instrumental albums he did, one with The Raybeats’ Jody Harris and the other with Reed drummer/producer at that time, Fred Maher. No matter how many bong hits I did during the years when I tried to unlock their promised magic, they remained sterile, clinical affairs. Each album had one or two repetitive pieces that were good for breaking up a mix tape. Never does Quine unleash a furious solo, full of all the grand-yet-concise gestures that marked his best work as a sideman. (By the way, if anyone can identify the Japanese guy Quine’s backing up in this YouTube as well as the non-rockin’ accordion player, I’d be much obliged.)
I’m not sure if there’s a sideman I’m dying to hear fly solo any more. It’s been mostly disappointing when my wishes are fulfilled. Have you had such wishes, fulfilled or not?
The Phil Manzanera solo album I bought in 1982 or so, after buying all the Roxy Music albums, was a letdown. Like those Quine albums, the artist didn’t cut loose with the abandon and humor I’d known and loved from his early, unbridled works as a sideman.
I most want to hear a solo album from Benmont Tench. I’d even watch an instructional video from him.
Most disappointing sideman gone solo for me is Graham Coxon. I know some people rate his solo career pretty highly, but not me. He has a bunch of solo albums, but I could only make it through two. One was his second, I think, mainly instrumental and experimental, and quite dull. The other was one of his more recent, poppy albums and I didn’t like that either. I miss the crazy, noisy riffs and solos he brought to Blur.
As a fan, I’d think (or at least I’d hoped) that players like Manzanera and Coxon would have been thrilled to be unharnessed and go even further out in exploring bold, new textures. Instead, these sidemen too often seem to retreat into exploring subtle textures. Is it because they’ve been there, done that, or because they have nothing to react to, nothing stable to drive against?
It was before my time, but I doubt older fans of Jeff Beck, Yardbirds sideman, would have thought he took the “low-key road” as he first flew solo. (I’m talking about the Jeff Beck Group albums and his first couple of solo, instrumental albums.)
I think with Coxon and Manzanera, they provided jagged textures to the works of really good, crafty songwriters (Albarn and Ferry). On their own, they can’t deliver as songwriters, so there’s no base for them to deliver what we love from them.
At least I know that’s kind of the case with Graham: he’s told interviewers that the guitar playing on his solo albums is less wild than his work with Blur because he’s a different kind of writer. I’ve not heard solo Manzanera, but I know Roxy very well (and that he and Coxon filled very similar roles in their respective bands), so I’m taking a bit of a guess here.
Unlike Coxon, at least Manzanera has worked collaboratively with good results at various times in the past. His first album, Diamond Head, is a favorite of mine, a series of collaborations with different people he had previously worked with, and it includes a couple of excellent Eno songs. And as I discovered when I bought that old album he recorded with his pre-Roxy prog buddies, Quiet Sun, CDs purchased directly from manzanera.com come signed by the man.
He’s got a new band, and a new instrumental album, which I haven’t heard yet, but which has gotten good reviews.
I remember liking Jimmy Destri’s solo album, but I wouldn’t make any great claims for it. Same with Jerry Harrison’s solo album.
David Lindley to me is the best example of a sideman who made the transition to bandleader/auteur.
Emmylou Harris has had a long solo career that I’ve never had much interest in, but she’s a genius as a harmony singer, and I’d pay to hear her do that anytime.
Oats mentioned Benmont. I’ve read that Mike Campbell has a home studio where he records constantly. I’d like to hear some of that, but I suspect whatever those pieces are would be better served being fleshed out by another songwriter/collaborator.
Roger Joseph Manning Jr. is a name I always look out for behind the front of a new project.
I really got into Jellyfish’s two albums (and the Fan Club boxed set) and have followed Manning through his Moog experiments and into Beck’s line-up.
I don’t always get into everything he’s done, but I will give everything a listen.
I think the guy is pretty clever and his pop-rock sensibility sits somewhat parallel to my own musical taste.
On the disappointing side, I’m still pissed off that I forked out the 40 odd bucks for Dave Gilmour’s first two solo efforts.
I don’t own them anymore, but I remember there being only one track out of the whole lot that I got into.
Pre Water-less Floyd the guy is a godamm rock-god guitar hero extraordinaire! But geeez, those solo efforts! I still shake my head in disbelief.
There’s a wonderful solo Billy Zoom album that exists only in my imagination, a thirty-two minute instrumental guitar showcase. His stuff with X always hinted at him having some unknown dimension.
An ideal example of the surprise solo release comes out of the jazz world. Billy Higgins was a renowned drummer, but almost exclusively as a sideman (that’s him drumming on Lee Morgan’s funky Blue Note classic “The Sidewinder”). Dying of cancer, he contacted his old friend Charles Lloyd (once in the Beach Boys circle) and they recorded a double CD of duets. In his entire career Higgins recorded almost exclusively on a standard kit, here he played an incredible array of foreign drums and percussion as well as playing a one-stringed Syrian instrument and an acoustic guitar and singing in a little sweet voice in four languages. He sounds profound on every instrument.
He died months later, but it seemed like he wanted to prove that, as he was being brilliant on the drums he could have had a career at front of the stage all along.
The CD is called WHICH WAY IS EAST, check it out if you’re curious. Its one of my favorite releases of the decade.
Count me in for the second sale of that solo Billy Zoom album.
The Higgins album is a great story. I’ll have to pick up a copy.
That Steve Nieve track I posted as the Mystery Date briefly made me think of an Allen Ravenstine solo album I’d like to hear, made up of 5 or 6 long workouts on that weird, ancient synth he used to play with Pere Ubu. He’d have to play some sax too. Tony Maimone could play bass. Hell, I’d be happy with Ravenstine, Maimone, and Scott Kraus playing a 40-minute version of “Blow Daddy-O.”
I’m also going to set aside money for db’s imagined Billy Zoom album.
I’ve never been a fan of The Smashing Pumpkins, but I really like James Iha’s solo record from about 1997. Not too interested in Perfect Circle or anything else, but that was nice record that seemed to define the true meaning of a solo record. What point is there in making a solo record if it sounds like your “band”. Can anyone tell me the difference between Steely Dan and the solo Becker and Fagen albums? Sound the same to me. Ditto for Petty. I can’t tell too much of a difference between his solo hits and his Heartbreakers tunes. But that’s just me. The Iha record doesn’t sound anything like The Smashing Pumpkins OR Perfect Circle. It’s a true solo.
I’m racking my brain trying to think of an sideman who I’d want to hear a solo from, but I can’t.
TB
From listening to his songs, I think I would like to hear a solo project from Stevie Jackson of Belle & Sebastian.
Also, I guess he’s totally out of music now, but it would be interesting to have Colin Moulding do a solo album. The most successful XTC singles were his songs (“Making Plans for Nigel”)
The only difference between Petty solo and with the Heartbreakers is the rhythm section (actually, sometimes just the drummer, which I think is why Stan Lynch eventually left).
That’s what I thought, cdm, and I’m not academic enough to really pore over the differences. Petty is Petty to me and I like him fine enough. I recently saw the epic Demme film about him and there was alot of talk about the betrayal the band felt when he was making Full Moon Fever. The great story was that Howie Epstein was waiting to do a bass track. When Tom finally called him into the studio, he confessed that he “just didn’t like the song.” Tom dismissed him from the session. The song was “Free Fallin'”. Then they show of clip of Tom on SNL (with The Heartbreakers) playing the song. There were alot of problems with Stan, and according to that documentary, there still are.
There’s another great scene in there where Petty is fighting with McGuinn’s producers over a particular song for Back To Rio. It’s a cool clip, but I digress…
…Here’s a band that needs to happen:
Stan Lynch on drums
Art Garfunkel on vocals
John Oates on guitar
Bruce Thomas on bass.
Call it the Partners Without Partners tour. Those guys can’t be too busy.
TB
I like it, TB!
Diskojoe, did you ever hear any of those note-for-note covers that Dave Gregory did of mostly late-60s songs? I heard a few years ago. They were fascinating, in a vaguely troubling way.
Maybe we can add another guitarist to our “band”: Denny Laine! He sure could use a gig.
TB
PS–Does anyone remember that Talking Heads record that came out in ’96 sans David Byrne? It was called No Talking, Just Head. I think they used the old different-singer-on-each-track trick. Clever title, but was the record any good?
I was going to bring up Dave Gregory, too. I get the feeling he’d fit in well at RTH as a guest speaker on proctomusicology.
Re: Graham Coxon, I still really enjoy his Happiness In Magazines album for approximating something of the Blur sound. He obviously doesn’t have Albarn’s vocal or lyrical skills, but “Bottom Bunk” is a great Blur-esque number.
I think what threw me most off about the album is that it sounds like the less experimental half of Blur’s 13, while I had assumed when there was talk about friction in the musical direction of the band back then, Coxon would have been pushing for the weirder stuff. Guess I had it backwards.
I’ve mentioned before that I’d be interested in hearing whatever albums the non-Yorke/Jonny Greenwood members of Radiohead might put out. I don’t know if they’d be any good, but it would be interesting to find out what O’Brien or Colin Greenwood’s sounds would be.
Unrelated, but Sundance or IFC recently played that Radiohead special where they played for an hour in Nigel Godrich’s “basement”, the highlight of which was the appearance of the rare double-drummer formation, with Yorke getting his own set of drums to play alongside Phil Selway and tear it up on Bangers & Mash, one of those In Rainbow b-sides.
Those “basement” performances by Radiohead are interesting. I still can’t make much sense of that band, but I didn’t know Yorke was such a musical dynamo.