Middle-aged white guys like me, I guess.
Several times in the past week I have found myself ruminating on Keith Emerson’s suicide.
It’s easy enough just to shrug and move on when an aging has-been rock star offs himself. The news cycle is so full of tragedy and madness that Emerson’s death could hardly be expected to register as more than a blip for anyone who was not a member of his shrinking fanbase.
Nevertheless, I find the thought of this once quite famous 71 year old shooting himself while alone in his home — apparently plagued by fears about his deteriorating ability to play — terribly sad and haunting. And learning that he had struggled with substance abuse — while no surprise for a 1970s era rock star — made this lonely, despairing death seem all the sadder. It set me pondering the vicissitudes of fame and taste, and the human cost of celebrity culture, and all that stuff …
And while I hadn’t actually sat down and played an ELP record in 20 years, I guess I have to admit — and it is a confession, given the degree to which ELP have been condemned by the critics — I have to admit that I am feeling all this because I was indeed once a fan of ELP.
When I was fifteen, like all my friends I wanted to be a rock star when I grew up. But I didn’t have the nerve to sing, my parents would never tolerate the drums, and everyone already seemed to play guitar.
So I became a nerdy keyboard player.
But keyboards seemed to be the one role you could have in a band that wasn’t automatically cool. I mean, when slapping became a thing, suddenly even bass players were cooler than keyboard players.
And looking back in pop history for a keys player that commanded the kind of admiration that the other rock gods inspired — well, there weren’t many. I now regard Jerry Lee Lewis as pretty damned awesome, but at the time, in the 1980s, it was too much like ancient history. Ray Manzarek of The Doors would get some props. But everyone knew who the sexy one in that band really was. (It didn’t help that Manzarek always struck me as a self-mythologizing bullshitter of epic proportions whenever he gave an interview.) And there were amazing jazz players, of course. But jazz was by comparison a niche interest, commanding none of the attention of rock and pop among my high school cohort.
And then there was Keith Emerson. A crazy showman with bags of talent — the “Jimi Hendrix of the keys”! Most people I knew did not give a crap about ELP in the early 80s, either, of course. But at some point I had caught a TV re-broadcast of a gig from the early 70s and was impressed. Wowed, even.
So this week I went back and had a look at some of that old footage. Here’s one of the moments I vividly remember from that old TV show — two minutes of inspired silliness.
Today, the antics with the daggers and the other forms of Hammond abuse strike me a bit differently. I took it all dead seriously when I was fifteen, in a way I just can’t now. But it still strikes me as a fascinating piece of rock theatre, falling somewhere between Spinal Tap (the scene where Nigel Tuffnell plays his guitar with a violin comes to mind) and Townshend smashing his SG, or Hendrix sacrificing his Strat at Monterey. It’s ridiculous — utterly — watching Emerson drag that massive bit of furniture around. But part of me still finds it awesome. Maybe it’s even slightly camp, in Sontag’s sense of the term — two contradictory things at once, both sublime and ridiculous!
Lost in all the theatrics, though, is the fact that this was a musician of great skill, able to play jazz and classical stylings with real fluidity — admired by such giants such as Oscar Peterson, and with a left hand technique that matches any concert pianist.
Just check out the first few minutes of this clip for an example of how dexterous and delightful his playing could be.
So … talent and showmanship … and yet, is the verdict ever since punk really true? Do ELP deserve their bad rep for rock excess, pretention and pointlessness? Were they really, frankly, just a bit shit?
It seems true that a lot of the material has aged badly.
But, but … at it’s best, I find there is still something in ELP for me. Something about the alchemy involved when those three individuals manage collectively to overcome their musical egotism just long enough to make an extraordinary thing. Something that does not sound quite like anything else. Something capable — if I let it — of inducing in me an experience close to rapture.
Witness: my single favorite ELP track:
The link is to the whole album — but just let the first track play. It’s called “The Barbarian” (I know, I know) and it’s an instrumental mini-epic, in three sections, all of which I find absurdly delightful. There’s the lumbering bass and Hammond of the first sequence, which closes out with a really cool little “call and response” part between the keyboards on one side and drums and bass on the other; then there’s the delicate jazzical Chopin-lite mid-section, with some lovely right hand flourishes from Emerson, and breathlessly rapid brushwork from Palmer; and then a third section that recapitulates the opening before taking off on the mad-as-fuck frenzy of the final 40 seconds.
I’d never heard anything like this when I first encountered it. I still can’t think of any thing else in the pop world that it resembles.
Critics are unkind. Hipsters are dismissive. And the crime of tastelessness was certainly one that ELP committed again and again.
But I think that sometimes they were actually pretty bloody good.
Thank you, Ben. I was saddened by the news of Emerson’s suicide, since I too was an ELP fan. I should probably re-listen before stating this, but Emerson’s Piano Concerto No. 1 recorded with the London Philharmonic Orchestra is weird and wonderful and fantastic (unlike, say, Love Beach). And as far as the lingering effects of 70/80s prog rock, I remain a Robert Fripp devotee.
I am not familiar with ELP, but I did enjoy watching/listening to the links you have posted here. I find a lot of what was called “punk rock” to be too arty and pretentious–at least, much more so than this stuff.
Punk fails to have the last word on anything, particularly itself. And I say this as a post-punk baby weened on Devo. Prog. comes from amazing players bored with 4:4 ditties and caught in the mish-mash of jazz, avant-classical, and the kind of big ass sound rock could produce. (And drugs.) Not much of an ELP fan — the lyrics leave bruises, like early KC, and too much noodle, not enough sauce. (But I did read all of Thomas Wolfe, who is a literary analogue.) But they are aiming at something worth leaving behind and as such remain an image of what punk, in principle, can never have, namely genuine longing, which in turn is the only opening toward something else that eludes punk: a future.
Thanks for bringing a little Hammond into my afternoon. Sadly, properly jamming on a B3 seems to be a lost art. I’m no historian, but I blame Gerald Ford, the fall of Saigon, and Devo’s keytar. Disco and the displacement of psychedelics with cocaine probably had something to do with it, too. I have to say though, for my generation, ELP is a pretty esoteric pull. I like it and ELP certainly wasn’t just a flash in the pan, but they do seem to be forgotten these days. Sadly, I fear Jethro Tull may be next. Then again, the B3 was probably always a better rock implement than the pan flute.
I, too, have barely listened to ELP in the past 40 years. But I still believed Emerson was the monster genius of all keyboard players, the first and greatest in redefining keyboards forever. The first handful of albums by ELP and Yes were magnificent; only after that did they turn pretentious and run out of gas, like nearly all rock groups. That he was vilified by the punk backlash was an undeserved curse.
Thanks, all. Chris, I am with you on Fripp and Crimson, too. In fact, I think Crimson’s later work may less time-locked than most the “canonical” 70s prog-acts. (Or acts that get categorized as prog — it’s weird how that term attaches to some musicians and just slides off others, no matter how it might seem apt. Zappa, for example, is hardly ever called a prog musician, but in many ways the shoe would seem to fit.) The “Discipline” album sounds as fresh and startling today as it did when it was released, and I think “The ConstruCKtion of Light” might be one of the best late recordings by any of those older acts. Josh, also with you on Yes — up to and including “Going For The One.” Lately, though, I’m trying to dig into the slightly obscure corners of prog — Gentle Giant, Van der Graaf Generator, the various Canterbury scene acts. I’m also really interested in the history of the term — and the question of where prog goes or where it can now be found. People forget that Hendrix was often billed as a “progressive rock” act, after all (and that Emerson toured with him when he was in The Nice). But nobody thinks of Hendrix now when someone says “progressive rock.” I am also intrigued by what happens when prog finds it’s way into pop — Bowie being one of the most interesting figures here, particularly those collaborations with the aforementioned Mr Fripp.
What IS “progressive music” these days, I wonder …? Does the concept have any purchase any longer or can it only name a genre whose moment has passed (like Epic Poetry or something …)?
I think progressive rock has mostly been subsumed by metal. There’s a lot of it though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzDm6ImLtHc
Great tribute Ben. I confess that I was never much of an ELP fan myself, but I can’t offer any particularly good account of why not. It certainly wasn’t good taste. I think I may have just missed them, kind of like I missed Nick Cave later. I was way into Yes, KC, Rush (in their prog. phase), Jethro Tull, etc., then Bowie (good call there for someone who took up some aspects of prog. without really occupying that space), Eno, Kraut rock like Can (a sort of punkish prog.?).
As for the persistence of prog. today, I might suggest Field Music–they have a mid-’70s KC vibe much of the time. I also think there is something of prog. in much so-called “post-rock” (Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Mogwai, Tortoise…). It certainly takes itself seriously and breaks out of the 4/4, blues-based nature of more traditional rock and roll. It doesn’t tend to feature long and athletic instrumental solos, and they don’t sing of “purple pipers” or “yellow jesters” (thankfully), but there is a kind of decadence in their approach nonetheless.
Noah’s probably right about metal. Wasn’t Led Zeppelin pretty guilty of most everything that what prog. was condemned for? They, like Hendrix, just leaned on the blues in ways that quintessential prog. bands did not, which I think spared them the complete death penalty by the back-to-basics, “four chords and the truth,” punk rebellion.
Still, though I never harbored any ill-will toward folks like Kieth Emerson, I remain forever grateful that the punk rebellion occurred as prog. had really found its limits and had become all camp and decadence, intentionally or otherwise. No art form can survive as a real art form once that occurs and I fear Rock would have gone the way of Jazz (appealing only to academics and Scandinavians) had it not been for punk and the space it opened for what followed. That, or white people would have found funk earlier and it would have consumed it totally.
“I fear Rock would have gone the way of Jazz”
It has. It’s a mostly specialist and historical interest now, rather than a radio force.
That is a very proggy metal number by Elder, Noah. Love the opening riff.
Funnily enough, my reaction was very similar to my reaction to ELP these days. I’m digging it and then the vocals start and I think, “Does there have to be singing?”
No vocals in the Ruins Prog Medley. Save a bit of time too, with 40 tunes (allegedly!) inside of three minutes –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSZzYiVgwN4