my favorite year
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There's the music you discover in your most impressionable years, and it's a truism that nothing will ever replace or supersede that in your heart. Luckily, for my chronological gang, that coincided with a truly gilded age (just browse either of the two issues of Mojo '60s for confirmation). But I was listening last night to the second disc of stuff from the Rolling Stones' deluxe "Some Girls" edition, and although it's not the most revelatory music on earth, the sound of that band at that moment, finding their way back to form after a shaky mid-'70s, sent me into a fever spin, gave me a jolt. So I went back and played The Stones' show from the Capitol Theater in Passaic, NJ on June 14, 1978.
I'm not sure how we got tickets to this small-venue concert at the start of The Stones' tour, but a few of us from the record company where I worked (I'd been there less than a year, and was having blast being a part of the industry of music) shot out to Jersey, buzzing with anticipation, and then there they were, kicking into "Let It Rock" and "All Down The Line," and building to the songs from the new, surprisingly vigorous album. It all went by so fast, the 20 or so songs, and in the car back to Manhattan, I couldn't articulate what was so exciting about it, except to say that they were The Stones; they looked like The Stones — unusually close to each other on that stage, the way they were when I first saw them — and they were living up to the responsibility of being The Stones, but not in an arena/stadium way of being The Greatest Rock Band In The World (which they were), but acknowledging that there was something new out there, and they had to keep up.
Springsteen came out, finally, with "Darkness On The Edge of Town," and played Madison Square Garden for the first time, but also did some riotously energized shows at the Palladium. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers released "You're Gonna Get It!," and the Ramones put out "Road To Ruin." "Clash City Rockers." Blondie's "Parallel Lines" and Talking Heads' "More Songs About Buildings and Food." The first Nick Lowe album ("Pure Pop For Now People") and the second Elvis Costello (the astonishing "This Year's Model"). "The Last Waltz."
Despite working at the company that sent Barry Manilow's "Even Now" into the world that year, despite the still-lingering effects of the disco madness that would eventually lead to the pre-MTV industry depression, despite the fact that A Taste of Honey went on to win the Grammy for Best New Artist over Elvis Costello (and The Cars), and "Some Girls" was beaten out by "Saturday Night Fever" as Album of the Year, I felt that this was the right time to start a career in the actual music business, that I was lucky to get to see Patti Smith and Lou Reed up close, score seats for cool, out-of-town Stones gigs, get albums by artists like Springsteen, Costello, Petty and Lowe to write about, see a generation of NYC-based bands like the Ramones, Talking Heads and Blondie poised to take on the world. I was in my twenties, about to move from the outer boroughs to my first apartment in Manhattan. Let it rock.
Locating MOG account...
Comments (13)
When you put it like that, I'm jealous that I'm not you.
That's flattering, but believe me, being me, not always that terrific.
Thanks for the thought.
mc
Ha ha! That's the line I use as well.
Let it rock indeed!
Spectacular! I remember so well (hehe) the early seventies...and the way music was curddling, and the jolt i got from what was bleeding out of east coast....and London....it jolted the Stones too. Great post
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I moved to the East Village in 1980, Avenue A and Houston to be exact, and remember buying records at the St. Marks record shop (some clerk pressed U2 into my hands--really?), and I remember the LPs I bought: Rockpile, The Clash, Pretenders, Talking Heads, and more, with the money I made (about $168 a week I think). There was some good music and it was about to really bust out after the Disco years. I always enjoy your posts.
Appreciate all your kind comments.
Happy Thanksgiving to All.
You're so right about that being a special time. After what seemed kike three or four years of aimless noodling, suddenly there was passion again. Punk always seemed more interesting in theory than in practice (maybe if I'd seen some of those epochal gigs instead of watching enviously from a distance I'd feel different), but Talking Heads: 77 and My Aim Is True were balms the first records in years that I had a compulsion to play every day for months. And you're also right that the Stones seemed inspired (or scared shitless) by what was happening out there, with Some Girls the rather remarkable result. You've ticked off nearly all my late 70s boxes - I'd add only the B52s' debut and the first Television album. If there has been an explosion of terrific music after that 2-3 year period, I'm too old to have recognized it.
like you, i was quite lucky to be heavily involved in this stuff. thanks for the flashback. whenever things are a little rough i always look back and smile.
ps: i think 1978 ended for me in 1979. while lucky enough to be backstage at all the No Nukes shows in NY and not working on it, i ended up breaking my back messing around at the Battery Park landfills. no lingering damages so i can smile about that as well. it was pretty awesome.
This explosive period, like others in the past, seemed especially special because I missed out on its arrival, and merely read about it in the press. I remember buying my first Ramones LP, Road to Ruin (their fourth, late in the game), one night in Greenwich Village in 1978, and as I walked home along an empty street between Broadway and 4th Ave., two young white guys came up to me from behind. The instant I realized what was happening, I suddenly noticed myself falling to the pavement on my own, in panic, unlike Charles Bronson. I had hardly any money, so they accepted the Ramones album instead, and walked off.
I was at a Fleetwood Mac concert in 1978...I think I ended up face down. No that's not true, but in those days if you were smoking something funny at a concert, (not that I was), and the 'authorities' suspected something, they would simply ask you to hand it over; and you, and they, would continue on your merry way. Spike, maybe that's key...just hand it over...here take it...
Thank you, DEB, I'll make good use of it.