I have to carry my own weight but George spares me from his Bob Dylan playlist so my brain doesn’t rattle. One morning if your ears are burning you’ll know you had a place in our morning banter Matt.
Thank you. Great words and feeling(s) and yes, conclusion. I came to The Band through a friend whose closest (but much) older brother was already a huge fan (a book or podcast or whatever could be based upon the influence of older siblings on their littles' musical taste... that would be a corker). We bought the record and watched the Last Waltz on PBS and blew away an all school assembly with another friend and I on knock off Les Paul guitars barely holding together a Neanderthal Bo Diddley (mongrel-filtered through the Doors/Band/Thorogood) beat as my friend melded Iggy Pop (did we even know who he was?) and Jim Morrison and Animal from the Muppets and... by the time the last crunchcrunchcrunch crunchcrunch decayed in the corners of the gym and the singer's shirt was... somewhere, the students were appreciative... supportive but the faculty were on their feet and hollering. It was a moment. I digress(ed). Your conclusion... stings but true things often do. I was a Levon man from early days principally due to the scarf Robbie chose to wear for The Last Waltz. And... his smugness throughout that great movie. And then This Wheel's On Fire confirmed my chosen side. And yes, Robbie's not returning fire was disciplined or compassionate but likely as not due to his knowing that much of what was said was true. But it does not matter. What no doubt would have been worthy and catchy and likely superb music made apart, they made empyreal together. And so, again, Thank You.
What a fine piece of writing! And, while probably apocryphal, the Clapton story is great. “We don’t jam, we play songs” fully expresses my music fan philosophy
Thanks, Jim. And not that apocryphal, actually. I read so much for this piece, I was practically crushed under a stack of Band books and pieces. But if memory serves, Robbie himself told the story in his book. A book I highly recommend. And hats off to Clapton for being humble enough, even as a guitar deity, to not be competitive, and to pay genuine and repeated respects to fellow soul men. I always liked him for that. His Hall of Fame induction speech was a thing of beauty. And re-watching it just now, I realize Clapton told the jam story himself!
Matt, so good, thank you, your substack is such a great value. The Band and the Stones are 2 of my favorite bands (particularly classic rock, John Prine, Jason Isbell, etc. from Americana rounding out my other favorites). How do you compare the Stones run of Beggars Banquet through Exile on Main Street with The Band's Music from Big Pink through Moon Dog Matinee? I think the Stones are all overall 1A with The Band being 1B. For me, classic rock rankings after them are CCR, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, then The Beatles.
Thanks, Kevin. I'm probably more deeply connected to The Band for the reasons outlined in the 9,000 word piece above, which I won't take the trouble of repeating here. But you won't find me slagging the Stones, who I also love. Exile being one of my very favorite albums of all time. As good as anything anyone has ever put out. In fact, I just looked at a track listing, counted them up, and there's still a good six or seven songs on that album I never get sick of listening to. I think it's nearly been as long for the Stones, since they made a great album, as it has for The Band. The difference being The Band broke up in the seventies, and the Stones are still a going concern. But Keith Richards is, at this point, like my favorite uncle. I even love his solo stuff. Particularly '88's "Talk is Cheap." (Which has sometimes been much better than latter Stones records.) And at this point, I just want to see how long they can keep the ball in the air. Since this is uncharted territory. The Beatles couldn't make it past 1970. And here the Stones are, still kicking. Or what's left of them. Sounds like you probably read Keith's 2010 memoir, Life. If not, it's so worth it.......Riveting from start to finish.
Also, John Prine and Jason Isbell are both killers. So good call........
I can't think of another band that put out four albums in a row as good as the Stones did from 1968--1973; Beggar's Banquet, Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street.
CCR - Bayou Country, Green River, Willy and the Poor Boys (ALL 1969) and Cosmo's Factory 1970. All bracketed by their impressive eponymous debut from July of '68 and Pendulum (December '70) - both of which contain CCR hits/standards. All of that music in 30 months. But yes, Ha! throw YaYas in there and I lean toward the Stones.
Nice. And Waits's favorite Stones song of all time? "I Just Want to See His Face," Off Exile. Which is probably somewhere amidst my top tier as well. Think I played Waits's and Keith's "Last Leaf on The Tree" in the first piece I ever did on Substack.
No, did not know. Wow. It is a great, great Stones song.
You (and by that I, of course, don’t mean you personally or a proverbial you — but me) would have had no sense from the early Waits albums that he had such fantastic taste in musicians (or songs on ‘Exile’) or such a great & open ear for strange textures.
That initial Substack was before I jumped onboard. Will check out.
80s Waits is the rare example of an established artist — 90s Chris Whitley starting with the amazing ‘Dirt Floor’ album is another — revealing depths that seemed to come from nowhere. Though I guess before my time groups in that 60s snd early 70s did it regularly.
I have Whitley's Dirt Floor album around here somewhere. It's fantastic. Good call. He was a wicked talent. One of my favorite clips, in fact, and I'll just dump it here in comments since I'll likely never use it for a bonus track, is this bad audience video (in addition to it being a song fragment), of him doing "Living With The Law": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhV8nIT-qAk
Rain Dogs got me started on Waits back in the '80s. And it's wonderful, of course. "Anywhere I Lay My Head" off of it might be my funeral song, if I can get my wife to hire a brass band. But I came to really love those '70s albums, before he started putting all the effects in. Just him and a piano, back when his sincerest wish seemed to be to be a 70-year-old black man with a smoker's cough and laryngitis. And I happen to think his 1999 Mule Variations might've been his finest album of all, song for song. Stripped down, for him. But there are some real keepers on there.
Fantastic clip, thanks. Daniel Lanois is probably a great guy, but it’s nice to hear the song without his standard production.
Max Beerbohm had a 1916 short story collection on decadent & Pre Raphaelite writers from the 1890s. This is the bit that always gets quoted: “From the time of Nathaniel Hawthorne to the outbreak of the war, current literature did not suffer from any lack of fauns. But when Braxton's first book appeared fauns had still an air of novelty about them. We had not yet tired of them and their hoofs and their slanting eyes and their way of coming suddenly out of woods to wean quiet English villages from respectability. We did tire later.”
I kind of feel from the time of Norman Mailer through the British Invasion and 90s rap, current culture did not suffer from any lack of middle class white people pretending to be impoverished black people.
Or maybe I’m just looking for snarky justifications for preferring the mid period (1980 — 1999, HA&V — Mule) Waits cause that’s what meant the most to me when I was young. HA&V was solid rock and then what followed — mind blowing.
You may want to get a kid to a pull a “Dad woulda wanted” on ‘Anywhere I Lay My Head’ when the time comes.
Easily seen. Nice work. Very nice. Beginnings of a book I would think. Don't know about sales but you would do a good job. BTW, my credit card was purchasing hookers in Thailand a few days ago. Bank shut it down without even asking if I was there. As the Boxer says, there were times when I was so lonesome I took some comfort there - long ago in a far away war. Anyway, will resubscribe when new card arrives.
Thanks, Ron. And you give me an idea. Thai hookers as a subscription premium. Some people would probably like that better than t-shirts or copies of my old book.
Whew! It took me three sittings to finish, but that was awesome! I’m not going to pretend I had a lot of knowledge about The Band before reading this, but you pulled me in. I listened to their music to and from work today. Many thanks!
Sep 7, 2023·edited Sep 7, 2023Liked by Matt Labash
Once again, I find myself in a strange place as a reader: avidly reading 20,000 words about a band (literally "the" Band) about which I have no particular connection, interest, love for or fond memories of, either directly or indirectly as if one of their songs was in the background as something momentous happened to me.
I appreciate the cranky old man "get off my lawn" tone of the opening paragraph - classic Labash, to be sure, but you do it so well - to the eulogies for every single member and the entire corpus of their music together and apart.
I have no idea how long you spent on background but this entire piece is absolutely incredible. I listened to every video embed and as I did so, I had the realization that _of course_ I know their music, but if I had a gun to my head, I couldn't have told you who played it or what it was really called. (You mean the song isn't titled Take a Load off Fanny?! News to me.)
Thanks, Jade. But I take two small issues with this: it's actually only 9,000 words. Must've just felt like 20,000. And I'm actually not yet a cranky old man. Just a cranky middle-aged one.
Thank you brother!
Nope we’re just gym buddies. George introduces me to new authors and I try to dampen down his political pessimism which is a workout in and of itself!
Interesting. How much do you bench? And does George spot you, or does he just let you hike it up there by yourself, since it builds character?
It isn't enough that you are one of the most gifted writers in all of contemporary punditry, Matt. You are one hell of a funny guy as well.
I have to carry my own weight but George spares me from his Bob Dylan playlist so my brain doesn’t rattle. One morning if your ears are burning you’ll know you had a place in our morning banter Matt.
Thank you. Great words and feeling(s) and yes, conclusion. I came to The Band through a friend whose closest (but much) older brother was already a huge fan (a book or podcast or whatever could be based upon the influence of older siblings on their littles' musical taste... that would be a corker). We bought the record and watched the Last Waltz on PBS and blew away an all school assembly with another friend and I on knock off Les Paul guitars barely holding together a Neanderthal Bo Diddley (mongrel-filtered through the Doors/Band/Thorogood) beat as my friend melded Iggy Pop (did we even know who he was?) and Jim Morrison and Animal from the Muppets and... by the time the last crunchcrunchcrunch crunchcrunch decayed in the corners of the gym and the singer's shirt was... somewhere, the students were appreciative... supportive but the faculty were on their feet and hollering. It was a moment. I digress(ed). Your conclusion... stings but true things often do. I was a Levon man from early days principally due to the scarf Robbie chose to wear for The Last Waltz. And... his smugness throughout that great movie. And then This Wheel's On Fire confirmed my chosen side. And yes, Robbie's not returning fire was disciplined or compassionate but likely as not due to his knowing that much of what was said was true. But it does not matter. What no doubt would have been worthy and catchy and likely superb music made apart, they made empyreal together. And so, again, Thank You.
What a fine piece of writing! And, while probably apocryphal, the Clapton story is great. “We don’t jam, we play songs” fully expresses my music fan philosophy
Thanks, Jim. And not that apocryphal, actually. I read so much for this piece, I was practically crushed under a stack of Band books and pieces. But if memory serves, Robbie himself told the story in his book. A book I highly recommend. And hats off to Clapton for being humble enough, even as a guitar deity, to not be competitive, and to pay genuine and repeated respects to fellow soul men. I always liked him for that. His Hall of Fame induction speech was a thing of beauty. And re-watching it just now, I realize Clapton told the jam story himself!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpBQw_COaQc
Wow, great clip, and respect to Clapton who has never been one of my favorites. A very genuine tribute.
Matt, so good, thank you, your substack is such a great value. The Band and the Stones are 2 of my favorite bands (particularly classic rock, John Prine, Jason Isbell, etc. from Americana rounding out my other favorites). How do you compare the Stones run of Beggars Banquet through Exile on Main Street with The Band's Music from Big Pink through Moon Dog Matinee? I think the Stones are all overall 1A with The Band being 1B. For me, classic rock rankings after them are CCR, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, then The Beatles.
Thanks, Kevin. I'm probably more deeply connected to The Band for the reasons outlined in the 9,000 word piece above, which I won't take the trouble of repeating here. But you won't find me slagging the Stones, who I also love. Exile being one of my very favorite albums of all time. As good as anything anyone has ever put out. In fact, I just looked at a track listing, counted them up, and there's still a good six or seven songs on that album I never get sick of listening to. I think it's nearly been as long for the Stones, since they made a great album, as it has for The Band. The difference being The Band broke up in the seventies, and the Stones are still a going concern. But Keith Richards is, at this point, like my favorite uncle. I even love his solo stuff. Particularly '88's "Talk is Cheap." (Which has sometimes been much better than latter Stones records.) And at this point, I just want to see how long they can keep the ball in the air. Since this is uncharted territory. The Beatles couldn't make it past 1970. And here the Stones are, still kicking. Or what's left of them. Sounds like you probably read Keith's 2010 memoir, Life. If not, it's so worth it.......Riveting from start to finish.
Also, John Prine and Jason Isbell are both killers. So good call........
I can't think of another band that put out four albums in a row as good as the Stones did from 1968--1973; Beggar's Banquet, Let it Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street.
I have said the same for many years, and never heard a serious rebuttal!
CCR - Bayou Country, Green River, Willy and the Poor Boys (ALL 1969) and Cosmo's Factory 1970. All bracketed by their impressive eponymous debut from July of '68 and Pendulum (December '70) - both of which contain CCR hits/standards. All of that music in 30 months. But yes, Ha! throw YaYas in there and I lean toward the Stones.
Tom Waits 80s honkytonk homage ‘Blind Love’, which has Keith all over it (and punk guitarist Robert Quine in a Ron Wood role), is another great one
Nice. And Waits's favorite Stones song of all time? "I Just Want to See His Face," Off Exile. Which is probably somewhere amidst my top tier as well. Think I played Waits's and Keith's "Last Leaf on The Tree" in the first piece I ever did on Substack.
No, did not know. Wow. It is a great, great Stones song.
You (and by that I, of course, don’t mean you personally or a proverbial you — but me) would have had no sense from the early Waits albums that he had such fantastic taste in musicians (or songs on ‘Exile’) or such a great & open ear for strange textures.
That initial Substack was before I jumped onboard. Will check out.
80s Waits is the rare example of an established artist — 90s Chris Whitley starting with the amazing ‘Dirt Floor’ album is another — revealing depths that seemed to come from nowhere. Though I guess before my time groups in that 60s snd early 70s did it regularly.
I have Whitley's Dirt Floor album around here somewhere. It's fantastic. Good call. He was a wicked talent. One of my favorite clips, in fact, and I'll just dump it here in comments since I'll likely never use it for a bonus track, is this bad audience video (in addition to it being a song fragment), of him doing "Living With The Law": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhV8nIT-qAk
Rain Dogs got me started on Waits back in the '80s. And it's wonderful, of course. "Anywhere I Lay My Head" off of it might be my funeral song, if I can get my wife to hire a brass band. But I came to really love those '70s albums, before he started putting all the effects in. Just him and a piano, back when his sincerest wish seemed to be to be a 70-year-old black man with a smoker's cough and laryngitis. And I happen to think his 1999 Mule Variations might've been his finest album of all, song for song. Stripped down, for him. But there are some real keepers on there.
Fantastic clip, thanks. Daniel Lanois is probably a great guy, but it’s nice to hear the song without his standard production.
Max Beerbohm had a 1916 short story collection on decadent & Pre Raphaelite writers from the 1890s. This is the bit that always gets quoted: “From the time of Nathaniel Hawthorne to the outbreak of the war, current literature did not suffer from any lack of fauns. But when Braxton's first book appeared fauns had still an air of novelty about them. We had not yet tired of them and their hoofs and their slanting eyes and their way of coming suddenly out of woods to wean quiet English villages from respectability. We did tire later.”
I kind of feel from the time of Norman Mailer through the British Invasion and 90s rap, current culture did not suffer from any lack of middle class white people pretending to be impoverished black people.
Or maybe I’m just looking for snarky justifications for preferring the mid period (1980 — 1999, HA&V — Mule) Waits cause that’s what meant the most to me when I was young. HA&V was solid rock and then what followed — mind blowing.
You may want to get a kid to a pull a “Dad woulda wanted” on ‘Anywhere I Lay My Head’ when the time comes.
I want a cut. The book should be audio only with cuts of the Bands music throughout. Best seller, no doubt.
Easily seen. Nice work. Very nice. Beginnings of a book I would think. Don't know about sales but you would do a good job. BTW, my credit card was purchasing hookers in Thailand a few days ago. Bank shut it down without even asking if I was there. As the Boxer says, there were times when I was so lonesome I took some comfort there - long ago in a far away war. Anyway, will resubscribe when new card arrives.
Thanks, Ron. And you give me an idea. Thai hookers as a subscription premium. Some people would probably like that better than t-shirts or copies of my old book.
Wait a minute! I blew my Founders’ subscription on a lousy t-shirt when I coulda had a Thai hooker?!
It’s yr fantastic guided tour of the links that made it one sweet afternoon. Thank u
Wow. Thanks, Matt. After reading this I truly have no words. Amazing eulogy for not only Robbie but The Band as a whole. Thank you, sir.
Matt, Two words, Thank You.
This 64 year old long time fan of The Band is smiling from ear to ear with a tear in my eye......
Whew! It took me three sittings to finish, but that was awesome! I’m not going to pretend I had a lot of knowledge about The Band before reading this, but you pulled me in. I listened to their music to and from work today. Many thanks!
Took me two readings -- but simply because I didn't want to skim it like I do most things I read these days.
Well done. Props for all the time and effort you must have put into this.
Saved his piece. Will be watching for weeks. Hope the links survive
A part of me dies when the links do. I've become too dependent on free music.
Once again, I find myself in a strange place as a reader: avidly reading 20,000 words about a band (literally "the" Band) about which I have no particular connection, interest, love for or fond memories of, either directly or indirectly as if one of their songs was in the background as something momentous happened to me.
I appreciate the cranky old man "get off my lawn" tone of the opening paragraph - classic Labash, to be sure, but you do it so well - to the eulogies for every single member and the entire corpus of their music together and apart.
I have no idea how long you spent on background but this entire piece is absolutely incredible. I listened to every video embed and as I did so, I had the realization that _of course_ I know their music, but if I had a gun to my head, I couldn't have told you who played it or what it was really called. (You mean the song isn't titled Take a Load off Fanny?! News to me.)
Thanks for the education.
(edits: grammar, word choice)
Thanks, Jade. But I take two small issues with this: it's actually only 9,000 words. Must've just felt like 20,000. And I'm actually not yet a cranky old man. Just a cranky middle-aged one.
Wow. Adding the Band to my vinyl wishlist.
C.E.MARTIN & Co
NAZARETH, PA.
MADE IN U.S.A.
My D18 was stamped in 1974