The Rolling Stones: Metamorphosis (1975)

Beyond the obvious inspiration from Kafka, this album cover is unique in that it is only one of two Rolling Stones albums that depict both Mick Taylor (bottom left) and Brian Jones (bottom right), though they were not in the band at the same time. The other is Rolled Gold: The Very Best of The Rolling Stones, released that same year.

Even with the most accomplished and beloved of bands, outtakes can be very tricky turf. Witness The Beatles Anthology, six discs of rare and previously unreleased material from one of the greatest bands of all time. Taken as a whole, it is awfully uneven. The first installment features segments of dialog, presumably to make the collection feel like some sort of audio documentary, complete with obnoxious cross-fades where Paul is still talking about recording "My Bonnie" with Tony Sheridan while the song's intro plays. Someone somewhere realized this was a bad idea, as these snippets are only heard on Anthology One. All this without even really talking about the content.

On the one hand, the Anthology boasts the first official - and digitally remastered - releases of some historically significant tracks: John, Paul, and George's first recordings as a trio; selections from the Decca audition; the rendition of "All My Loving" from The Ed Sullivan Show that got the 1960's off to a start, four years too late; and the acoustic demos for The White Album recorded at Kinfauns. This makes up roughly a quarter of what can be found on the Anthology. Nearly half of the series is presentations of those familiar tunes as works-in-progress. Sometimes the differences are only of interest to the obsessed, other times we get the boys' attempt at "I'll Be Back" from A Hard Day's Night in waltz time, an even more psychedelic "Tomorrow Never Knows," and "Fool On The Hill" in a noticeably different key.

The remaining quarter, though, is what made Anthology ripe for parody, even right after its initial release in the mid-90's: an early version of "And Your Bird Can Sing" that is littered with stoned giggling, studio banter that makes the spliced-and-diced filler on Let It Be seem interesting by comparison, and the instrumental backing tracks to "Eleanor Rigby" and "Within You, Without You." Great songs, don't get me wrong, but for the casual listener, hearing those tunes without their melodies transforms two masterpieces into a melancholy British string quartet and a trip through India in 5/4 time, respectively.

Beginning with the advent of CD's and boxed sets in the early 1990's, unreleased material has gone from the stuff of legends to the expected. Retailers have adopted this into their business model, getting exclusive "Deluxe Editions" of new albums where, for a few dollars more, you can treat yourself to alternate takes, radio edits (since people LOVE censored versions of their favorite songs!), maybe a B-side, and, depending on the artist, a remix of the album's single. Boxed sets started off as collector's items, meant to be enjoyed with a glass of wine while you read the extensive liner notes on a plush sofa placed fifteen feet in front of the hi-fi system, the speakers themselves roughly twenty feet apart. The Beatles Anthology opened the floodgate, and now there is nary a contemporary release that doesn't boast a special edition in some form or another.

Funny enough, The Rolling Stones did all this first, predating The Beatles Anthology by twenty years. Granted, the Stones themselves had nothing to do with Metamorphosis, a collection of outtakes and demos, but credit is still due. A lot of these songs come from a period where Mick Jagger and Keith Richard (he dropped the 's' until 1977 - it probably made much more sense at the time) were not just competing with John and Paul in terms of who had the bigger fan-base, they were also hoping to make a name for themselves as pop songwriters. Recording information for these songs is scarce, but it is safe to say there are several tracks where you aren't even hearing The Rolling Stones at all - score one for us Monkees fans - and are instead hearing some of London's finest session players.

Somewhere along the way, manager Andrew Loog Oldham must have told Mick & Keith to diversify their interests, because there is not a lot of the Stones' early bluesy flavor on this album. Is that a good thing? Well, that depends. As both a fan of The Rolling Stones and British pop from this era, there is a lot of potential in these songs. In a way, this album presents an alternate history of The Rolling Stones. Several of these songs are so unabashedly pop - this coming from the band whose press release warned the British public to lock up their daughters - that it is not too far of a stretch to think that in some parallel universe, Metamorphosis doubles as Britpop pioneers The Rolling Stones' greatest hits.

Perhaps I am over-hyping a little too much, but I've always been a champion of the underdog. This is not an album that will blow your mind or alter your worldview. It is, however, one of the first times a popular band's vaults were opened up for public listening, and that is truly something. At its worst, the weaker tracks can be waved away with a "well, at least you tried." At its best are some fine songs to put on your own best-of mix to surprise your friends, mostly accompanied by the phrase, "Yep, that is The Rolling Stones."

On with the show.

TRACK LISTING
Anyone reading this who hasn't read my album reviews before: I have a very unscientific method of rating albums where the songs are scored on a 1 to 10 scale, reserving 11 for the best track on the album, finding the average, adding a few extra points (see below after the subtotal) before racking up my final letter grade.

The songs on this album were all recorded between 1964 and 1969. For extra information about these tunes, when they were recorded, who went on to record them, all that fun stuff, check out the Wikipedia page for the album.

01. Out Of Time [10]
Imagine dropping the needle on your record player, excited to hear this new Stones album, only to be greeted with sprightly - and very British-sounding - strings. Again, I can't hate, I think this song is a brilliant pop gem. It's catchy, well-produced, and has a good beat. What more could the Ready, Steady, Go! crowd have asked for? This is one gem that should be polished off the next time a Stones compilation is being assembled.

A disappointingly inferior re-recording of this song can be heard on Aftermath and (in abridged form) on Flowers.

02. Don't Lie To Me [6]
Discovering the Stones' earliest work, after first hearing the likes of "Paint It Black," "Brown Sugar," and "Star, Star," was like hearing an entirely different band. It's like listening to The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn after hearing Animals - both great albums, but so incredibly different. That said, I love early Stones. It has a very palpable sense of danger and excitement to it that truly does explain why they were the bad-boy alternative to The Beatles.

This is not the best example of that era. The band turns in a solid performance, delivering the same menacing blues that marks so much of their early career. Ian Stewart, the sixth Stone, plays a lively piano part, while Keith turns in a solid solo, but for the song's first half, Mick sounds half asleep. It is only in the last run-through of the verse that he delivers any of his signature bravado, but it's too little, too late.

03. Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind [8]
From the "well, at least you tried" file, this marks the band's first foray into country music. The lyrics are insipid - a syndrome not unknown among Stones tunes circa 1964 - and the vocal delivery is a bit too exaggerated, but beneath it all is a sweet melody, some great slide guitar, and a subtle percussion arrangement.

04. Each And Every Day Of The Year [4]
This one is a straight-up clunker, and a waste of a trumpet overdub. The song never quite finds its footing, let alone its genre - and what was with the harp flourish at the end? Bringing the worst elements of the previous track without any of its redeeming qualities, I was reminded why the last time I heard this song was in 2003...when I took the newly-bought CD out of its cellophane.

05. Heart Of Stone [9.5]
This is a different version of an early Stones classic, an anti-love song about the joys of being a moody little womanizer. While the version released as a single in 1965 is a downbeat soul number, this outtake does an interesting bit of genre-bending. There is a countrified slide guitar solo, followed immediately by an almost note-for-note rendition of Keith's solo from the released version. For a song that sat in the can for ten years, this shows the first few baby steps towards the innovation that would dominate The Rolling Stones' career for the back half of the 1960's.

Apparently Clem Cattini, a highly valued session drummer in the 60's and 70's, is sitting in for Charlie on this one. He had played on "Tel-Star" by The Tornadoes, "Shakin' All Over" by Johnny Kidd & The Pirates, and guested on a few tracks from The Kinks' Misfits album in 1978. Some session guy named Jimmy Page plays guitar here, not entirely sure what became of him...

06. I'd Much Rather Be With The Boys [8.5]
From the "yep, that is The Rolling Stones" file, this song could have been a Beach Boys outtake from around the same era. If anyone takes offense to the blatant misogyny of the lyrics, one fun thing to do is give it a queer reading. Suddenly the line "I'd much rather be with the boys than be with you" takes on an entirely different meaning. Gender studies 101 aside, hearing the Stones do surf music is a unique experience.

07. (Walkin' Thru The) Sleepy City [10]
A wistful melody, dulcet harmonies, lyrics about being out late at night, visiting a cafe, and a yearning for companionship - this all sounds like the making for a classic Kinks song circa Something Else or Village Green Preservation Society. The resemblance to one of my favorite bands - to the point that it rivals Weird Al's style parodies in terms of authentic aping - made this a favorite from first listen. What makes the song truly special, however, is when it was recorded: September 1964. "You Really Got Me" had been released the previous month. In other words, at the time "Sleepy City" was recorded, The Kinks didn't even sound like The Kinks...or at least not the version of The Kinks I had long thought The Rolling Stones were borrowing from.

Which leaves two gaping mysteries: where the Hell did this song come from, and why didn't the Stones ever try anything like this again? Oh, wait...they did, and it was amazing.

08. We're Wastin' Time [5]
Meandering, unmemorable, and with a clumsily busy production, this one lives up to its name. The only thing saving this song from a rating of 3 (or worse) is its fluid and somewhat out of place guitar solo. Also, The Rolling Stones, God bless 'em, couldn't waltz their way out of a wet paper bag.

09. Try A Little Harder [5.5]
Another one that had stayed in the vault for a reason, though it boasts a beefy brass section. Sounding hesitant and limp, I can picture this song taking on a new life when performed live, with a little more oomph. Alas, it never saw official release, so it never had the chance.

10. I Don't Know Why [11]
Covering a Stevie Wonder song, the recently initiated Mick Taylor proves himself with an achingly beautiful solo, while Jagger sings as soulfully as ever. If one song from this collection deserved legitimate release, it was this one. Imagine this track kicking off side B of Let It Bleed, just before "Midnight Rambler." Oh, well, that's why the good Lord gave us the wherewithal to make iTunes playlists.

I'm limiting my rambling asides from entries past (seriously, those things got obnoxiously LONG!), but here's some Stones lore for you: this song was recorded the day Brian Jones died. As to whether the fellas laid this track down before or after they heard the news, it is up for debate. Part of me thinks the song's raw emotion comes from a very real place, but my pal Keno claims the telephone call delivering the bad news brought the session to an end.

11. If You Let Me [10]
A very sweet outtake from Between The Buttons, with a gentle arrangement and some surprisingly vulnerable lyrics. People don't typically associate the Stones with these things, and while that may add to the novelty of hearing the Stones do sweet and vulnerable, it is a great song on its own merits.

12. Jiving Sister Fanny [9]
Whoever compiled this track listing did a nice job, because I have always liked the shift from Kinks-inspired balladry on "If You Let Me" to the coked-out basement blues of "Jiving Sister Fanny," recorded only two years later. Another outtake from what would become Let It Bleed, this has all the elements of classic Stones: a driving riff, distant and incoherent vocals, and a beat you can screw to. Somehow those ingredients never get stale.

13. Downtown Suzie [8.5]
The Rolling Stones had some nasty habits - they even admitted to it on "Live With Me" off Let It Bleed - but one of their worst was frequently crediting other people's work as their own. (Don't worry, Led Zeppelin did it, too, and their manor-dwelling asses got taken to court over it.) Similarly, Mick & Keith let bassist Bill Wyman contribute an original song only once on an official release, the song being "In Another Land" from Their Satanic Majesties Request, itself a fairly divisive episode in the Stones saga.

It truly was their loss, because Bill Wyman is talented songwriter with a knack for melodies and often witty lyrics. "Downtown Suzie" is much more in the vein of classic Stones than "In Another Land," with bluesy verses and a shit-kickin' country chorus. The band sound like they're having a lot of fun on this one, which further presses the issue of why this didn't make its way to an official release.

14. Family [10]
This is the album's only outtake from the Stones' gloomy return to roots, Beggar's Banquet, a fact given away by its sparse and eerie arrangement. Lots of cymbal sizzles from Charlie Watts on the verses before kicking into a double-time rhythm on the pre-chorus. The lyrics' description of a damaged family matches its unsettling musical tone. Another one that should have made it onto the final album.

15. Memo From Turner [9]
Just like "Out Of Time" and "Heart Of Stone," this is an alternate version of a song that was given official release. I enjoy this version a lot, it's pissed-off and urgent, but it has nothing on the released version, which can be heard (and seen, in a modern precursor to the music video) in the 1970 film Performance, Jagger's acting debut. The movie comes highly recommended.

16. I'm Going Down [10]
Rounding out the album is another leftover from Mick Taylor's first few months in the band, predicting the choppy riffs that would define the band's sound for the rest of their career. Yet another masterpiece that didn't quite make the cut for Let It Bleed. Come on, guys, did "You Can't Always Get What You Want" really need that stupid choral intro? Some people...

Subtotal: 83.75% B

Replay Factor: 0.5
I have maybe listened to this album from start to finish five times, one of those instances being while I wrote this. Considering I have owned Metamorphosis for over ten years, that should tell you something. The songs are good, but there is not much of a flow to it.

Consistency Factor: 0
I'm being harsh with my factors this time around, which typically give an album extra points, but this collection of tracks ranks down low with Satanic Majesties as far as being consistent with the rest of the Stones' output.

External Factors: 2
As a warts-and-all compilation of outtakes, this was pretty ahead of its time. It also showcases the most unique examples of The Rolling Stones trying on a number of different musical hats.

TOTAL: 86.25% B

Monty Python's Flying Circus: Season 1, Episode 1: "Whither Canada?"

This is technically a re-post from a review I wrote in March 2010, but I've made enough edits and revisions that if you were around then it's worth revisiting.

It's always strange to look at an artist (or group of artists) who made groundbreaking work in their time and know that had they been around today, they would have never been given a chance. Networks, record labels, film studios, none of them are keen on taking chances on something that deviates wildly from the norm, and the ones that do always have a hard time getting picked up by fans and critics. It took a good season and a half for the American adaptation of The Office to gain appeal, for example.

Sketch comedy is a wildly uneven bag. For every groundbreaking series like Chappelle's Show, there are dozens of copycat programs (on TV and online) that take Dave Chappelle's example of crude, shock-peppered humor but opt to leave out all the discussion-generating topics the master comedian was addressing.

In my original version of this post, I riffed a bit on Saturday Night Live - a viewpoint I will never shy away from having - but let me trim that whole argument down to me simply saying that its reputation as being groundbreaking, subversive, or cutting-edge is more or less a mythology put into its place by its creators and by contemporary critics whose other viewing options were such dreck as Happy Days and Three's Company. By contrast, early Saturday Night Live must have seemed like the onslaught of punk amidst the easy-breezy swill of California rock and the pomposity of progressive rock.

But let's just call it for what it is: early Saturday Night Live was young and energetic, like a cheetah among dinosaurs, but it didn't rewrite the book on sketch comedy. For the most part, though, the old episodes have not aged well - select segments are timeless, but on the whole it is little more than a charming artifact.

The reason I harp on this is because I don't like the comparison that Saturday Night Live was an "American Monty Python." It just isn't. These guys shook up the rules of what had become a stagnant format for televised comedy and did it in a way that truly has yet to be replicated - and, with the present state of affairs in the entertainment industry, probably never will.

For that reason, I submit to you a revised and revisited review of Monty Python's Flying Circus, Season 1, Episode 1, "Whither Canada?"

Reasons #2 through #45 shall follow on a (hopefully) weekly basis.

And so it began:

Click here if the video isn't working.

By and large, one should not judge the strength of a series by its premiere episode. With American programs, pilots are generally the first aired, and they usually suck. Even if they're "good," they pale in comparison with the rest of the series. Although not a proper pilot so much as it is simply the second episode they shot and the first one aired on the BBC, this one is no exception. Not to say it's awful, in fact, it's still very watchable - plenty of classic Python bits to be found here - but the moments where the show is off it feels like a cheap skit put on at a talent show.

The opening sequence, with Michael Palin emerging from the water as the tattered "It's" Man, takes just a little too long for my liking. Still, seeing this hairy scruffian wearing the haggard shreds of a suit emerge from the sea, only to collapse and sigh the word, "It's..." before the animated credits roll is iconic absurdism.

One of the great features of the Flying Circus series was that the troupe wanted to avoid sketch program cliches. One such cliche is that sketches are written, built up, but then brought to an end by way of a punchline, which more often than not didn't hold up to the rest of the sketch. Why end sketches in a program, when they could all be linked together, in a surrealistic stream-of-consciousness fashion?

This first time out, though, the comedic device of people sitting on pigs is a source of linking material. Frankly, I think it's poorly played the first time (not well-performed by Graham Chapman, also some poorly synced sound), though later on in the episode it's quite funny. Maybe it's the repetition.

That aside, this isn't some crummy pilot. They don't hold any punches with their first sketch, a phony program entitled It's Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, featuring John Cleese as the composer, hosting a program featuring the deaths of historical figures - why him? Why not?! It's got a dark undertone to it (a commentary on television violence, perhaps?), balanced out by the sheer slapstick of seeing Genghis Khan (Cleese in a filmed bit) die a cartoonish death by way of leaping in the air and landing on his back.

My great thesis on Python, whether it's the films, albums, or television series is that their brand of humor succeeds because it combines some intelligent, cerebral wit with simple, funny-no-matter-how-many-times-or-how-old-you-are gags. This is best symbolized by the death depicted of Admiral Horatio Nelson. You don't need to know about the Battle of Trafalgar to laugh at seeing a dummy in early 19th-Century garb tossed out of a high-rise window. That in itself is a funny visual. However, you can laugh just a little harder knowing among his last words were "Kiss me, Hardy!", to his second-in-command.

The Italian For Italians sketch is...okay. The audience laughter at Terry Jones' instructor saying he is from Gerard's Cross is something lost on me, and honestly, the only time jokes fall utterly flat for me with Python, it's usually moments like this. They also seem to make fun of a town called Dorking a lot throughout the series - is it the name, maybe? As for the Italians taking the lesson, they're played broadly, but that's the point: the Pythons are offering their own twist on the trope of using stereotypes for an easy gag. They would do it again throughout the series, and frankly, the underlying point is much more obvious in later episodes. It's amusing enough, but not a strong sketch, ending in minor-league chaos before a poor little pig is sat upon by the flustered teacher.

A runaway pig from the tallyboard, where dead piggy #3 is crossed off, marks the debut animation from Terry Gilliam. Even in the weaker shows, the cartoons never cease to amuse. Explaining what all happens would suck the fun out of seeing it. It leads to a phony commercial for Whizzo Butter, "containing 10% more less," a product that brings with its purchase admission to Heaven. Pitchman Palin is seen with the other four actor Pythons (Idle, Cleese, Jones, and Chapman) all dressed in drag as middle-aged housewives. These little wenches are called "pepperpots," dubbed such in Cleese's pre-Flying Circus special How To Irritate People, relating to the shape of their bodies. The term has since become a fixture of the Python fan's glossary.

The pepperpots can NOT tell the difference between Whizzo Butter and a dead crab, and this is apparently a good thing, although they threaten Palin that if he's one of those television pitchmen trying to get them to compare Whizzo Butter to a dead crab, they'll slit his face.

Unfortunately, the Whizzo bit ends in a very un-Python manner, with a hard edit to the credits for It's The Arts. (According to Kim Johnson's marvelous Python book, The First 28 Years of Monty Python, quite a few sketches were cut from this episode, many to be seen in future episodes, which may explain the edit.) The first segment of It's The Arts features a great lampooning of the formality of names and nicknames, with filmmaker Sir Edward Ross (Chapman) being called a litany of names: Ted, angel-drawers, Franny-knickers, and everything in between. Storming off the set, Ross is summoned back by Cleese's Tom (don't bother with the "nonsense" of calling him Thomas!) with a serious question about his latest film, leading to a pleasant destruction of an anticipated punchline.

Eric Idle, who I now unfortunately think of as the Python with the honor "Most Likely To Ride Python All The Way To The Bank," gives his own variant nickname-based interview. While Cleese's interviewer tries so desperately to be polite and personable with his subject, Eric is a cheeky smart-ass in his interview with composer Arthur "Two-Sheds" Jackson (Jones), who earned his nickname not by actually having a second shed but rather by simply thinking of building a second shed.

This doesn't keep Idle from asking if Jackson wrote his latest symphony in the shed. He drives him to his breaking point, turning from sheds to inquiring about Jackson's interest in trainspotting. After a snippy, ready to crack retort of "What's that got to do with my bloody music?", Cleese's Tom joins Idle in booting the irate composer off-set. Again, another sketch ended before getting stale (maybe even a little early) and without some silly punchline.

The final bit of the It's The Arts segment centers around Pablo Picasso's latest painting, which is being done whilst riding a bicycle. If this notion isn't delightfully silly enough, the entire thing is played out with the detailed enthusiasm of a sportscast. Picasso's route is outlined, the model of bicycle is explained, and in one of the best moments of the episode, Cleese presents an on-the-scene report while a laundry list of famous artists (dead and alive) zip by on bicycles. Palin's surprisingly informed pepperpot tells Cleese that it's Vassily Kandinsky he's seeing and not Picasso, later correcting Cleese that the (dead since 1948) Kurt Schwitters was German, not English.

What makes the scene, beyond the incongruity of Palin's middle-aged housewife displaying a good knowledge of 20th-Century art is more than just the attention to detail. It's Cleese's performance. He delivers his lines at a mile-a-minute, like his head is ready to explode...it's one of those things, you can't explain why it's funny. It just is.

How does this build-up climax? With the absurdist logic that makes Python so great: Picasso falls off his bicycle, unseen, the details of his painting unknown. We are informed, thankfully, that the artist is unharmed, "although the pig has a slight headache." One more piggy pops its head up from under the desk as Palin's host bids us goodnight, right in time for the end credits (around the 21-minute mark) if this were American television.

With the lack of commercials from the BBC at that time, we've still got nine minutes to go! We get another wonderful cartoon, featuring what I consider Gilliam's staple art: animations of vintage photographs. It's twisted and slightly disturbing, but it's marvelous. And to think this was on mainstream television some 40 years ago!

The show ends this week with an extended sketch, featuring the world's funniest joke, which induces fatal laughter. The film version of the sketch's first half featured in the 1971 film And Now For Something Completely Different is performed a little better - notably in the joke's author and his mother's deaths from reading the joke - but this is a fairly important sketch for the lads. It seems all three writing teams (Chapman/Cleese, Idle, and Palin/Jones) all contributed their own bits to it, and while there are no animations, Gilliam appears on-screen in two minor roles.

Rounding out the rest of the show, the segment lags at times (mainly in the battlefield scenes), but its high points more than make up for the bumps. Terry Jones' dorky, unsuspecting Army test subject and his tittering demise still makes me laugh, Cleese makes for a great Nazi, and the scene where the defense ministers laugh themselves to death (on the other side of a guarded door) is a beautiful stroke of macabre humor. History geeks will appreciate the stock footage of Chamberlain declaring "Peace in our time!" as Idle mentions "England's great pre-war joke."

Idle's narrator wraps the segment with a solemn tribute at the burial site of the Unknown Joke, before a quick cutaway to stock footage of a ref blowing his whistle and a title frame saying "THE END". As a long-form sketch, this showed a sense of ambition from the get-go that the group had some interest in collaborating on long-form sketches; this approach, where Idle, Jones/Palin, and Cleese/Chapman all had a hand in the conception and delivery of the "World's Funniest Joke" sketch, would set the tone for their feature films in the 1970's and 1980's. While that is still 44 incredible half-hours of sketch comedy away, it marked the planting of a very important seed.

Cutting back to the beach, the "It's" man is roused by way of a pointed stick (an incredibly specific prop we'll be seeing and hearing of again in future episodes) and he drags himself back out into the surf as the end credits play.

FIN

Low Points:
+ I feel like the first few episodes of this series treat Cleese as if he were the leader of the troupe, for better or for worse. He'd enjoyed the most success already by this point with At Last The 1948 Show, The Frost Report, and his TV special How To Irritate People (which plays like a really, really bad episode of Python.) He certainly seems to elicit the most laughs from the audience.

+ Parts of this episode's first portion, before we get to It's The Arts, come across as wobbly.

+ The piggy gag - not unfunny, but a weak running gag.

High Points:
+ This episode is kind of like "I Saw Her Standing There," the first song from the first Beatles album. It's hard to define the inaugural quality of "Whither Canada?", as the show most definitely picked up some serious momentum in the episodes to come, but damn if it doesn't make me happy every time I see this and know this is where it all started.

+ Cleese's stream of ridiculous nicknames for Sir Edward "Ted/Eddie Baby/Sweetie/Sugar Plum/Angel Drawers/Frank/Fran/Frannie/Little Frannie/Frannie Knickers" Ross.

+ Idle's ribbing of Arthur "Two-Sheds" Jackson.

+ Cleese's sportscaster, forerunner of so many classic Cleese moments.

Best Lines:

"We are proud to be bringing to you one of the evergreen bucket kickers. Yes, the wonderful death of the famous English Admiral Nelson."

"He say, 'Milan is better than Napoli!'"
"Oh, well, he shouldn't be saying that, we haven't done comparatives yet!"

"I don't like being called Eddie Baby!" - this implies he's been called this before...

"I'm going to get rid of the shed. I'm fed up with it!"
"Then you'll be Arthur 'No Sheds' Jackson."

"In 1945, peace broke out."

SCORE: 84% B

In future reviews of the show, I'll be sure to go into some detail on each member of the troupe, using a key performance as a springboard (like the "Nudge, Nudge" sketch to talk about Eric Idle) for the information.

I also plan to keep a tally on two on-screen occurrences throughout the series. The first is the number of times John Cleese appears in drag. Seeing this freakishly tall man dressed as a woman is one of the funniest sights, ever. The other is the number of times Terry Gilliam appears on the show. As the animator, he didn't fancy himself as much of an actor, but when it came time for bit parts and/or the occasional grotesque, Gilliam was perfect.
John Cleese in drag count: I
Terry Gilliam count: II

Monty Python's Flying Circus, S01/E01 - "Whither Canada?"

It's about bloody time I got around to doing this! This has been getting kicked around in the back of my head since last year when Shelley and I were watching Python religiously. A few weeks ago I watched a few vintage Saturday Night Live episodes on NetFlix, and I have to say the comparisons between SNL (even in its "Not Ready For Primetime Players" heyday) and Python are bullshit. That's like saying so-and-so is "an American Beatles" or even, like so many critics and fans were searching for in the early 1970's, "the NEXT Beatles."

Both were sketch comedy shows, yes. Both were radical departures from the standard fare of their respective countries (and that, too, makes a key difference)...but that's about it.

Subversive by American standards was "I want to feed your fingertips to the wolverines."

Subversive by English standards was...well, watch:

Click here if the video isn't working.

Regardless, this shouldn't be an excuse to knock Saturday Night Live. We're here to praise the Python...although something about that sentence just doesn't sound right.

On with the episode.

By and large, one should not judge the strength of a series by its premiere episode. With American programs, pilots are generally the first aired, and even if they're "good," they pale in comparison with the rest of the series. This one is no exception. Not to say it's awful, in fact, it's still very watchable - plenty of classic Python bits to be found here - but the moments where the show is off it feels like a cheap skit put on at a talent show.

(Yes, yes, Python geeks, I'm aware that Season One, Episode One, "Whither Canada?", was the second episode filmed. No matter, what I consider canon is the airing order. This aired first, this was England's introduction to the Pythons, so there.)

The opening sequence, with Michael Palin emerging from the water as the tattered "It's" Man, takes just a little too long for my liking. (I clocked it at 55 seconds.) Years later, Palin made a joke about the not-at-all steep grade of the ground underwater, hence the length of the sequence. Still, seeing this hairy scruffian wearing the haggard shreds of a suit emerge from the sea, only to collapse and sigh the word, "It's..." before the animated credits roll is iconic absurdism.

One of the great features of the Flying Circus series was that the troupe wanted to avoid sketch program cliches. One such cliche is that sketches are written, built up, but then brought to an end by way of a punchline, which more often than not didn't hold up to the rest of the sketch. Why end sketches in a program, when they could all be linked together, in a surrealistic stream-of-consciousness fashion?

This first time out, though, the comedic device of people sitting on pigs is the source of linking material. Frankly, I think it's poorly played the first time (not well-performed by Graham Chapman, also some poorly synced sound), though later on in the episode it's quite funny. Maybe it's the repetition. The idea of repetition being a simple gag for humor would be taken to its most bizarre next season, but that's...well...next season.

That aside, this isn't some crummy pilot. They don't hold any punches with their first sketch, a phony program entitled It's Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, featuring John Cleese as the composer. However, it's nothing really to do with Mozart - he is merely the host - and instead is a program featuring the deaths of historical figures. It's got a dark undertone to it (a commentary on television violence, perhaps?), balanced out by the sheer slapstick of seeing Genghis Khan (Cleese in a filmed bit) die a cartoonish death by way of leaping in the air and landing on his back.

My great thesis on Python, whether it's the films, albums, or television series is that their brand of humor succeeds because it combines some intelligent, cerebral wit with simple, funny-no-matter-how-many-times gags. This is best symbolized by the death depicted of Admiral Horatio Nelson. You don't need to know about the Battle of Trafalgar to laugh at seeing a dummy in early 19th-Century garb tossed out of a high-rise window. However, you can laugh just a little harder knowing among his last words were "Kiss me, Hardy!", to his second-in-command.

Don't miss Cleese, with a German accent, uttering, "Blimey, how time flies!"

The Italian For Italians sketch is...okay. The audience laughter at Terry Jones' instructor saying he is from Gerard's Cross is something lost on me. As for the Italians taking the lesson, they're played a little broadly, pinstripe suit-wearing spivs divided by regionalist pride. Political correctness makes sketches like these age poorly, but at the time other sketch programs would often display national stereotypes and call it humor. The Pythons are in fact offering their own twist on this trope. They would do it again throughout the series, and frankly, the underlying point is much more obvious. It's amusing enough, but not a strong sketch. Thankfully, Terry Jones sits on a pig (porcine casualty number three in this episode - PETA would be pissed!), leading to the first cartoon.

A runaway pig from the tallyboard, where dead piggy #3 is crossed off, marks the debut animation from Terry Gilliam. Even in the weaker shows, the cartoons never cease to amuse. Explaining what all happens would suck the fun out of seeing it. It leads to a phony commercial for Whizzo Butter, "containing 10% more less," a product that brings with its purchase admission to Heaven. Pitchman Palin is seen with the other four actor Pythons (Gilliam's on-screen presence is generally that of an extra and/or grotesque, making "Terry Gilliam appearances" a tally category at the end of this post) all dressed in drag as middle-aged housewives.

These little wenches are called "pepperpots," dubbed such in Cleese's pre-Flying Circus special How To Irritate People, relating to the shape of their bodies. Along with Gilliam's on-screen appearances, I'm also going to have Cleese's appearances in drag as another tally. At six-foot, five inches tall, Cleese is an extraordinarily unconvincing woman and, to me at least, as unfailingly hilarious as Gilliam's cartoons.

The pepperpots can NOT tell the difference between Whizzo Butter and a dead crab, and this is apparently a good thing, although they threaten Palin that if he's one of those television pitchmen trying to get them to compare Whizzo Butter to a dead crab, they'll slit his face.

So far, we've got animal cruelty, broadly-played national stereotypes, clever historical references, death, a mockery of consumerist stupidity, and one demented cartoon. Yep, this is Python, all right!

Unfortunately, the Whizzo bit ends in a very un-Python manner, with a hard edit to the credits for It's The Arts. (According to Kim Johnson's marvelous Python book, The First 28 Years of Monty Python, quite a few sketches were cut from this episode, many to be seen in future episodes.) The first segment of It's The Arts features a great lampooning of the formality of names and nicknames, with filmmaker Sir Edward Ross (Chapman) being called a litany of names: Ted, angel-drawers, Franny-knickers, and everything in between. Storming off the set, Ross is summoned back by Cleese's Tom (who doesn't want Ross "bothering with all this 'Thomas' nonsense") with a serious question about his latest film. Ten seconds into Ross' guaranteed-to-be-dull yarn, Cleese interrupts with an, "Oh, shut up!", expertly dashing audience expectations.

Eric Idle, who I now unfortunately think of as the Python with the honor "Most Likely To Ride Python All The Way To The Bank," gives his own variant nickname-based interview. While Cleese's interviewer tries so desperately to be polite and personable with his subject, Eric is a cheeky smart-ass with composer Arthur "Two-Sheds" Jackson (Jones), who earned his nickname not by actually having a second shed but rather by simply thinking of building a second shed.

This doesn't keep Idle from asking if Jackson wrote his latest symphony in the shed. He drives him to his breaking point, turning from sheds to inquiring about Jackson's interest in trainspotting. After a snippy, ready to crack retort of "What's that got to do with my bloody music?", Cleese's Tom joins Idle in booting the irate composer off-set. Again, another sketch ended before getting stale (maybe even a little early) and without some silly punchline.

The final bit of the It's The Arts segment centers around Pablo Picasso's latest painting, which is being done whilst riding a bicycle. If this notion isn't delightfully silly enough, the entire thing is played out with the detailed enthusiasm of a sportscast. Picasso's route is outlined, the model of bicycle is explained, and in one of the best moments of the episode, Cleese presents an on-the-scene report while a laundry list of famous artists (dead and alive) zip by on bicycles. Palin's surprisingly informed pepperpot tells Cleese that it's Vassily Kandinsky he's seeing and not Picasso, later correcting Cleese that the (dead since 1948) Kurt Schwitters was German, not English.

What makes the scene, beyond the incongruity of Palin's middle-aged housewife displaying a good knowledge of 20th-Century art is more than just the attention to detail. It's Cleese's performance. He delivers his lines at a mile-a-minute, like his head is ready to explode...it's one of those things, you can't explain why it's funny. It just is.

How does this build-up climax? With the absurdist logic that makes Python so great: Picasso falls off his bicycle, unseen, the details of his painting unknown. We are informed, thankfully, that the artist is unharmed, "although the pig has a slight headache." One more piggy pops its head up from under the desk as Palin's host bids us goodnight, right in time for the end credits (around the 21-minute mark) if this were American television.

Thank God for the commercial-free programming of the BBC, as we've still got nine minutes to go. We get another wonderful cartoon, featuring what I consider Gilliam's staple art: animations of vintage photographs. It's twisted, it's slightly disturbing (the man trapped inside the military officer begging to be let out), but it's marvelous. And to think this was on mainstream television some 40 years ago.

The show ends this week with an extended sketch, featuring the world's funniest joke, which induces fatal laughter. The film version of the sketch's first half featured in the 1971 film And Now For Something Completely Different is performed a little better - notably in the joke's author and his mother's deaths from reading the joke - but this is a fairly important sketch for the lads. It seems all three writing teams (Chapman/Cleese, Idle, and Palin/Jones) all contributed their own bits to it, and while there are no animations, Gilliam appears on-screen in two minor roles.

Rounding out the rest of the show, the segment lags at times (mainly in the battlefield scenes), but its high points more than make up for the bumps. Terry Jones' dorky, unsuspecting Army test subject and his tittering demise still makes me laugh, Cleese's goose-stepping interrogator is great (and we'll see him again as a Nazi before the season's end, a more famous one, in fact...), and the scene where the defense ministers laugh themselves to death (on the other side of a guarded door), with the laughter punctuated by the sounds of bodies dropping, is a beautiful stroke of macabre humor. And history geeks will appreciate the stock footage of Chamberlain declaring "Peace in our time!" as Idle mentions "England's great pre-war joke."

Idle's narrator wraps the segment with a solemn tribute at the burial site of the Unknown Joke, before a quick cutaway to stock footage of a ref blowing his whistle and a title frame saying "THE END".

The "It's" man is roused by way of a pointed stick (an incredibly specific prop we'll be seeing and hearing of again in future episodes) and he drags himself back out into the surf as the end credits play.

FIN

Low Points:
+ I feel like the first few episodes of this series treat Cleese as if he were the leader of the troupe, for better or for worse. He'd enjoyed the most success already by this point with At Last The 1948 Show, The Frost Report, and his TV special How To Irritate People (which plays like a really, really bad episode of Python.) He certainly seems to elicit the most laughs from the audience.

+ Parts of this episode's first half, pre-It's The Arts, come across as tentative.

+ The piggy gag. (In all fairness, Shelley liked it.)

High Points:
+ This episode is kind of like "I Saw Her Standing There," the first song from the first Beatles album. It's hard to define the inaugural quality of "Whither Canada?", as the show most definitely picked up some serious momentum in the episodes to come, but damn if it doesn't make me happy every time I see this and know this is where it all started.

+ Cleese's stream of ridiculous nicknames for Sir Edward "Ted/Eddie Baby/Sweetie/Sugar Plum/Angel Drawers/Frank/Fran/Frannie/Little Frannie/Frannie Knickers" Ross.

+ Idle's ribbing of Arthur "Two-Sheds" Jackson.

+ Cleese's sportscaster, forerunner of so many classic Cleese moments.

Best Lines:

"We are proud to be bringing to you one of the evergreen bucket kickers. Yes, the wonderful death of the famous English Admiral Nelson."

"He say, 'Milan is better than Napoli!'"
"Oh, well, he shouldn't be saying that, we haven't done comparatives yet!"

"I don't like being called Eddie Baby!" - this implies he's been called this before...

"I'm going to get rid of the shed. I'm fed up with it!"
"Then you'll be Arthur 'No Sheds' Jackson."

"In 1945, peace broke out."

SCORE: 84% B

John Cleese in drag count: I
Terry Gilliam count: II

The Beatles - Beatles For Sale (1964)

Well, this is embarrassing, isn't it? My longest hiatus yet.

If it's any consolation, listening (read: having the time to listen) has not been a luxury afforded to me. I figured I'd start back with something I could write in my sleep: a Beatles review. This means three things:

1.) Me extolling the virtues of George Harrison.

2.) Me taking the chance to explain to all of you why John Lennon wasn't what he seemed...and that his best work comes from his acknowledgment of this fact, not his "efforts" to save the world while doing very expensive drugs and acting as if his first son didn't exist.

3.) Lots of hyperbolic, and yet thoroughly deserved, praise for one of the greatest things to happen to Western civilization.

A couple of haircuts ago back in 2005, when I actually gave a shit about my own image and tried to wow girls by talking about how I "explicate" films and wanted to make movies myself (ha!), some bozo I went to high school with tried to start a site called Punk Press Online. He asked me to do some album reviews. I did three: Get Behind Me Satan by The White Stripes, which has just come out, Arthur, Or The Decline And Fall Of The British Empire by The Kinks (which I was just talking about to a friend earlier tonight in a Facebook message), and Beatles For Sale.

Why this album and not Pepper or Revolver? It's simple: those albums have earned their due, their place in the pantheon of great 20th Century art. Rightfully so, they tilted Earth's axis just a little bit. But there's plenty to be found even when The Beatles weren't setting out for anything, just wanting to put out another collection of songs in time for Christmas. In a way, this makes it a bit of a parallel to With The Beatles.

A year after With The Beatles, having conquered America, made a terrific film, released an album of all-original tunes, and discovered the music of Bob Dylan all in the wild whirlwind of Beatlemania that was 1964, Beatles For Sale serves as a bit of a progress report.

So, just how are the boys doing after a year of superstardom? Well, looking at the cover (which can be found here), George looks like he just got back from a funeral, John and Paul look either burnt out or smoked out (easily both), and Ringo looks terrified. Maybe it's just the effects of what appears to be a cold day in the photo.

It was still fun for all involved at this point, no chinks in the armor or cracks in the facade forming here...but the band's chief songwriters (at this point, it's just John and Paul) are beginning to grow in ways that suggest they might not be limited to making damn good pop music.

I jumped the gun mentioning him above, but Dylan's influence is first felt on this album. One of my old bandmates, who seemed to have it in for Dylan, pointed towards Beatles For Sale as being the first folk-rock album. But the fusion of folk and rock isn't what made Dylan, well, Dylan. That magic ingredient, the one that appealed so much to John, Paul, and George is all in the lyrics. Even on Another Side Of Bob Dylan, where the focus shifted away from lonesome deaths, finding answers in air currents, and the unbearable yet imminent precipitation that comes with nuclear war, where Dylan actually looks at himself - "My Back Pages," "It Ain't Me, Babe" - he's opening up some major doors.

Suddenly, it was okay to write about yourself. No more hand-holding, no more "she told me what to say-yay," and yet here on Beatles For Sale one can sense a tentative approach to these new sensibilities. Not every song here is an eye-opening revelation into John Lennon's psyche. (Although that would eventually come.) There's a good selection of pure pop songs here, without any subtext, any deeper meaning, or anything more than a catchy-as-Hell hook. But when it's time to be serious, they (and I really just mean John on this outing, though Paul offers a sleeper of his own) nail it.

This album finds the band in a provisional state, eager to test some new ground but not quite ready to let go of their A-side/B-side pop hit mentality. They couldn't have charged right into "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away," "Yesterday," or "Nowhere Man" without the smaller steps taken here. Some authors bitch about this album being a collection of songs rather than an "album," that is, a cohesive whole. Such detractors need to remember that in December 1964, everyone was still putting out collections of songs. Not "albums" defined as cohesive wholes.

Consider where The Beatles' peers were at this point:

+ The Rolling Stones had two albums out in America, one in the UK. No US number one hits, but they'd had two number ones in their homeland and - get this - one in Sweden with the (vastly underrated) original tune "Tell Me."

+ The Kinks had one album out, two flop singles, two massive hits (come on, you have to ask?) and an EP that included a craptastic, possibly drunken, rendition of "Louie, Louie."

+ The Who had yet to release "I Can't Explain," their first proper single. Or at least, their first single as The Who.

In short, this was the time where The Beatles were the undeniable leaders of the proverbial pack. There were plenty of first-wavers from the UK who weren't songwriters (The Dave Clark Five, Gerry & The Pacemakers, Herman's Hermits) still in the running, but by the time Dylan went electric and The Beatles did Rubber Soul, it was all over for them. That's still a year from Beatles For Sale, but the executioner's axe would be coming.

Not a moment too soon, either...that man-baby Peter Noone and all his cutesy faces make me thank the Lord that The MC5 were learning how to tune their guitars right in time for these clowns to get chased off to the state fair circuit.

That said, yes, Beatles For Sale IS just a collection of songs. But so was 12x5 by The Rolling Stones. Beatles authors need to recognize that they don't need to put down their "lesser" works to build up the undisputed masterpieces.

Let's get it on.
(I've never done this before, but maybe it will help if I list all the tracks first, providing possible YouTube links - and there's plenty for The Beatles - and such here.)

TRACK LISTING:
01. No Reply [10]
02. I'm A Loser [10]
03. Baby's In Black [9]
04. Rock And Roll Music [10], originally by Chuck Berry.
05. I'll Follow The Sun [10]
06. Mr. Moonlight [10], originally by Dr. Feelgood & The Interns.
07. Kansas City / Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey! [2], originally by Wilbert Harrison / Little Richard.
08. Eight Days A Week [10]
09. Words Of Love [1], originally by Buddy Holly.
10. Honey Don't [8.5], originally by Carl Perkins.
11. Every Little Thing [10]
12. I Don't Want To Spoil The Party [11]
13. What You're Doing [10]
14. Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby [8.5], originally by Carl Perkins.

Single:
01. I Feel Fine [10]
02. She's A Woman [3]

Honorable Mention:
01. Leave My Kitten Alone [10], originally by Little Willie John.

THE SONGS:
01. No Reply [10]
Their first album started off with the most raucous count-off this side of The Ramones. The second album had a song similarly rambunctious, but it started with just voice - no instruments - and to great effect. The third album was kick-started by the most epic chord ever strummed. (Okay, enough in-text links.)

This starts with a fairly melancholy (by 1964 standards) song about a dodgy woman, who it turns out is seeing another guy. It is never spelled out if she's a cheater, or (better still) if the narrator is a jealous ex. I like the ambiguity...though it's highly likely that I'm giving the song a modern reading.

Regardless, the heartbreak in this song is palpable, with the "I SAW THE LIGHT" / "I NEARLY DIED" / "NO REPLY" refrains sounding like pained lamentations. There's a gorgeous melody, with a slight Latin flavor (mainly in the syncopated drum beat and the achingly dramatic bridge). In only two minutes and twenty seconds, John Lennon invented power pop...and it still holds up 46 years later.

02. I'm A Loser [10]
Paired up with the gloomy "No Reply," it's easy to see why and how I point to this album as the sprouting seeds of John Lennon the emotional troubadour. He'd always turned to music when faced with a crisis. It was there for him when his deadbeat father and doting (but immature) mother weren't. It's what drew he and Paul so close in the early days...but to actually use music as an outlet instead of therapy?

I hate that John lived with such misery hanging over him: a shotgun marriage, the stresses of fame, and the increasingly differing expectations of the fans and the critics. He bottled up his insecurities and grief behind a tough, intelligent, and smart-assed front...and if you've ever seen A Hard Day's Night, boy, did he have us all fooled. The art Lennon created, though, as a result of all this suffering? Along with Ray Davies' work, it's some of the best stuff ever scribbled out by a British songwriter.

Either audiences were incredibly stupid and aloof, or they really just didn't give a shit about the lyrics, because "I'm A Loser" reads like a suicide note. Though it's something that Ray Davies and Randy Newman are better known for, John takes these self-loathing lyrics and sets them to a bouncy melody. There is an interesting tension in this song when the harmonica comes in; previously, the harmonica had epitomized The Beatles' poppy qualities, a sprightly and cheerful sound. Here, having picked up a few lessons from old Bob, the mouth organ sounds like a scream.

Before it makes much of an impact, in comes George with a great Chet Atkins/Carl Perkins guitar solo, bringing us back into the happy world the music has painted for us.

It's a slice of genius, that's for sure, one of the pivotal points in The Beatles' early catalog. Thank God for it.

03. Baby's In Black [9]
This one is a bit understated, but it rounds out a trifecta of songs with sub-poppy subject matter. One of my favorite early (see Appendix at the bottom of this entry for my definitions of Beatle eras) Beatles tunes, "I'll Be Back," closes out A Hard Day's Night with a sense of spite not heard elsewhere on an otherwise happy album.

One listen to the working version on Anthology One, in 3/4 time, and you'll hear the boys straining themselves as a band musically. The verses work well, but it all collapses during the bridge, devolving into slightly embarrassed laughter. The next cut on the CD is the song in 4/4 time, and the moment it kicks in (without the intro it has on the finished album) everything just sounds perfect...even if John flubs a note and laughs.

"Baby's In Black," which made it past the drawing board in waltz time, does feel a little clunky in parts. Still, an A for effort is in store. I can't imagine this song in straight time or in shuffled 4/4. It would sound awful. Still, that's a pretty sloppy solo, even for the not-so-dexterous George.

Where this song succeeds is in the lyrics. Like "No Reply," only to a more extreme degree, there is a subtext to this song that extends beyond the surface. At first, it sounds like a rather benign pop song about a girl whose world has ended due to a break-up. She wears black and shuns other men.

Sad, sure, but the whole "my heart is broken, therefore, life is meaningless" thing isn't uncommon.

What I love - and I mean LOVE - are the subtle hints at a much more macabre scenario: her lover is dead.

"She thinks of him
And so she dresses in black,
And though he'll never come back
She's dressed in black"

The best part is it could be read either way. I don't think the screaming girls gave it much thought.

The academic in me told the critic in my to run a quick check on Wikipedia, just to see if there's anything validating my suspicion. Sure enough, with some sources cited that I've read before and trust wholly, it turns out I was more right than I thought. It's about Stu Sutcliffe's bereaved fiance Astrid Kirchherr.

Wowie Zowie!

04. Rock And Roll Music [10]
I'd like to just go ahead and invent a saying; my apologies if some guy I've never heard of said something to this effect before me: "When in doubt, Chuck Berry."

Here's a guy who not only defined rock guitar (though I must pay respects to Paul Burlison for inventing raga rock on The Johnny Burnette Rock & Roll Trio's version of "The Train Kept A-Rollin'") and wrote some high-energy pieces to show it off, he was a Hell of a lyricist. You can keep Elvis, Pat Boone, and Buddy Holly. I'll take Chuck...and Eddie Cochran.

No point in making some lame-ass, long-winded build up to my bottom line about this song, I'll just say it:

BEST BEATLES COVER. EVER.

I like "Twist & Shout." I love the way George handles "Roll Over Beethoven." The delicate affection of "You Really Got A Hold On Me" makes it worthy of any mix-tape for that special someone. And their rendition "Money" can still put some cracks in your ceiling.

But this one, to crib a phrase from Ian Fleming, "has the delivery of a brick through a plate-glass window." Modern, worldly-wise, and politically correct "journalists" (note the floating quotes) would call such an unabashed celebration of rock music over jazz, mambo, tango, and conga to be "rockist," whatever the Hell that even means. The dopes who throw that word around can't even seem to agree.

To me, it's an unabashed celebration of rock music as the music of youth, energy, and rebellion, something to drown out the Lawrence Welk records that parents in the 1950's danced to. And whatever, rock and roll at its essential core of youth, energy, and rebellion is something immune to the "-ism" label. Save that for the guy jacking off to Styx, Journey, or some other overproduced mid-tempo arena-ready dreck.

Everything about this song is perfect. The way John's voice echoes. The way George Martin plays the shit out the piano. The fact that John calls it "rock-roll" music. The very timbre of John's vocals as he shouts like the building is on fire. The way the songs stops and starts with every trip back to the chorus. Its placement on the album, with three incredibly depressing songs about infidelity, self-hatred, and death preceding it, is perfect.

05. I'll Follow The Sun [10]
Trust Paul to give us a song that can cool us off after the last number without lulling us to sleep. This song is old - a demo from 1960 exists in all its lo-fi glory - and yet it fits in perfectly among these newer, more mature songs. Granted, the original version sounds more like a Tin Pan Alley tune you'd hear in an early talkie, but with a new bridge and some incredibly tight harmonies with John - which until I heard the album in remastered mono I had thought was just a double-tracked Paul - and you have one of Paul's finest songs.

It's short and sweet, even with the delicate electric guitar solo in the middle. This song keeps up the early Beatles trend of including Latin/Caribbean flavors in their music. With a different singer and arrangement, this could make for a passable calypso number.

06. Mr. Moonlight [10]
This is one of the most reviled tunes The Beatles ever released...and frankly, I love it. It sounds like music you'd hear at a seedy cocktail lounge in Tijuana, circa 1961. The organ is great, John sounds like a worn-out bandleader (hey, he sort of was!) singing for the table of ladies in the front row.

What can I say? I love this song, and I love it without any sense of "it's so bad it's good" at all. Not to get all Anthony Bourdain on you, but this is the dirty water hot dog of the bunch. Get a neon-coral colored beverage known only as "Papaya Drink" to wash it down, and you've got yourself a meal.

A song like this, it's pretty simple: you either hate it or you love it.

07. Kansas City / Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey! [2]
Yikes!

Why hasn't anyone singled this little dumpling (emphasis on the "dump") out as an awful Beatles song? John flubs his enunciation on "Rock & Roll Music" and it sounds like he just couldn't give a shit, Paul does it and he sounds drunk, lazy.

It really doesn't help that I've heard plenty of white boy blues just as half-assed, slow, and tired as this.

This only goes to prove my argument that while we owe The Beatles for a lot of wonderful innovations and noteworthy firsts, we also have them to blame for some things, as seemingly every single song they did inspired another band's entire discography. Without Pepper, we might never have gotten The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, and we definitely wouldn't have gotten We're Only In It For The Money. However, we also wouldn't have gotten the overwrought garbage that is English prog rock (excluding Brian Eno).

Anyway, I kind of hate this song, a pock-mark on an otherwise outstanding album.

The strange thing is, I love Wilbert Harrison's original.

Thankfully, The Beatles wouldn't revisit the blues again until "Yer Blues," which seemingly goes against my oft-made assertion that the Fab Four sucked as a blues band.

08. Eight Days A Week [10]
I said this in my review of Instant Replay by The Monkees, but it bears repeating since I haven't written a review in 27 years: I acknowledge that my tastes by and large seem to sidestep the so-called "classics" of an artists' oeuvre. Not always - there's a reason a song like "My Sharona" (RIP Doug Fieger) was a one-hit wonder: the rest of The Knack's stuff isn't that great! - but something like The Beatles compilation 1 or any of the seemingly infinite Stones and Who compilations floating out there only serve to rub me the wrong way. "Start Me Up" isn't a good song. "Dancing With Mr. D" is, and yet that one isn't on Forty Licks.

And so on.

Anyway, here's the tried-and-true "classic" on an album that I'll admit has been treated like a bit of a wallflower in The Beatles' discography. Not only is it a "classic" (again, note the floating quotes) Beatle tune, it's a great Beatle tune.

They sure knew how to pace an album: three pieces of John's heart for us to consume, a riotous Chuck Berry song, a Paul ballad, and two R&B covers to round out side A. Flip the record over, and you're politely reminded that this is indeed the same band that brought you such timeless confections as "All My Loving," "A Hard Day's Night," and "Can't Buy Me Love."

Not only that, the song FADES IN! Can you imagine what that must have sounded like hearing it for the first time?

It's a shuffling Motown-esque love song - oh, hey, The Supremes covered it! - and musically, there's something oddly triumphant about that fade-in. You can almost assume it's The Beatles giving us an almighty, "Yeah, we did 'No Reply,' but we can still do a masterpiece like this in our sleep!"

Imagine if this had started the album proper, and not Side B. Makes me wonder how differently history would have treated it.

09. Words Of Love [1]
That's right. A one. I might stand as the only white person who doesn't get a boner over Buddy Holly. It isn't something as shallow as it being a matter of my own hatred for the veneration of the dead...I just don't like his music. I won't deny his influence, but I think the music that all his fans enjoyed was trite lovey-dovey nonsense.

In fact, Buddy Holly is kind of like the Mozart of rock and roll. Everyone talks about him, everyone seems to worship him...but I just don't see the appeal. Of course, I've outlived him since June 7th, 2009, and he did all he did in 22 years, 4 months, and 27 days while I'm still adrift in a sea of reading responses, scholarship applications, conference presentations, travel grants, and job interviews.

So...yeah. I had to flame myself before any of you did it in the comments.

That said, I hate the original, and I think The Beatles' version is worse. The eighth-note handclaps bug me to no end, John and Paul's harmonies are God-awful and an aural depiction of them going out of their way to sound American, the guitar tone hurts my ears, and what a waste of a good slapback echo.

Well...now that I've pissed you all off, let me take this opportunity to remind you that any comments left get screened first.

10. Honey Don't [8.5]
Right on time! Ringo gives us a great Carl Perkins number on this, his latest vocal since "I Wanna Be Your Man."

This has everything that I feel "Words Of Love" is lacking. It's got a nice beat, the instruments are all balanced quite well, George turns in not one, but TWO great solos (after all, Carl Perkins was one of his idols), and what's not to love about Ringo saying, "Aw, rock on George, for Ringo!" Great rockabilly guitar riff throughout, too.

11. Every Little Thing [10]
My good friend and once non-sexual domestic partner Eric Condon and I had an interesting discussion about whether or not anything by The Beatles can truly be called underrated. It's a good question, because with 13 albums that (for better or for worse - I'm looking at you, Please Please Me!) have been scrutinized and eaten up time and again by the record buying public, it's a bit like saying there's an overlooked play by Shakespeare, or that one of the corners of the Mona Lisa doesn't get enough respect.

Still, everything in context: these records, tapes, 8-tracks, CD's, and MP3's have sold in the millions. Even still, I postulate that there are some dimly-lit nooks and crannies in The Beatles' works. It's mainly, as I said in my With The Beatles review, on the flip-sides of these early LP's and singles. You know "Lady Madonna," but have you heard George's b-side, "The Inner Light?" It's one of their best songs.

There's plenty of songs that just seem...forgotten. The underside of With The Beatles I've discussed before. For A Hard Day's Night, the b-side is all songs that weren't in the film...an unfortunate position for all six of those songs. "Things We Said Today," although it might be the only pro-love love song in a minor key, is reason enough to still love Paul McCartney after "Silly Love Songs." "You Can't Do That" is a glimpse into John's darker side...the inspiration for the (in?)sincere "Jealous Guy" from 1971. And as I said before, "I'll Be Back" is great. Period. It's a barrage of songs that, had they been the ones in the film would be the songs venerated and celebrated the way their side-A counterparts are today. Help! fares even worse, and for the exact same reason.

Now, on Beatles For Sale, the three other Lennon/McCartney originals stand in the shadow of "Eight Days A Week." Eric and I both agreed that these songs, discreetly tucked away on the b-side of what is an uneven, hastily cobbled-together album, stand as proof that, yes, Virginia, there are underrated and overlooked Beatles songs.

To begin, "Every Little Thing" was written by Paul, but has John on lead vocals. This was never a common Beatle practice; there's only one instance where George sang a Lennon/McCartney song ("I'm Happy Just To Dance With You"), and as for John or Paul singing the other's song (not counting duets) - and I do welcome corrections on this - I really think it's a one-time occurrence.

Anyway, John's vocals are great here. I can't really picture Paul singing these lyrics, even though he wrote it. And speaking of the songwriting, oh, my God! Paul is writing something that isn't a radio-ready love song with an infectious chorus? John isn't the only one in the band growing up.

McCartney gibes aside, this is a great song. Gorgeous melody, and the piano/timpani combo gives a nice weight to the music, a nice complement to the sweet lyrics. Glenn Gass did note that the song's chorus:

"Every little thing she does
She does for me, yeah!
And you know the things she does,
She does for me, ooh!"

...hasn't exactly aged well. What can you do? McCartney was a traditionalist; a man needed a maid. In fact, it was this tension that broke up his relationship with Jane Asher. She didn't want to give up her acting career to be a stay-at-home wife. Who did he think she was, Maureen Starkey or Cynthia Lennon?

Pre-feminist sexism aside (again, it was a different time, they came from a different culture,) the song gets enough of a pass on its other merits to get a ten.

12. I Don't Want To Spoil The Party [11]
Take away those trademark Beatle harmonies, and this is something straight out of the Ray Davies songbook. I praised the pacing of the album earlier...but the more I think about it, the more I have to say that only applies to Side A, which is where this song belongs. Lennon's self-portrait just as pathetic as "No Reply," as self-aware as "I'm A Loser," and distraught as the narrator of "Baby's In Black." This almost got the crown of being awarded an 11 score.

"I had a drink or two and I don't care..."

...and yet he's wondering why his lady has ditched him? Man, the irony, the desperation - intentional or not - is magnificent. Even though it's implied he's behaved like a drunken ass, that chorus has him acting like he's the victim:

"Though tonight she's made me sad,
I...still...love...her!"

Although there's some decent competition from the songs on either side of it, never mind the two songs at the start of the album, it wasn't much of a debate for me to pick this as the best cut on the record.

13. What You're Doing [10]
That drum cadence is something I could listen to all day. George's 12-string calls back to the sound he had with his Rickenbacker 360-12 on A Hard Day's Night (and yet this song is not a hold-over from those sessions), and where's the chorus? There isn't one.

It's unconventionally structured, with its bizarre rhyme scheme, Paul's syncopated verses (all sung while hitting impossibly high notes), and a fairly complex - for 1964 - melody. This is the kind of song that the early Monkees' stuff (the songs Micky Dolenz sang) tried so desperately to ape, no pun intended. Not even the best of the best Tin Pan Alley veterans could come close.

14. Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby [8.5]
Two Carl Perkins covers on one album? Good as they both are, and also indicative of their love for Perkins' music, it's definitely a sign that they had a bit of a song shortage.

After 13 tracks, we finally hear George's beautiful baritone voice on lead. It bops on with a lovable rockabilly swagger. It sounds like they're having a Hell of a good time, too, but they also sound worn out...like this last song on the album might have even been the last one they recorded for it. Still, a memorable performance, plenty of that marvelous echo that I love on the vocals.

Before I do the subtotal, let me just say...I'm a little surprised by how uneven this album is.

Subtotal: 85.7% B

Replay Factor: 1
I have to say, side A plays fairly well, though I might skip that awful two-for-one thing at the end. Side B? Less so...kind of uneven. Those Perkins covers are good, but they're still filler. In between, though, are some real treasures of Lennon/McCartney songs.

Consistency Factor: 0
It is kind of rare for me to give a zero in this regard, but it is a pretty bumpy ride. If you're wanting to introduce someone to Moptop Beatles, play With The Beatles or A Hard Day's Night. If you want to treat someone to some great mid-phase Beatles, look no further than Help! and Rubber Soul. This really is them in transition, and while I generally think the phrase "advanced listening" applies to other albums I might give a zero to (like Lumpy Gravy, Studio Tan, Thing-Fish, or Broadway The Hard Way by Frank Zappa), because that implies these are albums worth holding out for. As I define in my Just The Facts entry, a zero is an album generally classified as "for the die-hards only." That doesn't really apply here...more like, "Of the 13 Beatles albums, this is second only to Yellow Submarine or Please Please Me as being the last one you should purchase." Still an essential part of your collection? Yes. But if you were really hurting for cash and could only buy, say, one, three, seven, or even nine Beatle albums...this one wouldn't make the cut.

External Factors: 1
This really is a thrown-together-for-the-Christmas-market release. That's not common in the business anymore, not in this era where you can write some stupid original Christmas song (that isn't "Father Christmas") and put it out as a single, bribing your way to getting it shown on the MTV. The fact that they were expected to have a Christmas disc ready showed balls on The Beatles' part for rising to the challenge. There's plenty of criticisms to lob:
+ No George-penned songs
+ Six cover tunes...a bit of a step backwards considering that A Hard Day's Night was 13 all-original tunes
+ The covers, barring one, aren't as memorable as their earlier efforts
+ A dismal three "Paul-only" vocal performances, one of them being their shitty fake blues medley?

...but there's also plenty to praise:
+ Four-track recording meant more room for overdubs and a crisper sound altogether
+ All of the original songs are bold moves forward
+ Plenty of John to go around

Total: 87.7% B

Now, a single and an outtake.

01. I Feel Fine [10]
The subject of love is a tricky one to write about. How do you define it? What is it, even? Can you really sum up the feelings of being in love in a simple two-minute song?

With "I Feel Fine," the answer is yes. Ask me to define love, and I'll just tell you to listen to this song. If this had been on Beatles For Sale, it would be an undisputed 11.

02. She's A Woman [3]
They still don't quite have the art of making a decent b-side down yet, do they? I kind of hate this song...but the chorus makes up for how awfully Paul is singing. And on that note, what is with his singing? He's shouting, he's yelping, he's mumbling...tuneless muck. That scene in Help! when Eleanor Bron's character plays this song on a reel-to-reel tape player for Leo McKern and he goes, "Uggghhh! Shocking!" kind of sums up my thoughts on this song.

01. Leave My Kitten Alone [10]
WHOA! This outtake remained in the can for 31 years until Anthology One. All I can ask is what the Hell they were thinking leaving it off the album! This song instead of "Words Of Love" would have made the album a 92% A-, throw in the tilt factors and it would be a cozy 94% A.

It's a shame. Oh, well, at least it's out for us to consume now.

Have fun debating this one!

Appendix:

I divide The Beatles' discography into three (technically four) periods -

Pre: Their first recording ("That'll Be The Day") through the Decca Audition (1958-1962) Reserved almost exclusively for die-hards, there's plenty of treasures here like the Decca Audition, the Tony Sheridan tapes, and their gigs at The Star Club in Hamburg. There's also some real shit, though, too, like their incredibly lo-fi rehearsals from 1960 that might or might not feature original bassist Stu Sutcliffe.

Early: Please Please Me through Beatles For Sale (1962-1964) The moptop phase, where they wore matching suits, shook their heads and went "WOOO!!!!", and were poised to take over the world.

Mid-Phase: Help! through Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band / "All You Need Is Love" (1965-1967) With the world placed in their hands, they don't quite know what to do with it...except make their greatest music.

Latter: Magical Mystery Tour through Let It Be (1967-1970) From the first fumble to the last, with a bitchin' double-LP and a slickly over-produced farewell sandwiched in between.

Dr. No (1962)

This is my first film review. Anyone visiting my site for the first time should probably know this in advance. Regular readers, I apologize. I've never written a film review before. Can you believe that, given that I studied film along with rock music in college? I can analyze movies like it's nobody's business, but I've never done an proper review.

I guess that's my way of saying you've been warned.

This probably goes without saying, but there will be spoilers in this entry.

The James Bond series is one I have such a love-hate relationship with. At its best, you have a compelling story, some great acting, and some memorable action sequences. However, at its worst, you have recycled or completely laughable stories, some so-bad-it's-still-just-bad acting, and action sequences that are laughable or just plain stupid.

And I blame the producers. Bigger isn't always better. They learn this and re-learn it time and again throughout the existence of the super-spy's film franchise. Every Moonraker is followed by a For Your Eyes Only, but eventually they start beefing the films up and next thing you know Bond is fighting an axe-wielding Christopher Walken atop the Golden Gate Bridge while one of the replacements from Charlie's Angels squeals like a stuck pig.

It doesn't help - or maybe it does - that I'm also working my way through Ian Fleming's novels. Through the summer and early autumn I got through the first five, and oddly enough got to Dr. No before school work began to (appropriately) become my primary focus. The literary Bond isn't a wise-cracking womanizer. He's a rather cold employee of Her Majesty's Government, not enamored with his job, but dedicated to his duty.

The books have their drawbacks, which become more and more glaringly obvious as time marches on. Fleming was upper-class and English...and a man. So there's sexism (though not much eroticism, thankfully) and racist attitudes scattered throughout. It isn't uncommon for someone to be described first as being French or having traits "like all Frenchmen...". To me, it's just the words of an Englishman in the dying days of colonialism in the British Empire.

Deborah Lipp wrote a wonderful book of lists and reviews of the series. She runs a great blog site that features all things Bond. In her book, I feel she is a little too harsh on Fleming's racial attitudes. They're worth pointing out and calling them for what they are, but sometimes she's a bit too politically correct. (Other than that, though, she's a terrific writer and a very courteous site-runner. She warded off some pesky 13 year old who started a petty argument deftly.)

Her book, which I picked up in Dallas this June, inspired me as a pop culture junkie, to re-watch and reevaluate Bond. I hadn't seen any of the films since middle school, but I recalled watching them almost religiously. I also recall that Timothy Dalton's two films were my standout favorites. Of course, this eventually got displaced when I discovered Monty Python and their Flying Circus.

So, here goes. My first film review on this blog.

DR. NO (1962)
I really don't know why this was the first choice. Bond had actually been introduced to us on the CBS series Climax! in an adaptation of the first novel Casino Royale, with Peter Lorre as Le Chiffre and American (!) actor Barry Nelson playing Jimmy "Card Sense" Bond, a CIA agent...

...think about that for a minute. James Bond as an American. Oh, wait...

Anyway, the first Bond novel having already been put onto the screen, albeit on American television in the 1950's, was sufficient grounds for them to choose a different story. The books are in an entirely different order from the film series, which continues to baffle me. I've taken the liberty to list them here with their order in the films in parenthesis:

Casino Royale (21st)
Live And Let Die (8th)
Moonraker (11th)
Diamonds Are Forever (7th)
From Russia With Love (2nd)
Dr. No (1st)
Goldfinger (3rd)
For Your Eyes Only short story collection, which included
+ For Your Eyes Only and Risico, which combined to form the story for the film For Your Eyes Only (12th)
+ From A View To A Kill, which minus "From" was the title - and little else - for the 14th outing
+ Quantum Of Solace (22nd, though again, none of the story is on the screen. Just the title.)
+ The Hildebrand Rarity (incorporated into Licence To Kill, the 16th film)
Thunderball (4th)
The Spy Who Loved Me (10th)
On Her Majesty's Secret Service (6th)
You Only Live Twice (5th)
The Man With The Golden Gun (9th)
Octopussy & The Living Daylights (13th and 15th, respectively)

What the Hell? Seriously! Oh, well.

I'll warn you this may just turn into "the rantings of an angry fanboy."

Whatever the case is, Dr. No lends itself to being a simple, yet effective, narrative. A field agent is killed and Bond is sent to investigate. It really does play out like a detective story...and that's kind of a drawback. We know Bond with 20/20 hindsight as a globetrotting secret agent, so why is he doing what seems like police work? Because that's how he worked in the novels. This is one of the closest adaptations we'll see in the franchise of the source material.

We first see Bond from behind, playing cards opposite the lovely Sylvia Trench, and in our first glimpse of the ruggedly handsome Sean Connery he gives us his iconic introduction while lighting a cigarette: "Bond. James Bond." It's so strange to think Fleming wanted the most ordinary name possible, because as you're about to see, those two simple syllables are pretty bad-ass:

See what I mean?

That said, (and this is my second draft of this review when I realized I was simply summarizing the picture without any opinions) I like this movie. But I don't love it. As an introduction to Bond, it is pretty good. However, this could have been any generic cop/CIA man following the clues...until he gets to where the clues take him.

I bitch a lot about the lack of realism in the films, but what makes Bond so special is that it's realism...with a twist. He exists in the real world, yes, but a dash of fantasy - just enough to make you think, "Could this actually happen?" - gives these films their oomph. So it is largely a cloak and dagger film, just set in Jamaica.

But then we get to where this search for clues is taking us.

Bond's journey eventually leads him to the lair of the title villain, Dr. Julius No (Joseph Wiseman), a mysterious half-German, half-Chinese with artificial hands. As far as Bond villains go, I like him, but several factors leave him very open to parody. It doesn't help that just about anything remotely ridiculous we see in the 1960's Bond outings was later made into comedy in the Austin Powers series, because Dr. No pretty much is Dr. Evil. He speaks in a robotic, monotonous tone, wearing a Nehru jacket with matching trousers, and he does little other than demonstrate that his artificial hands can do some serious damage. Oh, and they are both doctors - maybe they went to the same Evil School?

As menacing as he seems, he doesn't get much screen time. He's really only in two scenes. One is where he and Bond size one another up. And re-watching it, Dr. Evil be damned, Wiseman makes every second count!

(The armed goon with one line we'll see again later, much later, in The Spy Who Loved Me as the stumpy but formidable Sandor.)
He anticipates Bond's every move, even telling him to put the knife he'd hidden in his sleeve back on the table, while Bond does his best to verbally wound his adversary. It's here that Bond shines, because too much in this film does he come across as kind of a brute, body-slamming a thug and snapping "Get up!" as he wipes his hands with his handkerchief, throwing Quarrel (John Kitzmiller) around before learning he's a friend and not a foe, and his seduction of Miss Taro (Zena Marshall).

But in this scene, he shows that his greatest asset isn't his hand-to-hand combat skills or his seductive charm. It's his brain. We're meeting 007 not as some rookie eager to get his hands dirty; rather, he's a seasoned veteran. This tactic of being a smart-ass is one he'd clearly used before, and it had worked for him. But not this time. Dr. No even tells him it's to no avail, deriding him as "a stupid policeman" after offering him to join an organization called SPECTRE.

Thinking of it in 1962 terms rather than our post-post-modern outlook where nothing is sacred and everything is ridiculed, Dr. No is a chilling villain, an adversary intellectually and physically.

As for the girl, Honey Ryder (played by German actress Ursula Andress and dubbed by some English lady whose name I don't really feel like looking up) I think she's kind of overrated. Beautiful, yes, but iconic or memorable? Sorry, not really. A lot of the early Bond girls were dubbed and while this was probably a wise foreign-accent-masking move, I feel this gives them little presence.

The Department of Henchmen wasn't fully fleshed out in this first excursion, and we can forgive that. Professor Dent (Anthony Dawson) is well-played, but everything about him from his voice to his demeanor seems to say "THIS IS A VILLAIN, HE IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED" from his first appearance. This really does remove some of the suspense before we see him report to Dr. No that Bond is an enemy to be feared.

Thankfully, there are some great allies here. Straight out of the novels are Felix Leiter (played here by Jack Lord, later to start in Hawaii Five-O) and Quarrel. Leiter is Bond's CIA counterpart, just as well-dressed and cool. I like Jack Lord's performance, although I feel he's underused as far as the film's action goes. Quarrel adds some comic relief, and he's very likable...but he also has the misfortune of being a black man in a film made in the early 1960's based on a novel written by an upper-class Englishman in the 1950's. He's pretty...token, prone to superstition, and when Connery says "Quarrel, fetch my shoes!" I really wish the guy would say back, "Fuck you! Get your own damn shoes!"

The action sequences are real hit and miss. Bond's car chase with the Three Blind Mice assassins was shot in a town called Rear Projectionville, and it's a bit much when their car goes off road (hitting NO bumps, mind you!) and bursts into flames. Then again, I say this without thinking to mention that instead of gasoline, cars in the early 1960's ran on nitro glycerin.

But then there's the scene where Bond has a tarantula crawling up his body in bed. What makes this so great is this isn't sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads (man-eating fish would become a Bond trope after being effectively used in the Bahamas-centered Thunderball). No, it's a spider. And it's so well done, because it's a real threat, and Connery's sweat-drenched face is pretty damn convincing that Bond is legitimately frightened.

The final showdown, when Bond sabotages the operation, goes too fast. Everyone immediately evacuates. Maybe it's just badly shot. However, there is a deal of tension during his fight with Dr. No, one reason being that a single carefully aimed blow from his opponent's metal hands and Bond's head would look like a crushed watermelon. The other is that they're on a platform lowering into a nuclear reactor which is quickly reaching critical temperature.

Overall, Dr. No is entertaining, with some good dialog and a smattering of tense action sequences, but it's not the first one that comes to mind if I want to see Connery at his best.

Score: 84% B

PS - Bond sleeps with three women in this movie. Yes, this was the era of JFK bedding anything that walked. This was the era of Mad Men.

PPS - How did you like my first film review? I thought it sucked - definitely not as good as my album reviews - but then I think all my stuff sucks.