Blogical Conclusion

GONE WITH THE REWIND

Two upcoming concerts have me heading back to music from long ago – and not so long ago.

JAN 29, 2006 - AS IS THE CASE WITH MOST OF US who bought way too much music when we were younger and spending our parents’ money – and have since cut down because it’s now our money – I just don’t get the time to dig out older albums all that much. But when I heard that Jethro Tull are coming down to perform in India, my brain triggered off soft-focus musical flashbacks – and I did what I always do when I hear a new old band is coming down to perform in India (“new” because they’re the latest to come down; “old” because they’re from an era when Nos. 1 through 50 on the Billboard charts weren’t automatically filled with hip-hop acts).

So, to give the group a re-listen, I headed for the attic in my rambling mansion. I climbed the creaky stairs. I opened the trapdoor. I waved my hands about to clear the stale air. I brushed the cobwebs aside. I looked around at the piles of LPs. I located the Jethro Tull albums. I picked them up, a smile on my lips, a film in my eyes. I gently wiped away the thin layer of dust. I slipped a record on the turntable, set the needle to play, leaned back on my stuffed mahogany armchair, and lost myself in the music.

Okay, so none of this actually happened – but if it did, wouldn’t it be the most ideally romantic process of rediscovery for music you loved long ago? Besides, it does sound more appropriate than the reality: that I, in my matchbox-size flat, simply leaned over, opened a drawer, and whipped out the CDs (readily accessible because they’re all alphabetised, by genre). Somehow, it doesn’t sound right that music from certain generations be available on Compact Discs – or, horror of horrors, as mp3s on an iPod! (No frayed album cover! No thumbed-through liner notes! Just disembodied bytes of audio files! Yikes! Can that really be called music?)

The mode may have changed, but – small mercies! – at least the music is the same. I started with Aqualung – not just because it’s the group’s best-known album, but because it’s also the one with Ian Anderson’s autograph, which I obtained after a painstaking wait in a never-ending line outside Bombay’s Rhythm House, in early 1994. (I didn’t see him perform there, but I caught a later show at the YMCA Grounds in Madras.) And as soon as I slipped the CD in, I heard what is surely Classic Rock’s answer to the da-da-da-da of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 – the opening guitar riff of the album’s title song. (Now pipe down, you Deep Purple fans; I know you’re saying the guitaring that opens Smoke on the Water is as instantly identifiable and as famous, if not more, but that one has more involved chords; this one just outlines the main tune and – boom! – you’re into the number.)

And I thought: here’s a band that everyone knows because the frontman plays a flute, and yet it’s that power riff that everyone remembers. (This album also has the other famous Jethro Tull riff, the one that – first on the piano, then on the guitar – fuels Locomotive Breath.) After that beginning, the song segues into early-Elton-John poppishness – cheery, plinky-plonk piano runs and all. Then the electric guitar takes over, but not quite with the heavy-duty drive that kicked off the number. Then there’s some very Beatles-esque humming – dee de de de, dee de de de. And then, that opening riff again, followed by Sitting on a park bench, so on and so forth.

What a unique structure! More importantly, what an unpindownable structure! So like the music from that era, when groups put out what they wanted to play rather than what they thought the paying customers wanted them to play – and yet, this number didn’t quite give me the feeling of having heard the Jethro Tull sound. Neither did the follow-up, Cross-eyed Mary, though this one did have hints of that famous flute. Cheap Day Return followed, sounding like something by America crossed with something Cat Stevens wrote for the Harold and Maude soundtrack. I had to wait until Song No. 4 (Mother Goose) till I heard that Jethro Tull sound again: flute bursts over a murmuring Spanish guitar (the real flute flourishes, though, you don’t get to until My God, much later in the album), and vocals that – funnily enough for a rock band – are hushed, almost apologetic in volume, as if scared of waking up the children.

Your definition of the Jethro Tull sound may be different, but what you’ll agree on is that the group’s albums defied any generic definition. That’s probably why Jethro Tull isn’t as iconic a rock band from that era as, say, Led Zep. (Admit it: it is cooler to request a DJ for Dazed and Confused rather than Wond’ring Aloud, isn’t it?) Also, there’s no Jethro Tull USP other than… the music. If you’ve, say, just found yourself the perfect girlfriend and are in the mood for mush that would make Celine Dion shudder, well, you reach for Air Supply. On the other hand, if your best friend just toodled off with your girlfriend and you’re trying to get at the meaning of it all, you OD on Pink Floyd. (“Oh, those poor guys! All those best-selling albums! All those millions. And they still sound tortured enough to slit their wrists. There, I feel much better.”) But what does Jethro Tull offer you but… just great music?

Well, there’s one other thing: some great cover art. Aqualung had that Fagin-like creature glaring evilly at… something, someone, perhaps an off-screen Oliver. Thick as a Brick – yeah, the album named after the number containing that immortal ode to romance: “Your sperm’s in the gutter/your love’s in the sink” – has the title as a screaming newspaper headline. And I just love the art on Songs from the Wood – there’s that stump of a sawn-off tree, the age rings making the surface look like a tan-coloured LP, and a gramophone needle rests on the circumference. (Get it? Songs from the… wood!) And after all this brilliance, let’s just forgive the artwork on Heavy Horses, shall we? After all, to compensate for the fright of seeing an unshaven Anderson raising his arms, wearing what seems like glitter panties and a medieval court jester’s top, there is that classic, Acres Wild!)

Yet, it’s very likely that crowds are going to be more pumped about the other international singer scheduled to perform around this time – Bryan Adams. For one, he’s the man behind Summer of ’69, which is now old enough to be officially categorised under Classic Rock. (It’s also a bit of a personal favourite because it came out when I was in school, and it brings back memories of other not-cool-now bands I used to listen to – Pet Shop Boys and Modern Talking. Cheri Cheri Lady is playing in my mind’s ear as I type this.) But what else has he done? Oh yes, there was that cheese-fest on the soundtrack of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, the one that went Everything I Do… And that led to a cheesier-fest on the soundtrack of The Three Musketeers… But let’s be nice now. I’m sure he’ll put on a fun-enough show. Besides, how many of us care about psychedelic cover art or life-altering lyrics or for-the-ages power riffs anymore? Music now is just about having a good time, right?

Jethro Tull will play in Mumbai on January 31 and February 1, and in Bangalore on February 3. Bryan Adams will play in Mumbai on February 4, and in Bangalore on February 5.

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