Sunday, September 17, 2006

sonic's rendezvous band

it arrived this saturday, like a candygram from the gods: the new six-disc box set of sonic's rendezvous band, compiled by ex-creem magazine photog robert matheu and released on the brit easy action label. it retails for around 80 bucks american, but i got mine for free 'cos the dude who was originally s'posed to provide liner notes reneged, so at the suggestion of my pal dave champion, the canadian king of scandi rawk, they used part of an ancient article i penned for the aussie i-94 bar webzine. (wow, is this a global village or what?) but i would contend that it's a worthwhile investment for anybody that's into real rockaroll thrills, moreso than, say, the much pricier rhino handmade stooges funhouse box, the value of which imo was chiefly to confirm the wisdom of whoever made the selections for the original elpee. but i digress.

sonic's rendezvous band were a legendary outfit that coalesced ca. '75 from remnants of detroit heavyweights the mc5, the rationals, the stooges, and the up. the wheels had kinda come off the detroit rawk juggernaut from a combination of the heroin plague that descended on the city ca. '70, massive record company indifference following the flameout of the mc5 and stooges, and tough times for homegrown rockaroll in general. (sure, bob seger had his biggest success concurrently with srb's trajectory, but that only proves the point, since he had to cut his balls off to do it; the mullethead who crooned "night moves" was scarcely recognizable as the tnt-drinking, dynamite-smoking singer of "heavy music," "ramblin' gamblin' man," and the rest of his '60s masterwork.) during their existence, they released but one recorded artifact, a locally distributed single with the same song -- "city slang" -- on both sides. subsequently, they've been represented in the marketplace by an ultra lo-fi bootleg, strikes like lightning, a track on a detroit compilation cd, and a coupla full-length cd's that appeared on the mack aborn rhythmic arts label ca. y2k and are prolly worth big buxxx on ebay now. mostly, they've been known via fourth-and-fifth generation cassettes and later, burned cd-r's of board tapes and audience recordings that circulated from hand to hand, fan to fan, from stockholm to seattle to sydney. yet, they've been covered by aussie bands like bored!, the celibate rifles and asteroid b-612 (who took their name from an srb song). sweden's hellacopters based their whole sound on srb's, and returned the favor by rescuing morgan from obscurity when they hooked up with him on tour in the states in '97. i've got a bunch of those old tapes 'n' burned cd-r's that i can now consign to the revered artifact hall of fame in the hall closet at mi casa.

maybe 30 percent of what's on sonic's rendezvous band (as the box is cleverly titled) appeared on those long-gone mack aborn releases (sweet nothing and city slang); the easy action label's famous for releasing much-bootlegged mc5 and stooges material with superior sound and deluxe packaging, with the added plus that they appear to be on the up-and-up as far as paying royalties to the participating musicians (or their families; srb namesake-gtrist-singer fred "sonic" smith shuffled off this mortal coil in 1994). the 1978 show from the second chance in ann arbor that fills disc four and some of the live stuff on the last two plus-sized (near 80 minutes apiece) discs sound basically the same here as they did on those earlier releases, and remain essential, and the '78 second chance set is prolly the best-_sounding_ live recording of the band extant, but there's plenty of other stuff here that's equally cosmic or even more so. as far as redundancy goes, there aren't more than three versions of anything here, and the coupla quibbles i have with track selections are minor (why isn't there a version of scott morgan's "heaven" here? and i've got a better version of "empty heart" than the one they chose on a tape i got from a detroit expat bud in s.f. wa-a-ah, wa-a-ah, wa-a-ah.)

the jewels in the crown here are three complete sets from different venues 'n' periods of the band that comprise discs one thru three. the first, from chances are (the earlier name for the second chance) in 1975, features bassist w.r. "ron" cook, ex-mitch ryder's detroit (whose version of lou reed's "rock and roll" was played by seemingly every idiot band on lawn guyland back when i started playing in the early '70s, in the same way as every detroit band from the same era was still covering the stones' "empty heart"). he's also on some basement recordings that appear on disc five; from '76 on, gary rasmussen (ex-up) manned the four-string axe. back in mc5 daze, fred smith always kinda got eclipsed by wayne kramer, gtr pyrotechnic-wise. sure, there was that great "battle hymn of the republic" solo on "the american ruse," unfortunately, fred's best five-era fretwork was on their last 'n' best alb, high time, which sounded like it was recorded underwater. by the time he formed srb with ex-rationals frontguy scott morgan, sonic had evolved into a fire-breathing monster of a gtrist whose approach, it's said, derived from listening to coltrane solos, with a great, throaty tone and massive vibrato that'll take the top of yr head off (heard to good effect on the version of ray charles' "i believe to my soul" on disc one).

there's a lot more chuck berry chug to the '75 stuff than you hear later on, when sonic 'n' scott had established their identity as writers more firmly. on these discs, you can get a taste of morgan breaking in a repertoire that'd serve him well for the ensuing 30 yrs, on albs like rock action, revolutionary means, and the retrospective medium rare in addition to latter-day transcontinental bands like the hydromatics (with nicke hellacopter and dutch punk godfather tony slug). morgan's always had key rolling stone cats (detroit native dave marsh and later, david fricke) in his corner, and i've always thought that properly marketed, he coulda been an '80s populist-rock contender a la springsteen 'n' mellencamp. if only.

second disc is drawn from a '76-era show at a detroit area high school (the audience mbrs yelling "rock 'n' roll!" in between songs help establish the date 'n' place). the sound is as clear and full of presence as the chances are show, and there are some songs here (fred's "hard stoppin'," scott's "irish girl") that had disappeared from the setlist by '78. one highlight: a version of "like a rolling stone," sung by scott with fred taking a verse, that trumps the 'riginal, if not jimi's '67 monterey autodestruction of the song. (scott, of course, sings it better than either dylan or hendrix did.) the set climaxes with "slow down (take a look)," released as a morgan single in '73 and again in '00, which he also sang on a hellacopters alb. the third disc is the shortest one in the set and also the shakiest sound-quality wise. (really, besides this disc and the version of "empty heart" on disc five, everything else sounds amazingly awesome. you can actually hear voxxx! and bass! and kick drum!) recorded at a big venue -- detroit's masonic auditorium -- in '78, it presents some of the same material as the second chance set from the same era plus their set-opener of the time, "electrophonic tonic," performed with an added bump of energy that prolly came from the adrenaline of playing in front of a big crowd.

the "classic" srb sound, as represented by the masionic auditorium and second chance shows, was a vastly different beast from the somewhat-forced hysteria of the mc5, the sexy menace of funhouse-era stooges and the out-of-control ferocity of that band's raw power incarnation. at their peak, firing on all cylinders, srb's attack was characterized by relentless forward motion, becoming a kind of rock 'n' roll trance music at times. on songs like "sweet nothin'" and "city slang," the band would lock into a groove with the intensity of dervishes and ride it until they (and anyone within earshot) were spent. there's a kind of, dare i say, spiritual cleansing that takes place from that kinda catharsis. i felt it watching fred's widow patti (of whom i was _not_ previously a fan) performing at the gypsy tea room back in y2k. she seemed like someone who'd passed through fire, of whom grief 'n' loss had made something far deeper than the opportunistic art-chick she seemed like back in '76. i get the same vibe listening to this music now.

disc five runs over 79 minutes and is entitled "the melancholy (various basement tapes and live rarities)." starts out with five tracks recorded in morgan's parents' basement with ron cooke on bass ca. '75. (what, did they have a recording studio down there? you'd think so, hearing the quality of these tracks.) "succeed" (which starts with country-blues pickin' but quickly morphs into a berryesque rocker), johnnie taylor's "hijackin' love" (which morgan later cut for his rock action alb on the french revenge label), "mystically yours," "take a look" (again), and "electrophonic tonic" are all mighty fine and represent, with the "city slang" single and '78 take of "electrophonic tonic," the band's entahr "studio" (as in "not live") output. the other high spots of the disc include versions of claudine clark's "party lights" (sung by fred) and the stones' "flight 505" (sung by gary) from a particularly uproarious club gig that's indicative of the kind of shows the band was playing (fred's previous project, ascension, once played a bowling alley). "goin' bye," dedicated to a neighborhood kid killed in 'nam, is prolly fred's finest song, and appears to have inspahrd some madonna song the name of which escapes me but has the same melody. plausible, since ms. ciccone was a dee-troit gal, altho she currently affects brit pretensions, and prolly saw srb at bookie's club 870 back in the day.

disc six's title, "too much crank (the best stuff you have and haven't heard)" refers to a remark fred makes to an audience member in his spoken intro to "clock with no hands" (a revamped, slowed-down version with new lyrics of the toon heard elsewhere here as "it's alright"). fred's audience patter (replete with off-the-wall asides and bad jokes -- duh, i just now realized that disc five's title comes from a bit of fred chatter on "party lights") is a recurring theme of the live material, as are scott's onstage telecaster tune-ups (this is what folks did before digital tuners, kids). in a just universe, fred's "you're so great" woulda been a hit single. the take of "empty heart" here is inferior, imo, to one with fred singing from the same gig as "party lights," but scott's vocal on thisun _is_ better, i suppose, and the overall energy level is higher. plus it's shorter, and even tho this disc is _only_ 74 minutes 'n' change, they prolly wanted to save the room for all 16 minutes of "american boy," a low-key, moody extended piece that features fred on minimalist, coltrane-influenced tenor sax. the piece was only played a few times live and fortunately somebody happened to roll tape one of those times. the disc and the set ends with the '78 studio takes of "electrophonic tonic," the intended b-side that wasn't, and "city slang" itself, as if to say, "yes, there was this, but before this, there was _so much_ more."

oh, yeah -- the photography, by executive producer matheu, sue rynski, and kenneth alfastsen, is shit-hot, vividly bringing the band to life for those who knew 'em in the day and those of us who were less fortunate. kudos to easy action for giving this treatment to music that so richly deserves it. in case you were wondering, this is what real rockaroll sounds like.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Greetings Stash..er,Ken.Nice article on the Sonic's Rendezvous Band box set.As a living witness to lots of shows I think the box set is pretty great and your description of the band's sound pretty accurate.One key folks in this day and age may not realize is that there was plenty of dancing at those Second Chance and MI Union Ballroom shows.Don't know about the Madonna reference,although there are some indications that she caught an MC5 show as a young teen.Patti Smith used the tune "Goin' Bye" as the basis for her tune "Frederic".Anyway my advice to anyone into Detroit rock,high energy rock,smoking guitar,Birdman,Hellacopters,Ramones,Stooges and Jimmy O etc is that the SRB box set is a buy!
Regards,Sonically Speaking,
Chris G.

11:40 PM  
Blogger Holden said...

Brilliant writeup. But no love for "Song L"??? I'm pretty sure that's the one song that shows up in four incarnations on this, and I think I've settled on the disc-three version as my favorite, but every one is freakin' white-hot, building to a crescendo that leaves you spent despite the fact that at 4 minutes or so, it's one of the shorter things on the box. Love that song. Love this box. Love this band. I'm blown away that a band this great previously only had one single out as an "official" release.

10:29 AM  

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