Cleveland Rocks! (for Better or Worse): Considering the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame...yes, my friend, that's screaming you're hearing. Now synonymous with controversy (i.e. publicity), the Rock Hall is the manifestation of what happens when "expert tastes" collide with fans' subjective feelings about an art form that means a hell of a lot to them. Year after year, the Hall's committee and voting body make a very tricky attempt to formalize the value of popular music artists by way of induction. In essence, they're throwing down popular music's version of a Supreme Court ruling with every announced Rock Hall class (yes, there is a fan vote, but let's not overstate its impact). This process is kinda acceptable to some, infuriating to others, and let's face it, probably ignored by the vast majority of the American populace (probably millennials and anyone over 60). Still, this institution persists, just like the shrill, often Midwestern-based howls of protest for the overdue inductions of such artists as Deep Purple, Chicago, The Moody Blues, and Yes.

Apart from the ceremonies and HBO broadcasts, the Rock Hall has been physically embodied by a glass pyramid building on Lake Erie since 1995.  For all its legitimate merits, this entire enterprise could be justifiably accused of flaunting elitist, high-art pretensions as populist in an economically depressed, working class Rust Belt city. This is especially noticeable when the ceremony is actually held at Public Hall in downtown Cleveland, as it is every three years. In Ohio, the entire Rock Hall thing can seem akin to that pinky ring-wearing, fat-cat rich couple that go slumming in the dance club in ZZ Top's "Sharp Dressed Man" video. 

As far as this year's class, I have plenty of issues of my own with the inductees (Green Day?), presenters (Miley?!), or the rather murky nomination/induction process (oh, Jann Wenner...you really wanted the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in, didn't you?). Despite such protests, it's still a magnificent show - the ultimate rock concert. So I'll pick the Tre Cool and Cyrus anchovies off an otherwise delicious pizza and enjoy. As a dead-serious lifelong music fan, it's a rare opportunity to be in the same room with so many icons and see speeches and performances that will never happen again. I'll never forget how cool it was, in 2012, to see folk legend Donovan sing "Sunshine Superman," witness Chris Rock giving the Red Hot Chili Peppers' induction speech, or see The Faces (with the since-passed keyboardist Ian McClagan) just blow the roof off with "Stay With Me." These are peak-experience, Halley's Comet-like moments for me, like seeing Tom Waits at the Wiltern in 1999, or watching the original five members of Guns N' Roses open for Aerosmith at Merriweather Post Pavilion in 1988.

The HOF ceremonies used to be closed-door industry events held at the Waldorf-Astoria in NYC, but they were eventually opened to the public in 2009, with the galas rotating between Cleveland, Los Angeles, and NYC. I used to watch the clips of the annual events on MTV in the early 90s, and read about them in Rolling Stone. However, they seemed to happen on another planet, and never did I dream I'd someday be able to attend. But then again, rock and roll is a universal language and it should be inclusive, especially by way of race and gender. So yes, closet racists/sexists, that means Run D.M.C. (inducted), Public Enemy (inducted), Grandmaster Flash (inducted), N.W.A. (not yet inducted), Donna Summer (inducted), Janet Jackson (not yet inducted), Pat Benatar (not yet inducted), and many, many others all deserve a place at the Rock Hall table. Deal with it. 

But back to the 2015 ceremony. This year, McCartney inducts Ringo, so there's that "seeing the living Beatles perform together in person" thing. That alone is worth the price of admission. Otherwise, Joan Jett  will jam with Dave Grohl; Double Trouble, Stevie Ray Vaughan's sharp backing band, will perform with Gary Clark, Jr.; the poetic Patti Smith will induct Lou Reed; Beck will do a Reed tune; and guitar alchemist Tom Morello will churn out some Paul Butterfield Blues Band riffs, and plenty more.

When it's all over and the final notes of "With a Little Help From My Friends" bounces off of the walls of Public Hall in Cleveland, another group of artists will be officially enshrined, and if nothing else, a tremendous concert will have taken place. Long live rock... and oh yeah, can we please induct Devo, N.W.A., Black Flag, Captain Beefheart, New York Dolls, Warren Zevon, The Cure, Depeche Mode, Nick Cave, Cheap Trick, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, and Jane's Addiction? Appreciate that, Jann.

Baritones for the Painfully Alone

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds/Mark Lanegan
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
July 5
"It's very dark up here," said a squinting Nick Cave after his first song. While the black-clad transgressor was referring to the lack of stage lighting in that moment, it seemed natural to take it in reference to the Cave and Bad Seeds gestalt. But "dark" is far too facile, it does no justice to the wide-ranging, pysche-bashing storm of music this septet gathers up and throws at their audience. From the pulsing, flute-accented opener "We Real Cool" to actual pin-drop whispering (the faith-satirizing "God is in the House") to the jagged, bullet-ridden trauma of "Stagger Lee," Cave was a sinister minister, a piano bar romantic, a lanky scarecrow being electrocuted. It was like witnessing a pagan ceremony, bar brawl, and chamber music recital all mashed together; a post-punk tent revival with howls of desolation going unanswered.

Considering Cave himself, they just don't build them like this anymore. With the exception of Leonard Cohen, one is hard-pressed to identify another living music figure armed with such a varied, literary, and gallows humor-flecked body of work that can meet the challenge of his best songs on the concert stage, with charisma to spare. Cave was especially masterful at achieving oneness with his congregation: Not only did he use three small, jutting platforms to step out and immerse himself among his faithful (he was surrounded by, and occasionally leaning on, outstretched arms), he startled the room by wading deep into the orchestra section, corded microphone be damned, and planted himself to sing the jolting "Tupelo" and later, the brooding "Push the Sky Away."

Push the Sky Away (Photo by Eric Layton)

This rare, direct mingling of artist and audience served as a reminder that there's a complete lack of danger and unpredictability in the rock pantheon anymore; if Cave was a stalking, emotional Quasimodo ringing bells on this night, this in-your-face convergence with his worshipful fans was the toll that rung loudest. While all this might be taken as a stunt akin to stage-diving, it felt more like he was kicking against the strictures of live rock n' roll. Roger Waters once dreamt up a "wall" at the apotheosis of his rock star alienation; in Cave's world, that barrier needn't exist, and it's rather silly, anyway. The conspicuous absence of security guards anywhere near the stage was refreshing, and suggested that this Antipodean poet would rather throw caution to the wind and trust his ticket-buying public. It was a move that paid off exponentially.

On the road in support of his latest album Push the Sky Away, Cave disturbed the Schnitz quite handily, but he was aided and abetted by the Bad Seeds (violinist/string-mauler Warren Ellis; drummer Jim Sclavunos; pianist/organist Conway Savage; bassist Martyn P. Casey; multi-instrumentalist Barry Adamson; and guitarist George Vjestica), a murder of crows that mostly stood in place and emitted atmosphere like a warm arterial spray, while their leader defiled, debriefed, and descended. Cave raised goosebumps with "Red Right Hand," reached back 30 years to his debut with the turbulent "From Her to Eternity," and invited opening act Mark Lanegan out for a shivering duet on "The Weeping Song." The setlist was satisfyingly career-spanning, and after the galloping death march "Papa Won't Leave You Henry," it featured the deep cut "The Lyre of Orpheus," an ominous recasting of a Greek myth. But on this night, recanting such fables seemed redundant as this rock n' roll outlier continued to build on his own myth, unleashing a performance that should be rightfully talked about in Portland for years to come.

Setting the table for Cave's musical "Red Wedding" was Lanegan, armed with only a guitar player and his stark baritone. Having fashioned a respectable solo career for himself after years in the Seattle rock trenches with the Screaming Trees, the stoic singer held listeners rapt with his signature voice. Bleak tales ensued, complete with lyrics of blades upon wrists, gravediggers, and one way streets. His cover of Bertold Brecht's "Mack the Knife" was unsettling, and under dusky stage lights, Lanegan established the right mood for what was to transpire next.

Leg-Kick Out the Jams

Guided by Voices
Wonder Ballroom - Portland, OR
June 7, 2014
You wanna hear something old school? How does a 56-year-old fronting a 31-year-old band sound? To anyone in the know, and to those at the Wonder Ballroom, it sounded mighty fine indeed. Dayton, Ohio's unsinkable Guided by Voices, now grayer and possibly a tad more moderate than during their 90s/early 2000s campaigns of Miller Lite stockpile destruction, came, saw, and leg-kicked out the jams.

If they had stopped writing new music 10 years ago, GBV would already be wielding a staggering song inventory, but no chance. Ceaselessly creative, mic-twirling dynamo Robert Pollard and his classic-formula GBV (from circa 1992-1996, guitarists Tobin Sprout/Mitch Mitchell, and bassist Greg Demos, along with later-period drummer Kevin March) arrived in town with not one but two new 2014 records, May's Cool Planet and February's Motivational Jumpsuit. If these worthwhile releases demonstrate anything, it's that the state of the GBV union is strong, and fans really ought to be grateful they live in a world where the unstoppable, avuncular Bob still holds court in their local nightclub.

Perhaps GBV never broke big, but the level of fame and adoration they currently enjoy seems ideal. Given the band's working-class-hero fervor at the Wonder Ballroom, their constituents could simply not want it any other way. This strange world of inscrutable song titles and transcendent rock and roll glory belongs to them, after all. Imagine a private club where beer bottles are hoisted in triumph, and nearly 50 songs are dropped in two hours. Presiding over it all is Captain Bob, damning torpedoes of power chords and melody that could lay waste to even the most jaded hipster mind, leaving pretension and PBR cans bobbing on the surface, like so much flotsam and jetsam.

In Portland, catering to every generation of fan like an indie rock Rolling Stones, the quintet broke out vintage tunes (Propeller's hard-charging "Exit Flagger"); fresh material ("Authoritarian Zoo," "Alex and the Omegas," the cleverly self-referential "Littlest League Possible"); Tobin Sprout-sung delicacies ("Awful Bliss"); and, in the "Shocker in Stumptown" given it was conceived by an entirely different membership of GBV, the very welcome mid-period jangler "Fair Touching" from 2001's Isolation Drills.

Pollard noted from the stage that it was the 20th anniversary of Bee Thousand, a peerless GBV classic, and the one with the anthems the crowd was hungriest for. Nine selections from the album were aired, and "Gold Star for Robot Boy" and the riffing, zigzagging gem "Echos Myron" even inspired mosh pits that were not so much violent as they were refreshing, cynicism-free moments of communal joy.

It's telling that so many goods were delivered by GBV, yet so many of their stellar works weren't even played; "My Valuable Hunting Knife," "The Official Ironmen Rally Song," and "Watch Me Jumpstart" were all conspicuous in their absence. It seems a grown-up, get-it-done efficiency and a slight sense of holding back is the new approach of this enterprise, and it's most glaringly obvious in Pollard's reduced alcohol consumption on stage (well, relatively speaking). Rather than continuing to exult in the shambolic, beer-hoisting Bacchanalia like he did in the 90s and 2000s, the frontman has chosen to hand lightly-used bottles of Jose Cuervo and Crown Royal over to the front rows (sheesh, someone's getting mono, bro...), and he even handed over several unopened Miller Lites at the end of the night. It's a bit like throwing a party in your forties. You buy way too much beer, and send the surplus home with your friends.

Has GBV grown up slightly? Gotten older and wiser? Perhaps necessarily so. But to call this evening anything less than a celebratory slice of underdog indie rock heaven would be inaccurate.