Great Rock Moments

Exactly what do I mean by great moments? Typically, a column like this would run through the usual major "events" in rock history, like the Beatles on Ed Sullivan or Dylan at Newport, etc. I intend to look at great musical moments, the moments when the dying art form once called rock and roll crystallized on record; the moments that justified all the fuss. In my conception these are the sections of great records where anarchy, energy and synergy coalesce. These are the moments that set our blood racing through our veins, when we feel an almost orgasmic release, and when even the committed atheist can sense the power of spiritual bliss and transfiguration that led people to form cults of worship to a higher being. In this way they are intimately connected with the Christians writhing on the church floor, speaking in tongues, the Buddhist meditating to nirvana, and the fundamentalist suicide bomber about to enter paradise - extreme moments of acceptance and rejection. We are taken out of our bodies, out of the present moment, and briefly feel the intense pleasure of being alive, before returning to a blurry, busy reality. Like all lists, this one is arbitrary, but hopefully representative.

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Milcow Blues Boogie

What moment can you choose from the wellspring of all rock and roll that is Elvis Presley's Sun Sessions? You can, like Greil Marcus, focus on the "rock moment" of That's All Right (Mama), when the whole thing started to take shape, or perhaps the opening "Welllllll..." of Good Rockin' Tonight, when the harsh edge of Presley's voice first cut deep. Me, I choose the opening of Milkcow Blues Boogie, when Elvis stops his band, tells them to get "real gone", and then proceeds to turn a Delta blues into something altogether new and different and, most of all, strange. This guy sounds completely insane, or perhaps as American teenagers were soon to realize, completely free - a performance that opens up possibilities.

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"A wop bop a loo bop a wop bom bom!"

Holy crap, we almost forgot - sex feels great! That was the clear implication behind the ecstatic gibberish that opens Little Richard's first hit, Tutti Frutti. Nevermind that he's a gay man singing about a girl named Sue who knows just what to do, Richard was so damn horny he couldn't even speak. All he could do was scream with delight and his nonsensical declaration sounds as clear and as vital today as it did 50+ years ago.

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Money

I don't know anything in the hardest metal or the most defiant punk that can top the power of the Beatles burning through the final minute of Money, off With the Beatles. The ferocity that Lennon puts into this vocal, coupled with McCartney and Harrison jubilantly screaming "that's what I want!" while Ringo switches from the tom-toms to the ride cymbal, is like nothing that came before and still remains a testament to what rock is capable of in the right hands. For sheer intensity and riotous enthusiasm, it is a performance that will be matched by a few select moments to come, but has not been, and cannot be, outdone.

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Desolation Row harmonica solo

Here's proof that you don't need a whole band to generate breath-stealing magic. At the climax of one of the greatest songs in the rock canon, and after 9 minutes of sublime, mad imagery, Dylan reels off a wonderful harmonica solo, mouthing whole chords with air spewed from deep in his guts, as the guitar interplay gets noticeably busier. After one final verse, he comes back for another run on the harp, and with a great intake of breath as the chord change moves from tonic to dominant, he milks the song dry.

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The bass playing on Astral Weeks

Transcendence in jazz usually results from a combination of instrumental prowess and synergistic playing, so it's no surprise that one of the most transcendent albums in rock relies on the contributions and leadership of a jazz musician. Richard Davis and his upright bass were the focal point and first mate to Van Morrison's captain during the recording sessions for the classic Astral Weeks. It's nigh on impossible to pick out a single moment on this record that can represent the simply astonishing bass work on virtually every song, with Davis playing so sympathetically with Morrison that they seem to be sharing a brain. Personally, I have to vote for either the refrain of Sweet Thing, where Davis squeezes out the high notes like he's wringing a mop or performing an exorcism, or midway through the title song, where he leaps the octaves likes he's climbing a mountain.

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The Scream

Fans of the Who know I can only be talking about one thing - Roger Daltrey's inhuman yell at the climax of Won't Get Fooled Again. After six minutes of rock ecstasy, and a gut-wrenching guitar solo from Pete Townshend, the song settles back into the hypnotic synth riff that began the song, when suddenly it hammers away at a perfect fifth, then octaves announcing the re-entrance of Keith Moon pounding away on his kit. When Daltrey recorded his scream separate from the band it is said that they thought somebody was dying in the building. Robert Plant tried repeatedly, but I don't think he ever matched this.

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Rip This Joint

The Stones, who epitomized rock and roll swagger, certainly have their fair share of great moments, since their wonderfully bad attitude infused nearly everything they did in their prime. I choose to highlight Rip This Joint first, because it's such a picture-perfect rock song, and second, because it has one of the greatest lead-ins to a solo break in recorded history. After a couple of rapid fire choruses Mick moves into quarter time, "Ying / yang / you're my thang" and then lets out a ferocious yelp like a man being stabbed to death "aaaaahhhhhh, let it rock!" Tremendous.

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The Great Gig in the Sky

I will never forget where I was the first time I heard this song. I was about 17, in the backseat of my friend's care, coming back to Philadelphia from Atlantic City. It was around midnight and I was pretty beat, laying my head back, while the local station played Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety. Stone sober, and only dimly aware of who Pink Floyd were, I was nevertheless captivated by the whole thing, though it was Clare Torry's vocal gymnastics on Gig that really blew me away. The frenetic shouting she pulls off right at the song's halfway point made you think someone was really going insane here, and it might just be you.

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Born to Run

Anyone who has seen Bruce anywhere near his prime knows that his live show was replete with "great moments" that he would wring out of the night by sheer force of will. On record, it's a hard thing to capture, but he was able to do it on a few occasions. The most famous and probably the best comes on the last verse of Born to Run. He organized the tune perfectly, maybe too perfectly for some, with a big beginning, a quieter middle and a huge, rousing finale. But I'm telling you, if you don't feel the adrenalin pumping when the band plays that descending chromatic scale in unison and then sits waiting and burning like the rocket boosters right before the shuttle lunch until finally Bruce rips into "Highway's jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive...!", then I don't wanna know you.

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God Save the Queen

At first blush it seems like the Sex Pistols were turned up to 11 from the word go, which wouldn't leave much room for subtle expression through dynamics - one of the defining elements of "great moments" as I see them. But a closer listen reveals a powerful, though limited, range; especially on their best titles. Best of all is the intensity they keep coiled up through most of God Save the Queen, only to let it spring loose at selected moments. Coming into the fourth verse, Steve Jones sets it up perfectly with a bend on his guitar leading into a pounding bass that truly sounds like the hammer of the gods. This is a moment of relative repose, which presages the outburst that follows at 1:49 when Paul Cook moves from the hi-hat to the ride cymbal, the rage boils over in the guitar solo and Johnny Rotten finally gives full voice to his anger - "we mean it maaaaaannn!!!"

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Complete Control

Like any art form, rock is defined by its strongest personalities, and few personalities were stronger than Joe Strummer's. (Aside - if any of you youngins haven't seen live footage of Strummer putting the Clash through their paces circa 77-80, then proceed directly to youtube.com). The story goes that the band's label, CBS Records, put out the song Remote Control as a single without consulting the band. Strummer's reaction appears to have been "fuck that", as he and Mick Jones quickly penned this song and insisted it be their next single. Somehow, the label agreed, which makes you wonder if they realized how hard the band was biting the hand that fed them. As an expression of liberation through angry refusal, the song is simply without peer, particularly in its closing section, where Strummer spews forth so much venom that he eventually becomes incoherent. You can kind of make out "Freedom is control!" at about 2:39, but at 2:50 he is ironically no longer in control of himself and is simply raving ecstatically, only to make the final point clearly - "That means you!!!"

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Welcome to the Terrordome

For the most part, drum programming, synth patches and advanced production techniques have robbed the music of its soul. This, coupled with a dash of latent racism and misunderstanding, leads plenty of old school rock types to denounce current music in general and rap specifically as "phony" music. There is some truth buried here, but it also applies to most post-punk popular music, including the most successful rock acts. Be that as it may, Public Enemy proved that it was possible to inject a (somewhat) righteous humanity and expressiveness into the best rap music. Terrordome is a great example, largely due to a deliriously busy production and Chuck D's commanding presence. Despite a tinge of anti-semitism ("told the rab/get off the rag"), D sings from perspective of a black man backed into a corner and fighting back, at a point when the fight was supposed to be over. Like many of the latter day moments, the intensity is born of anger, not joy, but it's hard to call it unjustified. And D never lets up. The way he rushes into the verse with "caught in the race against time", or the way he hits the rhythmic pocket with "I don't smile in the line of fire/go wildin'", help make this one of the great recordings of the past twenty years.

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