A Note in Support of Mr. Collins

Phil Collins!

There, I said it. You read it. Phil Collins.

For those of you nearing the age of AARP membership, or who have recently scheduled colonoscopies, there was a time when, love him or hate him, Phil Collins could do no wrong -- acting career aside. Hit after hit during the 1980s catapulted him from little-known drummer/singer of Genesis to mega-superstar of galactic proportions. For decades, the workaholic churned out album after album, project after project, and I'm not just talking about hit singles.

The guy made a concept album with Flaming Youth before The Who popularized the idea with Tommy (and a couple years before his future Genesis bandmates got into the act). He played drums on five albums with jazz/fusion group Brand X in the late 1970s while simultaneously and successfully taking over lead singing responsibilities in Genesis. He's been responsible for producing, collaborating with, and inspiring numerous artists throughout the years. And his inhuman drumming helped elevate the early fairytale music of Genesis out of English gardens into rock arenas and, ultimately, onto FM radio. The guy was a multi-talented, adaptable, unstoppable, impressive, all-around-enjoyable musical machine.

Then he became a commercial success and it all went to hell. Not because of him, though. He was just doing his thing and had enough business smarts to get paid good money for it, a fact that apparently pissed off some people and branded him a sell-out.

Now, after years of self-imposed musical exile, the guy's recent announcement that he plans to release a new album has certain critics freaking out like the devil is crawling out of hell to steal our children (or our chocolate, whichever scenario you find more terrifying). Honestly, what's the worst that can happen -- a crappy album? Or, perhaps, a really good album that you simply don't care for because it doesn't satisfy your taste in music?

I, for one, am looking forward to a new Phil Collins album. It doesn't matter if it's better than the best batch of songs he's ever pressed to vinyl or worse than the most middling soft rock he's ever been accused of compressing to MP3 format, I'm going to give it a listen because that's what a diehard fan does.

A diehard Genesis fan goes to see Peter Gabriel in concert even though Peter Gabriel hasn't released a decent album in 20 years. A diehard Genesis fan owns Mike Rutherford's solo albums (but is excused from anything after The Living Years). A diehard Genesis fan owns the three-and-a-half albums Tony Banks attempted after creatively flaming out in the early 1980s. A diehard Genesis fan owns all 473 Steve Hackett solo albums because he's the only former member of the group apparently not embarrassed by his progressive rock past.

Now, while I am looking forward to whatever music Mr. Collins chooses to release, I do have a small wish list I hope he takes to heart:

1. Get over it: You were overplayed and overexposed. Not your fault. You think Adele has never heard one of her songs on the radio and thought: "Good God, not her again." Your music would not have sold if people didn't like it, so stop being apologetic for your success. As for the critics who will never like anything you do, tell 'em to go screw.
2. Get out of your rut: Like many artists who achieve pop-star success, your sound essentially stopped developing when you struck it big. Maybe you think you know what people expect from you, or maybe you think every song you write that doesn't break the Top 40 is a failure, or maybe you just don't hear it. Whatever... Shake things up and forget about commercial viability. After all, you're wealthy enough to not have to worry about it.
3. Collaborate: Not that you haven't written some fantastic tunes, but some of your greatest achievements in music were in support of other people's ideas. All I'm saying is you don't have to do it all by yourself. Make new friends, call up some old friends, and get others involved in the creative process. (That doesn't mean rehashing your old sound with a young, hip producer -- please don't do that.)
4. Arena tours suck: Take a cue from your former bandmates and visit venues that are more intimate. My Lovely Wife and I took Our Daughter to see Peter Gabriel in Fairfax, VA, a few years ago with a few thousand other people and it was awesome. I got to see Steve Hackett's superb Genesis Revisited tour in a medium-size hall in Atlanta last year and it ranks as the greatest concert I've ever experienced. Much better than squinting from nosebleed seats a football field away just to see the Jumbotron.
5. Genesis Reunion: Stop thinking in terms of the trio versus the quintet. If you aren't up to the drumming, hire someone to fill in. We're cool with that. And just because Gabriel might not be interested doesn't mean we wouldn't like to hear Hackett tear through Firth of Fifth or pluck happily away on I Know What I Like. You could always do a one-off guest spot in their tours, or vice versa.

And, if you can't adhere to any of my other requests, please just try to have fun.

© 2015 Mark Feggeler

Please Stop...

We had a great vacation last week.

Pennsylvania is lovely and the countryside surrounding the city of Lancaster particularly so. Over the course of seven days, we managed to visit historic Philadelphia, HersheyPark, the Julius Sturgiss Pretzel Factory, Luray Caverns, and we even found time one morning for breakfast at IHOP. Incidentally, blueberry cannoli pancakes should be permanently emblazoned on every IHOP menu from now through the end of eternity. If you haven’t tried them yet, what the hell are you waiting for?

For some reason, the soundtrack to our family “Road” movie included quite a bit of Journey. 

Turn on the radio and there’s “Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’.” Pull into a gas station and get greeted by “Wheel in the Sky” from overhead speakers. Sit down in a restaurant booth and you’re tapping along to “Any Way You Want It” before you consciously acknowledge the song is even playing.

Now, if Journey had never formed as a rock band and later devolved into a lightweight video power ballad band my life wouldn’t be any the lesser for it, but I am not a Journey hater. I don’t hold a grudge against Carlos Santana for suggesting to Neal Schon that he start his own group, and I don’t harbor ill will toward MTV for the thousands of times it replayed the horrifically horrible video for “Separate Ways.” 

I freely admit to enjoying the group’s music. Show me any person in his or her forties who claims to never have attempted to match Steve Perry’s wailing voice in “Faithfully” while sitting alone in a car and I’ll show you a big fat liar.

Regardless of my enjoyment of the bands numerous hits, there was one Journey song that kept popping up round every corner during our trip, most especially during our two days at HersheyPark. You couldn’t hide from it, shut your ears to it, or put it out of your mind because the song, continuing its rise up from the ashes of clichéd eighties pop culture, refuses to die.

“Don’t Stop Believin’” -- apart from being one of several song titles that suggest Journey had a passionate distrust of the letter “G” -- is one of the more commercially successful covers by the cast of Glee, a show single-handedly responsible for convincing teens around the globe that all high schools have the budgets and technical ability to stage professionally choreographed karaoke competitions. This has led to all cover bands everywhere, even Death Metal cover bands, adding the song to their portfolios of musical butchery.

There was the Dueling Pianos show at HersheyPark that featured the song. Three talented pianists in bright suits who worked it into their 30-minute performance of piano-based pop tunes. Passable.

Fifty feet away was the all-girl cover band, Patty and the Peppermints, that featured the song. Six or seven young women in dire need of a properly functioning sound board and at least one band member with the ability to tune an instrument. Mildly annoying.

Then there was the roaming street trio that attempted the song. Three aspiringly disengaging waifs with instruments on loan from the Toys ‘R Us throwback collection. Intolerable.

At this point, I’m just happy to be home where I have more direct control over the soundtrack of my life. Until, of course, Our Daughter hops in the shower and cranks up the teenage tunage. What are the chances that’s actually Journey singing "Don't Stop Believin'?"

© 2014 Mark Feggeler

Mini Proggers

Anyone who knows much about me might know I am an avid Genesis fan. I love their newer material, which means the albums that are 19-36 years old featuring Phil Collins as lead singer. And I really, really love their older material, which means the albums that are 37-42 years old with Peter Gabriel as lead singer.

I don't care if loving the band dates me, or makes me incredibly uncool by most, if not all, modern standards of coolness. Go ahead. Judge and mock me. I can take it. I'm also a Mets fan, so I know a lot about hanging tough with an underdog and cheering for them at the top of my lungs no matter how vehemently the masses might ridicule them. Friggin' Yankees...

Most of the solo works by the individual members of Genesis from its many incarnations grace my collection in one form or another. Master guitarist Steve Hackett is my favorite, but I've already written that blog post. And yes, my Lovely Wife, he has a new one coming out this fall. (I'll try to be considerate during my 6-month period of obsessive replaying after it arrives special delivery from the UK.)

As time travels forward, my love of the band's music remains constant, even though the daily lust for it might wax and wane. From time to time, I put the discs aside, skip over the playlists on my iPod, and gravitate toward other genres. But never for very long.

Something about the overwhelming wall of sound from the melotron, the tinkling intricacies of the acoustic guitars, the screaming cries of the electric guitars, the simplistic complexity of the keyboards, the controlled chaos of the drumkit, the bass line that travels its own path through the song while somehow still supporting it, and the audacious pomposity of the lyrics -- for some reason it all blends together and calls me back like an old friend.

Lately, I've been reveling in the prog rock classic "Supper's Ready" from the band's 1972 album Foxtrot. Not only does the song contain every possible aspect of progressive rock that makes my Lovely Wife cringe, it has a running time of just over 23 minutes. On vinyl, that side of the album had only one other song, an acoustic guitar solo ("Horizons," also a classic) lasting only 90 seconds.

While I try not to subject my Lovely Wife to prog rock, our children are at my mercy. While Our Daughter, the teenager, is beginning to turn up her nose, the boys are still young and foolish enough to idolize me and, therefore, believe I have good taste. The Italian's standard response to seemingly every song I play is: "Can you put that on my iPod?"

So, it shouldn't have come as much of a surprise to me when, after having been subjected to "Supper's Ready" several times in the past few weeks, both the Italian and the German walked through the house this morning singing lyrics from the opening sequence of the song.

"Hey, babe, with your guardian eyes so blue-hoo," the Italian crooned.

"Hey, my baby, don't you know our love is true?" the German answered in turn.

My Lovely Wife rolled her eyes. I beamed at them from behind my bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats. Let her try and twist them round, round, baby right round with her Top 40 modern disco pop. So long as they display even a little fondness for 1970s rock opera prog, I'll proudly call them my sons.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Radio Tease

Every now and then a local radio station changes its format. If I'm lucky, it changes from some annoying techno-pop-disco-crap to classic rock. A few weeks ago, I thought I struck radio gold when I found a station that had converted to a format focusing on rock hits from the 80s and 90s.

I hate to date myself, but if The Big Chill were remade today, it would star people my age chugging Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers and dancing around an Ikea-furnished living room to Flock of Seagulls while wearing worn-out "Frankie Says Relax" concert t-shirts and figuring out how to stream Wham and Paula Abdul videos off YouTube.

MTV might have revolutionized the music industry -- and I was one of those kids who excitedly watched it launch with the appropriately titled "Video Killed The Radio Star" -- but it destroyed excellent bands that weren't pretty enough to fit the new mold. Mainstream music in the 80s was all about big hair, spandex, fog machines and orchestrated laser shows, so to find a radio station that pays homage to the acts that actually managed to keep rock alive during the decades of synth drums and choreographed lip-synch concerts is a rare treat.

Besides, I've grown tired of the so-called classic rock stations of North Carolina. They play the same twenty songs over and over again. This one plays Aerosmith every third song. That one plays ACDC every twenty minutes. That other one must think "Freebird" is the only song Lynyrd Skynyrd ever recorded.

It's like most of these stations laid out their schedules ten years ago and haven't deviated from them since. The only time you might hear more than one song from any band's catalog is on the horribly hackneyed two-fer-Tuesdays. Talk about innovative programming. I'm pretty sure Dick Clark came up with that idea eight years before radio was invented.

So, after years of relying on my iPod for music I like, I was driving to the grocery store and searching for a little agreeable music when I paused on a station long enough to hear the guy say "rock hits of the eighties and nineties." Sure enough, they played several songs in a row that took me back to my younger days. I hastily programmed the station into preset number four on the van radio.

Over the next few days, I would dial up the station to take fleeting sentimental journeys through my teens and early twenties while toodling around town. It all seemed so perfect. Then the cracks appeared in the ice.

By the third or fourth day, I realized I was hearing "Money For Nothing" by Dire Straits for the third or fourth time. And wasn't that the second time they played Thin Lizzy's "The Boys Are Back In Town" since this morning? That song doesn't even match their format! Just because The BusBoys covered it for the 48 Hours soundtrack in 1982 doesn't change the fact the song is from the 1970s! Don't these people know what they're doing?!

Turns out, they don't. Thank goodness I always keep the iPod charged up and ready to go.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler