I’ve heard people say they think there’s something wrong with this video. I mean, it sounds like a note for note copy of a Bon Jovi song to me. It’s utterly, completely perfect, and I can’t tell the difference between this and an original Bon Jovi song. Am I missing something?
Axis came out in early 1968, and I probably got it within a few months of that. I’m not sure how familiar I was with Hendrix at the time but I remember the album being pretty cheap at Korvette’s and so picked it up. It was on Track Records and so was an import of some kind; why it was at Korvette’s or cheap I don’t know. I loved it immediately and still do. No other Hendrix album has replaced it for me. There’s that period bit “EXP” opener, the jazzy “Up From The Skies,” the heavy psych of “Spanish Castle Magic,” the funky pop of “Wait Until Tomorrow” (with the great opening line “Well, I’m standing here freezing, inside your golden garden”), the classic rock of “Little Wing,” the ’60s philosophy of “If 6 Was 9,” and on and on. I even love Noel Redding’s contribution, “She’s So Fine.”
It’s an album that’s a perfect hyphenate: pop-rock-jazz-funk-blues. Deep & frothy. Heavy & light.
And so it’s always been my favorite Hendrix album but I can’t help thinking: “How much of that is because it was the first?” I don’t feel like I hear this opinion too often. Are You Experienced? or more often Electric Ladyland are what you hear about, but I’ll take Axis over either of those.
What do you think? Am I right or wrong? And do you have analogous “first” albums by other artists where you feel the blush of first love may be coloring your rock-crit bona fides?
On Facebook, that scourge of Rock Town Hall, I got sucked into pissing off modern-day Monkees devotees over their celebration of some article declaring The Monkees as the “Motown of Rock.” This is the kind of shooting-fish-in-a-barrel nonsense that makes me think it’s time to build a new church, a new congregation from the wonderful materials we’ve developed here. As I just got done telling some legendary digital Power Pop Nerd, if he wants to compare the Monkees to The Supremes or The Temptations be my guest. I’ll keep my mouth shut and not say something pissy like, “Well, let’s not go crazy, they’re more like Martha & The Vandellas…” For all our hard work, the core belief that Greatness is somewhat better than Goodness has failed to take root. There must be a way to get these people back on the path toward Greatness, despite how far they’ve strayed from said path.
Where the Motown comparison falls apart, and where the myths of The Monkees being “fake” crumble, is in the nagging fact that less than two years after forming, The Monkees deliberately stepped out of the star-making machinery that created them and assumed creative control of their music and image. In a particularly rock ’n’ roll move, Mike Nesmith sealed the contentious break with the band’s puppet-master Don Kirshner (ironically, a Hall Of Fame inductee in part for creating The Monkees and The Archies), by putting his fist through a wall while shouting to Kirshner, “That could have been your face!” From there, the band started writing, playing and touring in earnest (hand-picking then relatively unknown Jimi Hendrix as their opening act, no less). Once they started calling their own shots, they made their most critically acclaimed album, Headquarters, which Mojo called “a masterpiece of ’60s pop.”
It occurred to me that the annual beef that The Monkees are getting shafted by not being inducted into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame may be tops among Rock’s First-World Issues. Is there no better sign of Rock Entitlement than the energy one expends on that topic? What other First-World Issues in Rock come to mind?
Apropos of Mr. Mod’s recent declaration, let’s have a relevant Last Man Standing. Here are some rules:
And I’ll start things off with the Beatles:
Is this the overwrought rock criticism we aimed to skirt, or did we encourage the following New York Times piece by Chuck Klosterman?
I am tired of death, politics, and the disastrous start for my Minnesota Twins. So let’s get happy and get ready for the best of summer of our lives with The Monkees’ new single, written by one Andy Partridge!
Whaddaya think? That Micky Dolenz has friends in high places!
