Preservation, Act 2 (The Kinks, 1974)

Behold! The trilogy is complete! Actually, the decidedly-weirder second part of the Preservation rock opera is a very recent addition to my library, inspired by some serious Kinks-listening back when I reviewed Kinda Kinks here back in January. I (or anyone else) would be hard pressed to consider the two Preservation albums and The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society to be a true trilogy of albums beyond a loose theme. Let's take a look back on how the band that gave the world "You Really Got Me" also educated listeners on British social strife.

The seeds of the Preservation project began back in 1966 with a song called "Village Green". That song failed to make it to either Face to Face or the following year's Something Else, but finally found a home on the 1968 album that practically bore the name name, full title officially: The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society. It isn't really correct to call this album either a rock opera or even a concept album, though all the songs have far more pastoral inclinations than any other Kinks album and it isn't hard to explain each song as a character sketch that, when grouped together, present a stylized image of the traditional English village. Although there are some weird and unlikable folks living in the village (the "Phenomenal Cat" and "Wicked Annabella" for starters), it's not a dark album and is a pretty spot-on encapsulation of the isolation the Kinks were experiencing as their peers soaked in Monterey and the Summer of Love and were on the road to Woodstock. Thanks to a U.S. touring ban, the Kinks were cut off from the mainstream and forced into a diversionary track that extolled tea and tobacco over pot and LSD.

The Kinks left the village green behind on 1969's Arthur, a far heavier album that dealt with other social issues and openly identified as a concept album. In 1970 they were at long last free of the pesky ban and enjoyed a really big hit with the uncharacteristic "Lola", who hailed from Soho, not the village green. In the mind of Ray Davies however, he was a longing to get back to that village green, but, instead of just idly observing as before, he wanted critique the demolition of a way of life, torn asunder by the rapacious private investors (Mr. Flash) and an oppressive morally-righteous utopians (Mr. Black). A few years would pass...

In 1971 the Kinks switched labels from Pye to RCA. "Lola" was still red hot, so RCA was probably pretty excited to add the Kinks to their roster. However, they probably weren't aware of the wild ride Ray Davies was about to take them on. Initially it seemed like the Kinks were trending away from the concept albums. Muswell Hillbillies was lightly themed, but nowhere near the levels of what the Who recently turned in with Tommy. The album had a distinctly "country and western" flavor, but the Rolling Stones were effectively doing the same thing, so the label probably wasn't that concerned. The following year the band delivered a double album called Everybody's In Show-Biz which featured a lackluster set of studio songs and a truly weird live show with Ray Davies doing drunken renditions of "Baby Face" and "The Banana Boat Song" alongside highly re-worked classic Kinks material. Even still, RCA was giving the band a pretty wide berth. And then, Ray would really blow things open with a full honest-to-God rock opera, released in two parts over two years, boldly entitled Preservation.

Last year I discussed Part One, so I won't get too heavy on that. I hadn't even listened to Part Two back then, so it's a bit minimal. Anyway, Part One usually gets better critical response than Part Two. It has stronger songs that can stand on their own and it's just songs. Part Two right away starts off with the first of five "Announcements", introducing Mr. Flash's counterpart, Mr. Black. I cannot and will not attempt to defend the decision to insert narratives (the aforementioned announcements plus the track "Flash's Dream") into the opera only on Part 2. It probably would have been best to do no narratives at all, but I think it was done because without them the much weaker song set of Part 2 wouldn't make a whole lot of sense. In the first part it was pretty clear that bastard Mr. Flash, through uncontrollable greed, was going to destroy the tranquil life of the village, whose residents apparently only exist to be manipulated. Thanks mostly to the "overture" track, "Preservation", the scene is laid out pretty well, and it is also made clear that some kind of blowback was in the works against Flash. However Part 1 never reveals the answer to Flash, who by "intermission" is bulldozing everything in sight to a tune that, ironically, is a very important factor in the second part of the story.

Right away we learn the identity of Flash's adversary: Mr. Black. Sadly, for the innocent residents of the village, he is just as crappy as Flash, but also just as manipulative. Black shines a light in particular on Flash's absence of morality and uses this to launch a Ted Cruz-style moral crusade. Even the residents are sounding a bit more haggard in songs like "Scum of the Earth" and "Second Hand Car Spiv", probably just grist for Black's morality mill. By the end of stalemate-level fighting between Flash and Black, a deus ex machina moment hits Flash and he rolls over to Black and the Village War ends. Alas, if the villagers were expecting either "preservation" or "restoration", they were utterly betrayed as Black mows down everything in his creation of a theocratic utopia, both extolled in the brilliant "Artificial Man" and deplored in "Scrapheap City". In the end though it appears that Mr. Black's new world order is a sham, with curfews and rationing imposed to keep the peace. The album concludes with a new national anthem, "Salvation Road", which astute listeners will notice is the bridge music from the last song of Part 1, "Demolition". Make of that what you will.

One common theme about rock operas of the 1960's and 1970's is just how messed up the world is. It is no surprise that Preservation has a sad ending. The Pretty Things practically did a mercy killing of their tortured S.F. Sorrow, Tommy was a manipulated mess in the final number, and (many years later), Pink was dragged through hell and fascism in The Wall. I've made it a kind of rule not to seek out happy endings in explicit rock operas. Even Quadrophenia, once you get past all of the cockney and rainfall, isn't exactly a sweet tale. Apparently RCA didn't mind the terrible reception of Preservation and the Kinks would go on to create two more rock operas, both about as bitter as their progenitor. Never one to leave the village green totally behind, Schoolboys in Disgrace is actually a prequel to Preservation, featuring Flash as a schoolboy. Origin story alert!

Three consecutive rock operas were enough for RCA, who cut ties with the band following Schoolboys. Arista swooped in and picked up the back, but took a far more active approach in persuading Ray that the operatic track of the band through the mid-1970's was a losing proposition. While I'm not a great fan of label interventions, this was probably one of the more tastefully executed transitions, resulting in the Kinks return to "regular" albums, a style they would maintain until their ultimate dissolution in the mid-1990's. While the new approach finally made them a big success in the United States, only about 10 years later than all of their peers, it tore at the very fabric of the band. Longtime bassist John Dalton and keyboardist John Gosling soon exited. The keyboard role, for all practical purposes, was returned to session-level, while the bass player slot was a revolving door for a couple years until Jim Rodford (ex-Argent) filled it permanently. Later on, in the early 1980's, relations between drummer Mick Avory and Dave Davies, never that great to begin with, soured completely, resulting in Avory's ouster. He was replaced by Bob Henrit (ex-Argent as well!). The Rodford-Henrit rhythm section lasted through the band's final album, though Avory never entirely disappeared and was a mainstay at Konk studios. While there's been endless talk of a "reunion" (some of which involves only one Davies brother), nothing serious has come to light. All is desolate in the village green at present time.

Consider Phlebas (Iain M. Banks, 1987)

Although author Iain Banks passed away a couple years back, I'm happy to report that interest in the 10 books that make up the Culture series remains alive and well. The proof? How long I had to wait to get a copy of this book from the library! I think at one point San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara Counties had not a single copy available for checkout in their libraries. Needless to say this only fueled my curiosity as to what the big deal was with this book.

A few years earlier, a friend tried explaining the universe of the Culture novels, which promptly went over my head, though I made a mental note of interest and went back to add the first book in the series to my slow-moving reading queue. Now, he was animatedly telling me about Matter, a much later book in the series, and I was defying him by going back to the first book. From what I've heard the books are not closely related and can be enjoyed in any order, but I'm obsessed with the order of things, so it's back to 1987 I went.

First off, this is definitely "space opera" fare, which is a little surprising coming from the same pen as the guy who wrote a lot of award-winning non-genre fiction (without the "M" as the middle initial). Also, the science is a little hard, though I think if any kind of science is going to derail the plot it's social science (e.g. economics) than astrophysics. Like a lot of space opera, the actual story presented here frequently gets submerged by the rich universe it takes place in.

All in all, it's a so-so story in a fascinating universe. Do I want to read more about this universe? Absolutely! Do I care much about the characters of this book? Not really. Judging by the increased availability of the sequel, Player of Games, it would appear some readers probably gave up after Consider Phlebas. Like many things in life, sometimes it takes a little while for a book series to hit its stride, and with the backdrop of a fascinating universe, I'm sure things can only get better for the Culture novels.

The Rise of Rome (Anthony Everitt, 2012)

Poor Rome. Everyone is so obsessed with how it fell that far too often nobody takes the time to explore how an obscure little village in Italy became master of the Mediterranean. In the modern world, the adjective "Roman" is far flung, be it the Roman Catholic Church, the Holy Roman Empire, or the Sultanate of Rum, but early Rome was extremely local. In fact, most of this book deals with Rome's struggles with the various peoples of the Italian peninsula: Celts, Etruscans, Samnites, and even the Latins who lived just a stone's throw away from the seven hills.

Everitt acknowledges that the further back you go, the murkier the record gets. Therefore the book is divided into three major parts: "Legend", "Story", and "History". For stuff like Romulus and Remus and the connections to Troy and Aeneas, consult Part 1. For the Kings of Rome and the first century or so of the Republic, Part 2 is the place to be. Even with so much of the record having been erased with time, Part 3 is the largest part of the book, covering from the 4th century (BCE) sack of Rome by the Celts to the civil wars of the first century. Everitt draws primarily on Livy, Polybius, Cassius Dio, and Appian to chronicle the Republic's history, which gravitates between nearly-endless, increasingly far-flung wars, and civil and political unrest at home.

Naturally since this is a book about the rise of Rome, the narrative shifts into breakneck speed following the Second Punic War (the one with Hannibal) and the origins of the fall. Following that war, Rome was catapulted into the greater Mediterranean theater as the fallout from ill-advised alliances with the Carthaginians brought the Romans in new conflicts with Macedonia, Syria, and other Eastern kingdoms. All of this war eventually reflected back to Rome itself as political violence eventually blossomed into full, grisly civil war. Everitt concludes with a relatively brisk sketch of the civil war between the unsavory figures of Marius and Sulla, which effectively ended the Republic. The fallout from this is quickly linked to Julius Caesar and Octavian/Augustus and the more widely-acknowledged end of the Republic. Ironically the latter would maintain he had "restored" the Republic and it wouldn't be until a few decades and a couple or three crazy and/or sadistic emperors that it was widely understood the Republic was irreversibly gone.

Needless to say, Everitt is brief with the post-Hannibal history because it is so much better handled by other published works, including his own on Cicero and Augustus. He makes it clear that the governing structures created in the late sixth century were appropriate for a city-state or small regional power, but not an entity the size of Italy or greater. Hence, the inevitable reworking of the government, from the addition of tribunes to the dictator-for-life, transforming a collaborative model between the aristocracy and the free population to one under the sway of a single man.

If you are pretty up on your Roman history, you might find this book a little bit lightweight, but the first half is worthwhile, mainly because most literature obsesses over the fall, and not the rise. And if the book whets your appetite for what's next, there are plenty of great books out that continue the tale, though they aren't particularly....uplifting.

Rising (Rainbow, 1976)

I've spilled more than a few pixels here talking about Rainbow. In fact the band's leader, Ritchie Blackmore, was the focus of the first post here for 2015 (in our exciting new weekly format). Since Rainbow doesn't get a lot of attention in the United States, in spite of numerous American band members, here's a very brief sketch:

Rainbow was born from a Blackmore solo single turned album using members of the soon-to-extinct Elf in 1975. By the end of the year, Blackmore was long gone from his old band, Deep Purple, and had fired everyone except singer Ronnie James Dio and refashioned the band as a premiere proto-metal outfit. The new band, built around Blackmore, Dio, and drummer Cozy Powell released two solid albums. Dio split to ultimately join Black Sabbath and the rest of the band went in an increasingly commercial direction with new singers Graham Bonnett, then Joe Lynn Turner, all the while assisted musically by another ex-Purp, Roger Glover, on bass. In 1984, Blackmore and Glover returned to Deep Purple and the band promptly folded in spite of improving chart performance. When Blackmore left Purple again, 10 years later, he reflexively reformed Rainbow with all new personnel, but in the end his heart was somewhere in the late Renaissance and he broke up Rainbow in favor of Blackmore's Night. Although there has been substantial chatter about a "return to rock" by Blackmore, nothing has been substantiated.

Anyway, the album in question here, Rising (sometimes fashioned Rainbow Rising), takes us back to Rainbow in its absolute peak formation. It's the first album to sport the Blackmore-Dio-Powell nucleus, with then-unknown keyboardist Tony Carey and fairly-unknown Jimmy Bain on bass. The olf "Elf" lineup, save Dio, is gone, something that is readily apparent from the hard-hitting "Tarot Woman", a beautiful chunk of pure proto-metal and showing off a sound that was utterly absent from the debut album. The rhythm section plays harder and Tony Carey holds his own for the entire first minute solo intro. This is no slam to the Elf guys, it's just that the nature of the music has shifted beyond their strengths. For example, Mickey Lee Soule is a fine honky-tonk style pianist, but on the first album sounds lost, mostly playing other types of keyboard instruments. While Tony Carey is no Jon Lord, he works the synths and the organ far more effectively. However the really dramatic change is in the rhythm section. While Carey and Bain (and hell, even Dio) were not particularly well-known pre-Rainbow, Cozy Powell was a veritable force of nature on the drums and well-connected with the 1970's hard rock scene. If you have to pick one member of the band who most transformed Rainbow, it's probably him.

"Tarot Woman" is a beast of a song and "Run With the Wolf", the second track is just about as uncompromising, though a bit slower in tempo. Ritchie especially steps up his game for this track, with some particularly amazing fills toward the end of the song, complementing Dio's lyrics extremely well. Some have noted that Ritchie seemed to be a bit down since Deep Purple's Burn in 1974, with the following album, Stormbringer, and Rainbow's debut lacking some of the fire from that album. Well, I'm happy to report the fire has returned! Furthermore, they were just getting started.

There's a little detour in the third and fourth tracks, in which the needle slips over to hard rock from the aforementioned proto-metal. "Starstruck" demonstrates the band still has its chops when it comes to the blues, just in case the fans thought the band was going full sword-and-sorcery a la Hawkwind. "Do You Close Your Eyes" take things even further, the shortest track of the album and a little reminiscent of the first album's goofy seventh track "If You Don't Like Rock 'n' Roll". While not as impressive as its peers on this album, it would work very nicely on stage.

If the first side of the album showed a remarkable departure from the previous album, the next side would show the band outdoing their own work from the flip. Without a doubt, "Stargazer" is the one Rainbow song that must be heard in anyone's lifetime. Yes, it's that big a deal. Ritchie brings out the big guns for real here: monster drum intro from Cozy, epic solo by Ritchie backed with a full freakin' orchestra, and Dio reveling in his preferred and now fully-developed fantastical lyrics. And if that isn't enough, fear not. "A Light In the Black" is a sequel of sorts to "Stargazer", continuing the story. Where "Stargazer" is played at a fairly moderate tempo, its companion is designed for speed. Although the lyrics are a little less profound, Carey and Blackmore completely blow it up with a lead-instrument duel that brings back the warm and fuzzy feelings of the trademark Blackmore vs. Lord showdowns the world had been missing since early 1975.

In a perfect world this album would have been the template for the ultimate successor band to Deep Purple. In fact, today's Deep Purple Appreciation Society started life as the Ritchie Blackmore Appreciation Society in 1975 and their publication was called Stargazer (later, with the club name change, it would in turn change to Darker than Blue). That's how ripe with promise Rainbow was in its early days, even when Deep Purple's fourth lineup was in direct competition. However, one must predict Ritchie's career decisions only with great peril, and as early as 1977 the band showed signs of pulling back. While the live On Stage showed the superiority of the second lineup over the first on an apples-for-apples level, delivering particularly forceful versions of "Man on the Silver Mountain" and "Sixteenth Century Greensleeves", almost all of Rising was omitted from the setlist except for a "medley" treatment of "Starstruck" stuffed inside "Man on the Silver Mountain". Even the 2012 deluxe edition only adds "Do You Close Your Eyes" from another show. For some reason "A Light in the Black" and then "Stargazer" were removed from the setlist and never enjoyed a position as a staple of the live show, which is hindsight seems kind of shocking. The 1978 album Long Live Rock and Roll, wracked by personnel issues, particularly bass, also pointed to more commercial leanings, though only after Dio's exit in 1979 did in become clear that Ritchie was leading the band in a more commercial direction.

When Cozy Powell quit after Down to Earth, the old Rising lineup was officially vanquished from the record, The new Rainbow gradually populated its ranks with increasingly radio-friendly musicians, all under the watch of Ritchie and Roger Glover (the former had been nearly fired the latter from Deep Purple in 1973 and now they were best buds - go figure). By the last album the keyboards and drums were largely reduced to session-level (in fact David Rosenthal and Chuck Burgi were most recently sighted on tour with Billy Joel) and the vocals by Joe Lynn Turner were far removed from the Dio years.

Sometimes, in the heat of overanalysis, critics hail Long Live Rock and Roll, or even Down to Earth as the "best" Rainbow album. No doubt there are great songs on pretty much every album; only Bent Out of Shape leaves me at a bit of a loss. However, for consistently good performances across all of the instruments, the six songs of Rising are the standard by which all the other albums should be judged. Deservedly so, all personnel enjoyed continued success following the album: Dio kept true to metal in Black Sabbath and his own band, which would feature Jimmy Bain on its greatest albums; Powell would lend his services to numerous bands, including Whitesnake and Black Sabbath during the 1980's and 1990's before dying in a car crash in 1998; and Tony Carey became an incredibly successful musician in his own right, primarily in his adopted home of Germany, employing a distinctly non-metal singer-songwriter approach.

Exile on Main St. (The Rolling Stones, 1972)

The Rolling Stones, against all odds, have managed to remain a band for over 50 years and still remain culturally relevant. All of their 1960's peers are either long gone or have ended up in a permanent feedback loop of nostalgia. Even among the second group, they probably didn't reach that point without some serious breakup event along the way.

The Rolling Stones emerged in the early 1960's as the second-strongest of the British Invasion bands, only outmatched by the Beatles. Below these two bands was a veritable fight-club of bands competing for a fabled "third" spot next to them. The Stones both imitated and offered an alternative to their clean-cut counterparts from Liverpool. Although all from middle-upper class backgrounds, they adopted a far grittier image and took advantage of their London origins to stay close to where the action traditionally always was in Britain. The initial lineup featured Mick Jagger, Keith Richards (who lacked the final "s" on the early albums), and Brian Jones with an irregular rhythm section and the soon relegated to session status pianist Ian Stewart. By 1963 the "classic" lineup with Wyman and Watts had finally come together and the first album released the following year.

The early albums set the gold standard for a proper introduction to British-interpreted blues and R&B, but the band seemed to have little inclination to write their own material, with only nine songs credited to either Jagger/Richards or "Nanker Phelge" on the first three British releases. Even the release of Aftermath, their first all-original songs album, in 1966 didn't show much progression from their previous records ("Paint It, Black" a notable exception), and it seemed like bands such as the Who, the Kinks, and even the flailing Yardbirds, were poised to move ahead. Determined to maintain their relevancy, the Stones launched into a chaotic trajectory following Aftermath with increasingly psychedelic albums like Between the Buttons, Flowers, and the notorious Their Satanic Majesties Request. Until the release of that album, just to really mess with people, the band had been maintaining two separate catalogs for the U.S. and U.K. markets, resulting in albums with the same cover images, but different titles, and usually substantially different track listings. On top of all of this was also Brian Jones's growing instability and Jagger and Richards's increasing problems with drugs and the authorities.

In 1968, the Stones made a smart move away from the psych scene, which was never really their thing. They were one of the last to enter and one of the first to get out. The movement destroyed the Animals and the Yardbirds, and the Beatles a couple years later would be its most spectacular casualty, in spite of a last-ditch "back to basics" move. The Who and the Kinks would wisely follow the Stones out of the scene the following year, neither one particularly invested. The first of their post-psych albums, Beggars Banquet, introduced the world to a new, more cynical Rolling Stones, but it was merely prologue for the trio of albums yet to come. 1969's Let It Bleed (supposedly of absolutely no relation to Let It Be) showed the band stronger than ever, seeming to keep their problems (like Brian Jones and his death) out of the music, while the rest of the old guard cracked under far less pressure in the midst of a new hard rock movement that took form in the U.K. While not as full-throated as a Led Zeppelin, and definitely nowhere near the progressives like Yes and the Moody Blues, the harder-edged, countrifyed Stones somehow managed to fit comfortably into the new 1970's reality, topping themselves yet again with Sticky Fingers in 1971, paving the way for the album many consider to be the finest moment of their 50 year career, Exile on Main St. 

As with the Rolling Stones in general, I was pretty slow to finally get around to Exile. I recall looking over the track list and only recognizing one song ("Tumbling Dice") thanks to an unwanted gift to my parents that trickled down to me as a kid, the 1970's-1980's compilation Rewind. I think pretty much every other album of the period was better represented on that compilation, or even on the radio in general. This speaks to the fact that Exile on Main St. works best as an album across 18 tracks rather than a hodgepodge of hits. Without the warm embrace of its fellow songs, many of the country-inflected numbers (e.g. "Sweet Virginia") would feel awkward played alongside other hits of the growing British hard rock scene. Add to that a truly deconstructive, almost destructive, recording process with half the band and almost all of the production crew bombed out on drugs. It is a minor miracle that an album can be so cohesive that frequently shifted around who was actually playing what on each track. It is a matter of some dispute, but Bill Wyman is only credited with 8 of the 18 tracks, for instance, while party-and-beer sax man supreme Bobby Keys (not to be confused with renowned keyboardist Billy Sax) seems to be on every track. From all of the ink spilled about these recording sessions, it made The White Album seems like pure harmony. If I were to posit a guess as to what does work very well here is that Exile represents the culmination of the Stones' journey away from psych, restoring the "old" sound, minus the heavy reliance on cover material. Among the "classic" albums of the era, it stands out at the least experimental and most direct.

Exile was, by most beliefs, the end of that "classic" period for the Rolling Stones. Future albums had a kind of wandering quality, like the band wasn't sure (again) about their identity. By mid-decade, likely due to the crazy life, a decline was evident, which finally resulted in Mick Taylor walking out. Aside from the aforementioned compilation and the album Some Girls, I haven't invested anything in the post-Exile Stones. It seemed like the band was content to rest on the laurels of 10 years worth of great albums ("great" is one way or another) and settle for 40 years of mediocre albums accented here and there with a big hit single and supported by grand spectacle-level touring featuring mostly material from the first 10 years. But then again I think the band recognizes that their fans just appreciate the fact they are still around. Although there was some darn quiet periods in the 1980's when Mick and Keith weren't on speaking terms, the band has been in continuous existence for over 50 years. Not many bands can say that, or if they can, they probably are more likely to be found on cruise ships than stadiums.

Kind of Blue (Ashley Kahn, 2001)

This book is about a book about the Miles Davis album Kind of Blue. If you want to know my thoughts on the album itself, check out my Kind of Blue thoughts from last August.

My jazz reading keeps getting more specific. I've got from general treatments, to biographies, to a single album. If any jazz album deserves an entire book written about it, it would be Kind of Blue (and a close second would be A Love Supreme, and Kahn would go on to fulfill this as well).

The structure of the book is sensible and clear. The first couple chapters are devoted to how Miles Davis got to the point of recording Kind of Blue, discussing his early bebop work, explorations in cool jazz, and formation of the first great quintet during the 1950's. The next chapters are all about the recording process. While Kahn doesn't get super-technical, he gets under the surface and gives readers and fly-on-the-wall look at how each song was born in the studio. The final two chapters deal with the marketing of the album and the legacy of the album, respectively. Along the way we get a crash course in the art of analog recording and the story of Columbia Records, which was very much appreciated by this neophyte.

It is sobering to think that many of the great jazz artists are dead. At first it was due to health problems related to rough living, which claimed Bill Evans, Paul Chambers, John Coltrane, Wynton Kelly, and Cannonball Adderley prematurely. Later just plain old age was to blame, for which I would barely qualify Miles himself, leaving only drummer Jimmy Cobb as the sole remaining member of the Kind of Blue band. Even all of the studio personnel save one or two had all passed on by the writing of the book. So, in the same way Ken Burns realized he was on borrowed time to produce a World War II documentary, if you expect to write a book about classic jazz with interviews of those who lived it, you had better get to work!

Dragon Fly (Jefferson Starship, 1974)

The Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship/Starship continuum makes for some downright interesting reading. If you love dramatic personnel and sound changes, they are your band, always keeping you guessing. However, it's a little disingenuous to package the three bands together. In the case of the first two, they co-existed together for a period of time, and the wax was barely dry from the last Airplane album, Bark, as the nascent Jefferson Starship came into being with the science fiction flavored Blows Against the Empire (properly credited to Paul Kantner with most of his past and future bandmates helping). Meanwhile, Starship is really just the bitter result of an traumatic split in Jefferson Starship that involved founder Paul Kantner packing up the "Jefferson" part of the name and storming out of the group. In fact, the last recorded lineup of Starship bore no resemblance to the old Airplane and literally dissolved in a fistfight (between singer Mickey Thomas and drummer Donny Baldwin).

While Dragon Fly, the "proper" debut of the Jefferson Starship, is also quite removed musically from its Airplane ancestor, it does sport a few familiar names: Grace Slick, Paul Kantner, and, for one song, Marty Balin. The rest of the classic lineup was having too much fun in Hot Tuna and Riders of the Purple Sage to be bothered to show up, though John Barbata and Papa John Creach were in the earlier Jefferson. New to the band was 20 year old guitarist Craig Chaquico (ex-??? but hey now what were you doing before age 20??), David Freiberg (ex-Quicksilver Messenger Service), and Pete Sears (ex-Fleur de Lys and Silver Metre, the Blue Cheer spinoff band). On paper it seems like a pretty ridiculous mashup of different sources, but on disc you get a strangely coherent album.

The two singles derived from the album are genuinely the best two tracks. "Ride the Tiger" is an awesome song, capturing the energy of the old Airplane within the structure of the new band. Even old Papa Creach is getting into it, matching Chaquico's other-worldly solo, each one sandwiching the oddly racial bridge verse. Did the world come alive in the summer of '75? Probably not, but, how much did you actually party in 1999, Prince fans? "Caroline" may very well have been the other big hit because it added the credibility of Marty Balin's writing and singing talents, but it really is a worthy song and, although they may not have know it back then in 1974, established the Jefferson Starship playbook for the next three albums. As for most of the other songs, they at least have some passage or two that sticks with the listener. While "Devil's Den" is good from start to finish, "Be Young You" takes its sweet time to find its groove. The only song I never really figured out was "Hyperdrive", the closing number. It's a boss, badass title for a closing track that runs nearly eight minutes, but it just sort of wanders around, leaving poor Dragon Fly ending with a whimper rather than a bang. Maybe I should listen to "Ride the Tiger" backwards and pretend it's the closing number.

Poor closing tracks aside, yhings only got better for the rising Jefferson Starship as the decade trooped on. Marty Balin signed on full-time, doubling down on "Caroline" with the mega-hit and wedding song favorite "Miracles". Even though some of the stuff on the later albums, like Spitfire and Earth, hasn't held up so well over the years, it was a lucrative time for the band. Maybe it was their notorious appearance on the Star Wars Holiday Special, but then everything blew up in spectacular fashion, with Balin leaving for good, Grace Slick going on a one-album sabbatical for 1979's Freedom at Point Zero, and Barbata's car crash sidelining him permanently from the group. This paved the way for the "next generation" members Mickey Thomas and session-drummer extraordinaire Aynsley Dunbar. The new configuration managed to hold water, and Slick's return didn't hurt anything. The death knell struck in 1984 with a marginalized Kantner suing the rest of the band and literally tearing the name in half. Since things were going so well, lawsuit aside, the de-"Jefferson"ed band carried on to spectacular 1980's success with songs like "We Built This City". However "Starship" was even more porous went it came to the writing process, propped up with a huge cast of songwriters. While it's one way to score a big hit, it's no way to sustain a band. Thomas's control over the band eventually squeezed out everyone else, and the final Starship album shares exactly one band member (Craig Chaquico) from the glory days of Dragon Fly. He vanished after 1989 to pursue a career in soothing new age music and the band temporarily folded. While there has been a "Starship Featuring Mickey Thomas" tooling around since 1992, they've only mustered a single album to their name, more content to be a cozy 1980's nostalgia act. Oddly enough a Jefferson Starship with far more familiar personnel came back to life in the 1990's and has been slightly more productive. I won't even pretend to know who is in what band and how much they are contributing these days, but then again the whole Jefferson Airplane/Starship thing is more of a 1960's, 1970's, or 1980's thing (take your pick!), and certainly not a driving force of this decade or the previous two.

Leadership and Self-Deception (The Arbinger Institute, 2010)

This book came recommended by one of the presenters in the leadership program I'm taking this academic year. When I heard it was one of those "business novels", I immediately thought back to classics like The Goal and dropped this into my reading queue.

Like many business novels, the point is not to read it for the story or narrative, but rather the principles being espoused. The big message coming from this book is that we need to view other people as people not objects. When we view people as objects we distort our view of reality, seeing ourselves as heroes and saviors while everyone else exists only to mess us up. For some reason I thought a lot about how people view driving and other drivers and this message speaks volumes to that. I can't tell you how many times I've been with an awful driver who, as they drove poorly, complained about how terrible everyone else was!

This book is important for current and future leaders because it was help soothe excessive interpersonal conflict in the workplace. When we are stuck inside our boxes, everyone may appear as an obstacle, but when we open up and get to know the people around us and what motivates them, it lets get the heart of the objective issues without distorted perceptions interfering. Come to think about it, I think I'd recommend this to the shrill wingnuts in our political system. If nothing else, we'd have a friendlier election cycle.

Lunatics (Dave Barry & Alan Zweibel, 2012)

It's been far too long since the last Dave Barry novel, so discovering Lunatics was a pleasant surprise. While it falls short of the previous two, Big Trouble and Tricky Business, it definitely tops them both in the gross-out department.

The book certainly starts off strong, but I think if what I heard is true, that Barry and Zweibel alternated chapters, they pushed each other way too far by the end. I've seen this happen. My friend and I wrote a 70-part (unfinished) serial story, taking turns, and invariably things went from simple to ridiculous, and we weren't even trying to be funny outside of some gentle satire on what we were learning about in our classes. Therefore a funny story about two very different, yet ordinary, guys exploded into a massive global drama. Although things certainly got comically out of hand in Dave Barry's earlier novels, it somehow managed to fold itself back together neatly at the end.

And a word about the gross-out department. Dave Barry puts a disclaimer in front of all of these books to ward off children from accidentally learning how to curse. That's fine, I'm cool with bad words, so rock on. However, there may need to be a disclaimer that some adults may find the "Dumb and Dumber" type of humor to be a bridge too far. While this hasn't stopped me from adding Barry's latest book, Insane City, to my queue, I'm hoping the toilet humor was just a temporary diversion.

The Best of Bruce Dickinson (2001)

Back around 1996, Iron Maiden put out a greatest hits compilation, the first (?) of many, called The Best of the Beast. Immediately I got to thinking there needed to be another one called The Best of the Bruce, since Bruce Dickinson (who at that time was not in the band) had recorded so much great stuff, both within Iron Maiden as well as on his own. For one thing, it would probably sound a lot more diverse. While Maiden undeniably has legion of fans (going to a Maiden show is like a heavy metal version of the Rolling Stones crossed with the Grateful Dead), their sound has generally worked within the fairly narrow musical confines of what bassist/leader Steve Harris writes, or permits (only one song in the last four albums has not listed him as at least a co-author). Bruce's solo stuff tends to be a lot more gritty and heavy, less progressive than Iron Maiden. His albums aren't as carefully crafted as the Maiden albums, but they are a bit more fun to listen to. In writing and performance, his bandmates get a lot of latitude to have fun with the music and it shows, particularly on stage.

It took around five years to finally see something akin to a Best of the Bruce, and, of course, not all the tracks they selected were the ones I would have picked. However, to keep it from just being a glorified artist mix tape, they threw on two new songs, plus an entire disc of B-sides and other rare material. All of this considered, you've got an outstanding compilation here. The first and primary thing to keep in mind is that the compilation is 14 years old, so at this point the last three very progressive-leaning Iron Maiden albums and the solo album Tyranny of Souls had not yet been released. This is a snapshot in time.

Solo Bruce began in earnest in 1990 with Tattooed Millionaire. The big hit of the album actually never made it to the album. "Bring Your Daughter to the Slaughter", the song that effectively launched the entire album, was left off when Steve Harris decided to appropriate it for Iron Maiden and didn't want any competition from the Bruce solo version. Therefore, that song kicks off the bonus disc (more on the bonus songs later). Two other songs, the title track and the song "Born in '58" represent the album here. Frankly, I would have preferred "Son of a Gun" and "Gypsy Road" instead, but nobody asked me. The title track certainly captures the tone of the album very well and maybe the compilers felt like they needed more slow songs. Overall it's an interesting album because it explores the kind of sound the Bruce would never return to, as well as introduce the world to future Maiden-man Janick Gers, formerly from Gillan, White Spirit and other NWOBHM bands largely unknown Stateside.

Fast forward to 1994's Balls of Picasso and you have a new Bruce. This was his first album with Roy Z and his Tribe of Gypsies on board for the ride and it marks a powerful change in direction. Some have criticized Bruce for going too far outside the lines of metal on this album. He was fresh out of Iron Maiden and looking for a change in musical direction, freed from the militant musical direction of Steve Harris. Maybe the compiler had similar misgivings, as there is only one track here from that album, but it's Bruce's masterpiece: "Tears of the Dragon", a song that is a true metal "ballad" but without sacrificing the heaviness. If it was up to me, I'd include half the album here, but I would also need to invent a new CD format to hold them along with everything else.

Bruce's third solo album, Skunkworks, was released at the height of the 1990's post-grunge/alternative surge and was a continuation of his outside-Maiden wanderings. It is an album even more "out there" and introspective than Balls, with a lot of science-themed songs. Also apparent in the packaging is a haircut (!!!), an entirely new band, and the obvious submerging of Bruce's solo identity to this ad-hoc band creation called Skunkworks, just like the album title. At the time it seemed like Bruce was on a trajectory far away from the classic metal sound, but it would turn out to be a musical dead end. Nevertheless, there is a lot to like about Skunkworks, and they've included one of the best tracks here, "Back From the Edge". While there are other worthy songs, it's not the most representative album of the Bruce solo canon, so one song is probably enough here.

Ironically a stable "band" would not become a reality for Bruce until the next album, Accident of Birth. Unlike Skunkworks, Bruce made a dramatic decision (in the space of less than a year) to get back to real metal. Roy Z and most the Gypsies returned for duty and, out of nowhere, former Maiden axe-man Adrian Smith signed on as well. The new album went over so well, that another one, the gothic-flavored Chemical Wedding would quickly follow. Since these two albums are probably the best picture of where Bruce was "at" musically in 2001, they contribute five tracks (three from Accident and two from Wedding), plus two more tracks from the live Scream for Me Brazil join them on the compilation. Now in the heat of all this was a concern that there were effectively now two Iron Maidens, something voiced by Maiden drummer Nicko McBrain when he paid a visit to a Bruce solo show. I can't say if it was money or genuine warm feelings that healed the rift in the band at the end of 1999, but against all odds Bruce and Adrian Smith were back in Maiden for 2000's Brave New World, launching a period of unprecedented stability as a six-man band which exists to this day.

Alas, Bruce's solo career was a casualty of this reunion. While Bruce's contributions to the band have clearly re-energized it, the last four Maiden albums are far more under the sway of the strict Steve Harris songwriting formulas. However, especially on Dance of Death and Final Frontier, there are some unexpectedly different musical passages, and I think that's where Bruce continues to shine. Additionally, he was able to stitch together Tyranny of Souls in 2005 and the two bonus tracks included on Disc 1 on this compilation. All of these songs pretty much continue what was established back on Accident of Birth, although Adrian Smith is absent and the rhythm section are different guys. As far as I know there hasn't been any kind of Bruce solo tour since the 1990's so it is not likely that any of these songs ever were performed live. Additionally, given the rigorous touring schedule for Iron Maiden, Bruce has been on record saying that these songs were largely the result of tapes being passed back and forth remotely between Roy Z and himself.

In this whole mess, I forgot to mention the bonus disc. Thankfully the compilers were not content to just add the two bonus tracks and force the fans to eat the rest. The bonus tracks are definitely the other side of Bruce Dickinson. The second to last track ("The Voice of Crube") is actually Bruce telling the listener directly about the histories of these oddball songs. I won't duplicate his stories, but most of the tracks are B-sides and outtakes. One track of particular interest ("No Way Out Continued") is from a "lost" album that was originally intended as the sequel to Tattooed Millionaire. The last track is very special: a recording of Bruce's earliest known vocal performance on a song called "Dracula" from 1977. For fans of NWOBHM it simply must be heard! A few years down the road a lot if not all the songs (except probably "Dracula") ended up as bonus tracks of the individual album re-releases, alongside still yet even more bonus material. I've made a mental note to snoop around for this extra stuff and I'm very grateful for individual track purchases when available!