The CLARKOPHILE

Dark night of the White Knight’s soul: 'Dark of My Moon' Part 2

2013-03-15T15:12:00.002-04:00

He Had a Way

For a man who made a career out of writing poignant songs of romantic loss, it is interesting to note the extent to which Gene’s lyrics – from the chivalric juvenilia of ‘She Has a Way’ in 1965 to the cri de coeur of ‘Your Fire Burning’ in 1990 – avoided the kind of bitterness and recrimination one often sees in songs of love gone wrong (e.g. ‘Dylan’s ‘Idiot Wind’; Alanis Morrissette’s ‘You Oughta Know’; or Hüsker Dü’s ‘Never Talking to You Again’). More often than not, the voice of loss that found expression in Gene Clark’s oeuvre did not target the woman who spurned him, it looked inward for answers to the question that inevitably arises out of such circumstances: What the fuck just happened?

When immediate answers to that question were not forthcoming, Clark’s muse sometimes led him towards the path of hopefulness (‘Think I’m Gonna Feel Better’) in which he bids a regretful farewell to the woman who rejected him, but actually summons the courage to wish her well:

I hope you understand that I

Still love you so bad

But when tomorrow morning comes

I hope that you will see the sun shine too

Come shining through

More often than not, however, the despair of romantic loss propelled the narrator – and the listener – headlong into the darkest recesses of the human psyche.

Gene often wrote from the perspective of an idealistic, sensitive youth attempting to make sense of a woman’s rejection after having followed the chivalric code of honour to the letter (e.g. “I was really good to her”; “I did all the things that I should”). Those lines from ‘She Has a Way’ epitomize the narrative tone of Clark’s early material. Indeed the entire song encapsulates Gene’s courtly-love-infused mindset in his lyrical approach to romance. Accordingly, for the purposes of comparing Clark’s early material with ‘Dark of My Moon’, we’ll use it as a point of reference.

In these early songs like ‘She Has a Way,’ Clark often adopted the role of the eager but passive supplicant, who waits impatiently (but waits nonetheless), and is always faithful, dutiful, courteous and gentlemanly. And he is always amenable to a reunion:

I didn’t think that I would wait for her very long,

But I didn’t realize my love for her was so strong.

Love's Greatest Fool

Now, as we all know, love is under no obligation to make sense, nor is it obliged to yield unto the wishes of even the most honourable knight in the court. It is this reality that makes the narrator’s quest for reasonable answers to the mysteries and vicissitudes of romance all the more poignant (incidentally, this tragic irony is apparent in virtually every one of Gene’s songs of romantic loss). Clark must have known this, yet he consistently used the spurned “I” in his songs as a proxy who sought an explanation for the inexplicable. Whether this was a conscious use of dramatic irony is debatable. He may have genuinely wanted answers to these questions that he voiced in song.

Although he suspects his beloved of being chronically promiscuous (“She has a way about her/That makes her run around”), and feels he’s been chewed up, spat out and made to look the fool (“The way she took me all apart/And made me the laugh of the town”), the song ends with the chorus and its gentle speculation about the chances of her settling down someday. For the listener, it’s unclear whether the narrator is wondering if she’ll settle down with him, or whether he's questioning her capability of settling with anyone. For the Clarkian hero, however, this question is unimportant; he simply accepts his fate, is duly saddened by it, but does not wish any ill upon her.

Fast-forward approximately 25 years to ‘Dark of My Moon’ and one finds that apart from the adult trappings of its subject matter (thoroughly dysfunctional co-dependent relationship), the narrator’s reaction to events is largely consistent with that of the early Clark efforts – with some notable exceptions.

First, let’s look at the similarities vis-à-vis the structure of the song (which, incidentally, begins – by accident – in media res: apparently Gene was so anxious to get the song on his four-track that he forgot to wait for the leader to pass at the beginning of the tape). The first 43 seconds sounds like it could have been written circa early 1965. Imagine Michael Clarke’s clunky-but-cute drumming and McGuinn’s Rickenbacker playing alongside Gene here. Granted, it’s tough to do because of Gene’s ghostly, echo-laden voice, sooty from cigarettes. But listen to the melody in those first 43 seconds. Played at a faster tempo, in a more upbeat tone and you’ve got something along the lines of ‘I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better.’ Even the lyrics sound somewhat familiar:

You're on the run

You're on the run again

And I'm missing you.

You're on the run

You're havin' fun again

At the cost of me and you.

Back in My Life...Again

In ‘She Has a Way, the elusive woman has a tendency to “run around”; here she is “on the run again.” The former phrase connotes unfaithfulness; the latter accuses her of fleeing from the relationship, or possibly even engaging in something illegal.

The use of the word “again” is a qualifier that gives us our first clue about the dysfunctional nature of the relationship. Clearly this isn’t the first incident of flight and return. As we shall see, however, it may be the last.

In any event, the first 43 seconds of the song constitute a kind of introduction to the piece, much like the opening section of ‘Pledge to You.’ In both cases the intros are sung once, and never repeated (This is an interesting quirk found in Gene’s later work that I often wish he had more time to explore in the context of polished studio recordings). At this stage the mood is wistful but not entirely hopeless.

It is at the 0:44, however, when both singer and song are cast headlong into hell. The chord struck here is a game-changer, and hits with the force of a sledgehammer to the heart when Gene sings “Midnight hour/And the eyes of passion go flashin' out of your/Ivory tower/As you sip your wine of fashion.” The narrator could be speaking to the woman face to face, accusing her of using sex as a means of repairing past absences. Or he might also be sitting alone after midnight, torturing himself with images of her flirtations with hipsters as part of some post-argument assertion of independence. Significantly, the “sip your wine of fashion” line is spat out with uncharacteristic contempt: stripped of her pretension by someone who knows her only too well, he exposes her as a social-climbing attention-whore.

So intent is she upon becoming a socialite that she exhibits no sense of guilt or shame for any behaviour that she believes will improve her station, no matter who gets stepped on. Is she simply adopting a Machiavellian outlook on things? Or is she exhibiting sign of something more serious – like sociopathy? Impossible to say really, but it’s perfectly clear that he, at least, believes her behaviour is having a deleterious effect on their relationship, if not his very existence:

You say that you will never despair because

You, no matter what you do, you don't care

And I see my sky turn black and my moon get dark without you.

Because of you.

Just as an aside, it’s interesting to see the words “because of you” in another Clark-penned song. Obviously it was not meant as a direct allusion to the track White Light track (although I wish it were!) but it does cultivate a sense of continuity in authorship.

If the insinuation of her being an attention-whore was not explicit enough, the next verse kicks it up a notch. The narrator accuses the woman of literally prostituting herself to fund a hedonistic lifestyle during his absences. These lines contain the most vicious, damning rhetoric in Gene Clark’s canon:

When I'm gone

You sell your time to anyone who can afford

To foot the bill for the way you carry on.

You have no fear of breaking hearts 'cause

You say the life that you live is just too short.

What we have here is a completely dysfunctional, codependent relationship between a belligerent

narcissist and a sentimental, sensitive masochist, who keeps going back for more:

I can't believe that you want to leave again

That's the tenth time that you went and then came back and asked me

You expect me to just be there and

Take back you and tell you how much I care

In the end, ‘Dark of My Moon’ constitutes a joust to the death between two conflicting forces: on one side is the White Knight of ‘She Has a Way’, who represents the chivalric code; a silent sentinel waiting to serve and honour his queen. On the other is the Dark Knight who lapses into “fits of passion” and castigates his queen for her indiscretions and irresponsible behaviour.

What is important here is the aftermath of the clash. Since she is perceived to be unapologetic, impervious to guilt or shame, it is he who stands with the most to lose in the disintegration of the relationship. It is a war of attrition that he, as the only one apparently capable of feeling, must lose. Indeed, the final image of a dark moon in a black sky insinuates that the end of the codependent relationship is, for both participants, nigh. And with his voice cracking and crippled in a cigarette-soiled burr, Gene’s final lines sound almost like those of a man who is consciously writing his own epitaph, as he lay on his deathbed:

And my sky gets black and my moon goes dark because of you.

Lyrics of 'Dark of My Moon'

2013-03-14T19:15:00.002-04:00

Here are the lyrics of 'Dark of My Moon.' I'll be posting part 2 tomorrow.

Dark of My Moon

By Gene Clark
From the album Gypsy Angel

You're on the run

You're on the run again

And I'm missing you.

You're on the run

You're havin' fun again

At the cost of me and you.

Midnight hour

And the eyes of passion go flashin' out of your

Ivory tower

As you sip your wine of fashion and you

You say that you will never despair because

You, no matter what you do you don't care

And I see my sky turn black and my moon get dark without you.

Because of you.

When I'm gone

You sell your time to anyone who can afford

To foot the bill for the way you carry on.

You have no fear of breaking hearts 'cause

You say the life that you live is just too short.

And I get my sky painted black and my moon painted dark just by you,

And in a fit of passion the blue light’s flashin' at you.

I can't believe that you want to leave again

That's the tenth time that you went and then came back and asked me

You expect me to just be there and

Take back you and tell you how much I care but

I see my eyes cry

As my sky turns black and my moon gets painted by you.

I have fits of passion, the sky was flashin' blue.

And my sky gets black and my moon goes dark.

I see my sky get black and my moon go dark without you

And the sky is flashin' a fit a passion blue

And there's thunder crashin', you sip your wine of fashion

and you

Get intoxicated on life and leave me here blue
And my sky gets black and my moon goes dark because of you.

New release: Here Tonight: The White Light Demos

2013-02-07T16:36:00.002-05:00

As if in answer to the pleas of weary & frustrated Clarkophiles everywhere who have waited over 20 years for a major archival release, Omnivore Recordings is set to release Here Tonight: The White Light Demos on March 26, 2013.

Apart from the fact that all of these previously unreleased performances feature nothing but the purest of pure Gene Clark (i.e. Gene singing, with acoustic guitar and harmonica -- no other accompaniment) we are also treated to three legendary Clark compositions that have never been heard in any form: 'Jimmy Christ', 'Please Mr. Freud', and 'For No One.'

Here is the complete track list:

CD Track List:
1. WHITE LIGHT
2. HERE TONIGHT
3. FOR NO ONE
4. FOR A SPANISH GUITAR
5. PLEASE MR. FREUD
6. JIMMY CHRIST
7. WHERE MY LOVE LIES ASLEEP
8. THE VIRGIN
9. OPENING DAY
10. WINTER IN
11. BECAUSE OF YOU
12. WITH TOMORROW

God bless Omnivore Records!

My forthcoming Shindig! article on The Coral's Ian Skelly

2013-01-09T18:30:00.003-05:00

Happy New Year!

Part 2 of my look at Gene's 'Dark of My Moon' has been delayed by two things: 1) the holidays; and 2) my current obsession, the magnificent debut solo album from the Coral's Ian Skelly, Cut from a Star.
So taken was I with this record that I felt compelled to drop everything, put other pressing matters on the back burner, and contact Shindig Magazine to pitch an idea for a story on it. They were receptive, and consequently I interviewed Ian yesterday and wrote the piece today.

I would strongly urge anyone with a love for dark, pastoral psych to seek out this record. In a word, it's magical. A stunning debut.

By the way, Ian is a big Gene Clark fan, so you just know he's a wonderful chap. I was honoured to hear him say that he enjoys reading The Clarkophile.

2012-12-10T08:34:00.002-05:00

‘Dark of My Moon’ Part 1: 1988-1991

Notwithstanding the excellence of So Rebellious a Lover, his 1987 duet album with Carla Olson, or Tom Petty’s high-profile 1989 cover of the evergreen ‘I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better’, Gene Clark’s professional reputation had reached its nadir in the last two and a half years of his life.

Why? Well, apart from the bridge-burning antics of the 1970s that precipitated the loss of contracts with major labels like Asylum and RSO, his mid-80s decision to form the 20th Anniversary Tribute to the Byrds – a loose aggregation of under-rehearsed, substance-abusing pirates and assorted confederates – betrayed almost pitiable desperation and shortsightedness, if not downright tackiness. He must have really needed the money to sell his musical soul in this way. Indeed, the Byrds tribute period is an awkward, if not cringe-inducing, time to discuss, even for Gene’s most ardent fans.

After all, Gene had always been the coolest, most handsome Byrd; the one with sartorial dash and a darkly mysterious aura born of fascinating contrasts. He was by no means inarticulate, but Clark’s folksy speech gave no indication of the tortured poet within. He had a muscular build that oozed rugged masculinity, yet he penned some of the most emotionally vulnerable lines in all of rock. (As an aside, it’s my belief that this juxtaposition of strength and vulnerability largely constitutes Gene’s appeal to both sexes.) He had also created a body of work that commanded respect from his modest, but fiercely loyal, fanbase.

The Byrds tribute period, however, tested the tenacity of one’s fandom and faith in -- as Paul Nelson put it in his notorious review of Two Sides To Every Story -- "the once-classy Clark."

Indeed, some might say that this fateful decision robbed him of his previously unassailable cool, the stigma from which he would never fully recover (certainly the bitterness remained for McGuinn, Hillman & Crosby, who unforgivably froze Gene out of their brief reformation of the Byrds in 1989).

Cynical, opportunistic cash-grabs like the Byrds 20^th Anniversary might reap benefits in the short term, but the lingering after-effects tend to besmirch the integrity of the brand. Just ask any purist fan of The Who.

In the period immediately after the release of So Rebellious a Lover leading up to his death in May 1991, Gene had been out of the major leagues for over a decade. He had seemingly resigned himself to the club circuit. The promised follow-up to So Rebellious never seemed to materialize. And, more ominously, on certain occasions Gene’s struggles with substance abuse were startlingly apparent – culminating in the coup de grâce at the Cinegrill in April 1991. With all of these things in mind, any casual Clark fan could be forgiven for the retrospective assumption that, at the time of his death, Gene was simply a spent force; that there was, if you will forgive me, no other No Other in him.

“It’ll be fun to do a new record; I’m very much looking forward to it.” Gene Clark, February 3, 1990

In spite of his fall from major-label grace, Gene certainly felt he had another record in him. In both the posthumous official releases and various live tapes in circulation emanating from the 1988-1990 period, Gene speaks with palpable ebullience about a new record. The stunning series of October '88 solo live recordings (he was on fire that month) provides fulsome evidence of a sober, fully focused performer in fine voice; his skills in no way diminished. In stubborn defiance of the demons surging and conspiring within him, he continued to speak about some mysterious new album that was, alas, always on the horizon, just out of reach. Out on the end of time.

But, tellingly, there is no effort to elaborate during these announcements; no details are ever provided. His words are vague, non-committal. Everything is qualified. Everything is pending, suspended…intangible.

The word “probably” got used a lot.

Consider this exchange from October 2, 1988, Mountain Stage, West Virginia, later released on the In Concert CD, in which Larry Groce refers to a recent archival release (presumably Murray Hill’s Never Before) then turns to asking Gene about his current activities.

Groce: Your new album, solo album, is that in the works still? You said that you’ve released one of the old ---

Clark: I’ve got a new one in the works too. We’re in the preproduction right now. Should be started next month.

Groce: Original tunes?

Clark: Probably mostly.

Groce: What label is it on? Is it placed yet?

Clark: We’re talking with a few right now, so …

With his curt response, “We’re talking with a few,” Gene accomplishes two things. He perpetuates the notion that he’s still a big, swaggering star that the labels are fighting over – i.e., he’s still talking the talk. (Whether this was merely braggadocio or a sign of acute delusion is up for debate. I’d say the former.) He also manages to avoid the embarrassment of having to acknowledge that self-sabotage meant any label interest would have come from strictly minor league entities.

“I hope the moon is in the right place”

Two days later, on October 4, 1988, in Nashville, Gene introduced a song thusly:
“This is a song that I wrote not too long ago that hopefully will probably be on a record before too very long. I’m actually supposed to start on this next month – November. I hope the moon is in the right place, you know.” [italics mine]

Perhaps self-conscious about the quasi-mystical sound of this remark, Gene laughs with the audience, before further mocking himself, adopting the voice of a fast-talking music-biz type. “You know how that goes, you get the moon in the wrong place…the album ain’t a hit…”

Self-deprecating comedy out of the way, Gene launches in a soul-stirring version of ‘My Marie’, replete with the “angry sons” verse he left off the legendary Mountain Stage performance. No person in their right mind could hear this remarkable performance and come to the conclusion that Gene’s best days as a writer were behind him.

The truth of the matter is that, at the time of his death, Gene had put together his most impressive collection of songs since No Other. And one of them, ‘Dark of My Moon’, almost seemed predictive of the final tragic irony in a life that was plagued by them.

Yes, Gene had the songs for a major-label comeback and, quite possibly, the finest, most ambitious album of his career. But his voice was getting weaker; his health more fragile.

His moon was most decidedly not in the right place. In fact it was becoming darker every day.

Coming soon: 'Dark of My Moon'

2012-11-23T20:46:00.001-05:00

'The Day Walk' Part Two: The Hollywood Walk of Fame

2012-08-25T15:33:00.000-04:00

'The Day Walk' (G. Clark)

Recorded September 14, 1965

The Day Walk

In your green room sit with a candle lit on a charcoal pit of dreams

You carry on

Though the streets are hot you can still allot that you can walk out and forget

There isn't time to take along.

But you're now into something that you were immune to before

And there wasn't a sign you just fell into line at the door

And the question stands in the palms of hands

Of the wretches/righteous picking pieces of their minds up off the floor.

On the mantel-place there is still a trace of the plastic face you hung

Your moments on

And the sudden scare of a landing there

On the scene that you don't care to even see when you're alone.

But the day is too short and you can't find support in the slums

You had thought you'd decide to just stick out the ride as it comes

But the emptiness of a thing that's less than what it was thought to be

Has left you wondering just how much more.

On August 21, 1965 the Byrds returned to Los Angeles from the British tour, but there would not be much in the way of time off. Consider this: In the three-week period immediately after their return to U.S. soil, the Byrds played a welcome-home gig at the Hollywood Palladium (“The Byrds Ball”), recorded several key tracks (‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’, ‘She Don’t Care About Time’, ‘The World Turns All Around’ and the remake of ‘The Times They Are a-Changin’’), taped appearances on two TV shows (The Mike Douglas Show and Shindig) and, astonishingly, still found time to catch Dylan at the Hollywood Bowl and hang out with the then touring Beatles.

And it was just over three weeks after their return, on September 14^th, the Byrds once again convened at the familiar surroundings of Columbia Recording Studios, Studio A, Sunset and El Centro with producer Terry Melcher to cut another Gene Clark composition.

Boasting a muscular ‘Satisfaction’-inspired riff, Chris Hillman’s startlingly in-your-face bass, Michael Clarke’s most confident performance to date, and Gene Clark's Dylanesque surrealism, ‘The Day Walk’ was the Byrds' most ambitious song to date. But at the song’s philosophical core lay the groundwork for Gene’s departure only five months later. Indeed, one might even say ‘The Day Walk’ constitutes Gene Clark’s resignation letter by proxy. But it was a letter no one read for over 20 years: notwithstanding its obvious superiority to other material brought in and/or championed by McGuinn and Crosby for the upcoming Turn! Turn! Turn!, the Byrds, true to form, ditched the song; it remained unreleased until the Murray Hill Never Before collection came out in 1987. By then even Gene himself had forgotten the title, and impulsively dubbed it 'Never Before.'

The concept of writing songs about the perils of fame is nothing new. It was the fodder for many songs written by rock’s pampered, self-piteous elite. The Byrds themselves would go on to write a wry anthem tangentially associated with that subject (‘So You Want to be a Rock ‘n’ Roll Star’). But how many of these songs were written by a 20-year-old who had been a star for less than six months?

For Gene, the idea of becoming a star was much more attractive than the unfolding reality.

Sung in an indifferent, soporific drawl that positive reeks of pot smoke, the opening verse is directed at an unnamed “you”, which, for purposes of discussion, is assumed to be the narrator speaking to himself. The lyrics describe a scene in which an individual bides his time offstage before a television appearance (“In your green room sit with a candle lit”). The “sit/candle lit” line is a nice use of internal rhyme, with an image that might connote peacefulness, contemplativeness and solitude. Juxtaposed with the immediately adjacent image of a “charcoal pit of dreams,” however, one senses a dream that once burned bright is now a scorched black hole.

The idea of allotting time in one’s busy schedule for an walk outdoors is presented as a means of solace, and yet it is plagued with the knowledge that one’s presence is always required elsewhere; that such moments of solitude are fleeting at best (“You can still allot that you can walk out and forget there isn’t time to take along”). The line is clumsily written but sounds cool when sung, and contains almost enough dry humour to pull it off.

There is no handbook, nor list of dos and don’ts, to handle the sudden onset of fame. Pressures from management, fans and fellow bandmates, along with whatever demons within one’s soul conspire alongside these disparate forces, inevitably take their toll. One need only look at Brian Jones, Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix and Pete Ham, all of whom were sensitive men, ill-equipped to deal with sudden fame, to appreciate Gene’s predicament, masterfully captured in the chorus:

But you're now into something that you were immune to before

And there wasn't a sign, you just fell into line at the door.

Equating celebrity with a virulent disease from which one had previously been immune is an utterly brilliant commentary on the vicissitudes of fame. Hollywood history is filled with stories of people who fought, betrayed, cheated and lied to maintain their status. If the idea of comparing fame to a sickness indicates an inchoate awareness of its ultimate perils, passive, lemming-like acceptance of its allure (“you just fell into line at the door”) intimates the insidious manner in which one was first drawn to it.

The meaning of the next two lines is difficult, insofar as the lazy delivery of the backing vocals makes accurate transcription of them a challenge:

And the question stands (sands?) in the palms of hands

Of the righteous (wretches?) picking pieces of their minds up off the floor.

Gene was very fond of the word “stand” around the time of the Turn! Turn! Turn! album; it is used in two of his three contributions (‘Set You Free This Time’ and ‘If You’re Gone’). So while sands running through palms of hands is, admittedly, an archetypal image Clark was doubtless aware of, the idea of a standing, unanswered question seems to be the more likely choice here.

In his brilliant book, Requiem for the Timeless Volume 1, Johnny Rogan assumes the word in the second line is “righteous,” while many others are of the view it is “wretches.” I tend to agree with Rogan, so consequently all of the discussion will be based on that understanding of the lyric.

The righteous, with whom resolution of the unknown, unanswered Question rests, are preoccupied elsewhere, “picking pieces of their minds off the floor”.

This is an interesting image, which might possibly refer to the desperate, ego-driven cogs caught within the Hollywood star machine.

In the next verse, Gene continues the pattern of internal rhyme (“On the mantel-place there is still a trace of the plastic face you hung your moments on”) in a manner that further suggests exposure to, and wanton participation in, the prerequisite artificiality of showbiz, suggested in the “plastic face” hung on the mantel and presumably donned when apropos, like Shakespearean happy/sad theatre masks. (It should be noted that this image predates, by some months, the face kept “in a jar by the door” famously described in McCartney’s much-analyzed, much-celebrated ‘Eleanor Rigby’.)

The next two lines feature more inspired internal rhyme, and use the analogy of a precarious airplane landing to communicate a fear of landing “there, on the scene that you don’t care to even see when you’re alone.”

What “scene”? Where is “there”? Presumably this is an allusion to Britain (specifically London) or, possibly, if written while in Britain, the Sunset Strip, both of which were the hotbed of popular music at the time.

Either way it’s interpreted, the line suggests an aversion to the assorted scene-makers, hangers-on and hipsters whom glom on to celebrity in search of reflected glory.

Still out on his walk, it is apparent that time, or the lack thereof, is still an issue, as is the inability to find benign souls of substance and support in Hollywood, which is now likened to a slum:

But the day is too short and you can't find support in the slums

You had thought you'd decide to just stick out the ride as it comes

It is in the final two lines that that the previously unclear question – the question that once stood in the palms of the righteous – is now asked and addressed in the payoff line:

But the emptiness of a thing that's less than what it was thought to be

Has left you wondering just how much more.

The soullessness of fame (“the emptiness”) is discovered to be hollow (“less than it was thought to be”), all of which leads to The Question: How much more? How much more of this can be absorbed before one’s dreams disintegrate in the embers of a blackened charcoal pit?

For Gene Clark, the answer to The Question was five brief months.

-------------------------------------------

The Epoch of Belief & Incredulity: ‘The Day Walk (Never Before)’ Part one

2012-08-09T14:10:00.002-04:00

The Byrds – ‘The Day Walk (Never Before)’ (3:04)

Recorded September 14, 1965

(G. Clark)

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…

Charles Dickens - A Tale of Two Cities

Photo taken from Christopher Hjort's excellent So You Think You Want To Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star,
The Byrds Day-by-Day 1965-1973

The epoch of belief

The period during and immediately following the Byrds’ ill-fated British tour in the summer of 1965 was both a positive and negative epoch in the life and art of Gene Clark. On the upshot, one can detect obvious emotional maturity in the songs Gene composed during this period, later to grace the Turn! Turn! Turn! album. Apart from the winsome proto-power pop of ‘The World Turns All Around Her’ (which itself featured a more mature message about wisdom gained from experience) Gene’s new batch of songs featured a sharp turn away from Beatles-inspired boy-girl pop, and set sail for the murky, untested waters of Dylanesque wordplay (‘Set You Free This Time’) and non-traditional lyrical structure (‘If You’re Gone’) tossed into a brooding stew of mid-tempo, minor-key melodies.

Gene began to embrace topics/images that – in stunning parallel with the Beatles (cf. ‘In My Life’, 'Norwegian Wood') – abandoned puerile, all-or-nothing notions of love and loss for stranger-than-known, shades-of-grey destinations out on the end of time. In this new sphere of creative freedom, his proclivities for abstract metaphor and syntactical experimentation offered compelling evidence of Clark’s burgeoning poetic genius.

But this new artistic voice would occasionally betray a regrettable tendency for self-conscious imitation of Dylan – and there was no shortage of Dylan imitators in 1965. Indeed, so pervasive was the influence of The BobBard™, that even John Lennon, AKA The Coolest Guy Who Ever Lived™, went through a brief period of Dylan-worship, evidenced by the peaked cap he donned for Help! and the loping, lugubrious vocal affectation he employed on ‘You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away’. For better or worse, Gene’s obsession with Dylan would last much longer than Lennon’s, and did not reach its zenith until the shambolic Gene Clark Sings for You demo sessions in 1967, in which lyrical content superseded melody for Gene. However, heading into the fall of 1965, this was new ground, and Gene’s artistic vision was arguably more adventurous than the Beatles’ at this juncture.

The epoch of incredulity

On a more personal level, the British tour may have had such a deleterious effect on Clark’s psyche that it actually served to plant the seeds of his eventual departure from the Byrds a mere six months later. As we shall see in part two of this discussion, such weariness and vulnerability is apparent in the songs written and recorded during and immediately after the tour.

But why would the British tour have acted as a catalyst for both positive and negative change in Gene Clark’s life? History tells us that ‘Eight Miles High’ was the locus of triumph and despair in Gene’s life thus far, insofar as his greatest achievement with the band came at the very moment he suffered a mental breakdown that precipitated his departure. But ‘Eight Miles High,’ the meltdown at the airport on Tuesday, February 22^nd 1966: these were the manifestations of unrest and psychological torment, not the root causes. And the causes, as we shall soon see in our discussion of ‘The Day Walk’, were already taking their toll – even as he displayed marked growth as a poet and songwriter.

From idols to peers

One can assume that meeting the Beatles and the Rolling Stones was a huge confidence-building experience for Gene, who was at that point still three or four months shy of his 21^st birthday. After all, at the same time the Byrds were at number 1 with ‘Mr. Tambourine Man,’ the Stones were at number 2 with ‘Satisfaction’ and the Beatles at 3 with ‘Help!’ How could he not have been chuffed and emboldened by this sudden fame and success? His idols were suddenly his peers. Naturally, this confidence spilled over into his songwriting and became evident in his willingness to explore new territory, even if it meant writing the occasional cringe-inducing line.

The British tour would go down in rock history as the inspiration for ‘Eight Miles High’ but it’s important to remember that during this trip Gene also penned ‘Set You Free This Time’. Here we have a contemplative song about Gene’s pet topic, romantic loss, and yet it is somehow different from earlier efforts like ‘Here Without You’ and ‘She Has a Way.’ In many of Gene’s other songs the narrator would play the role of the defeated suitor dumped by a callous, impetuous woman, usually in favour another man. But in ‘Set You Free This Time,’ the tables are turned, karma's a bitch and our narrator has the confidence to take complete control of the situation; to decide his fate rather than wait for it to befall him. Even using the words “this time” indicates refreshing self-awareness, along with the confidence to declare that the resolution of this particular situation will differ from the norm.

The imagery in 'Set You Free This Time' is spatially symbolic (one of Clark’s many recurring motifs); the narrative undeniably adult. The word-heavy lines constitute syllabic overspill, obviously born of pent-up frustration and resulting release. The plot features intrigue, innuendo, irony, subtext and something almost unheard of in a Clark song about a broken relationship, emancipation and deliverance.

By comparison, ‘Boston’ and ‘You Movin’, Gene’s rollicking early pastiches, recorded only a year before, are the aural equivalent of baby pictures.

And he was still just 20 years old.

COMING SOON: 'THE DAY WALK (NEVER BEFORE)'

2012-07-24T15:44:00.003-04:00

THE BYRDS

'THE DAY WALK (NEVER BEFORE)'

recorded September 14, 1965

HAROLD EUGENE CLARK, NOVEMBER 17, 1944 - MAY 24, 1991

2012-05-24T13:38:00.003-04:00

Photograph by Gene Trindl

Kai Clark playing 2012 Music in the Mountains: "A Tribute to Fathers"

2012-05-21T08:51:00.002-04:00

Time for another readers' poll

2012-03-12T09:51:00.004-04:00

I've chosen five songs from various points in Gene's career (1965, 1967, 1970, 1977 and 1988), and would like you to pick one song over the other four.
I'm considering writing about one of these songs and would like to get a sense of what everyone else is interested in.

Poll is in the right-hand column.

Romance & Ceromancy: 'If I Hang Around' Part 2

2012-03-06T16:09:00.011-05:00

If I Hang Around

Your hair hangs down, covers your eyes

If I hang around should I sympathize?

Your hungry look, not said to despise

If I hang around should I sympathize?

And some day you're gonna think about it some more

You're gonna toss your head and remember what loving is for.

Cycle surrender detachment from what you can see

If I hang around should I make you think I would leave?

Paraffin pastel printings that you believe

If I hang around should I find future to leave?

And some day you're gonna think about it some more

You're gonna toss your head and remember what loving is for.

Super-insensitive reaching out for the sun

If I hang around should I say I've only begun?

Perceptive protection perceiving no wrong is meant done,

If I hang around should I say you're the only one?

Some day you're gonna think about it some more

You're gonna toss your head and remember what loving is for.

Romance & Ceromancy:

“If I Hang Around” (Part 2)

If one of the envisioned outcomes of Gene Clark’s tactical retreat from the limelight of The Byrds was a simpler, less complicated life, then his decision in mid 1966 to embark upon an illicit affair with Michelle Phillips of the Mamas & the Papas effectively scuppered any such plans.

That Gene suffered some kind of life-changing psychological event in the aftermath of his split from the Byrds is patently obvious. Knowing what we know today about the soul-eviscerating effects of clinical depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the best place for Gene in early 1966 was, without question, a mental facility.

But instead he went to the next best place.

“When he would talk,” Chip Douglas told me in 2010, “the words wouldn’t flow out like they would on paper… in those songs.”

Following his failure to get on that plane to New York – and its repercussions both immediate and long-term – Gene followed his instincts: he returned home to see his family in early 1966.* Perhaps if he had stayed for a longer period of time he might have rebuilt his decimated psyche, but he made the fateful decision to return to L.A. and form the Gene Clark Group.**

But this premature return to the music scene was doomed from the get-go, insofar as Roger McGuinn or David Crosby were no longer hangin' around to interpret and arrange Gene’s material. Artistically, anyway, Gene was now cast adrift on his own. As the star, it was solely up to him, not Bill, Joel or Chip, to dictate the artistic direction of the band. He was now in an unfamiliar waters: without the luxury of reliance upon the singing/arranging axis of Crosby and McGuinn (who were themselves partial, if completely oblivious, catalysts in Gene's breakdown) Gene was now forced to not only formulate, but fully articulate and execute, his ideas. Thus, there existed an unbridgeable gulf between the sounds he heard in his head and his ability to communicate these same ideas to Chip, Joel and Bill.

“When he would talk,” Chip Douglas told me in 2010, “the words wouldn’t flow out like they would on paper… in those songs.”

And it was during this time that Gene met Michelle through their mutual friend, Cyrus Faryar, of the Modern Folk Quartet, and the two embarked upon their brief romance. For Gene, battered and vulnerable, still in the throes of his post-Byrds meltdown, the timing could not have been worse. Oh, the idyllic notion of Gene and Michelle speeding through Laurel Canyon in the summer of 1966 in Steve McQueen’s old Ferrari seems like the quintessential rock fantasy, for sure. And yet, the reality appears to have been something much darker for Gene.

Reportedly wracked with guilt and shame over the relationship, Gene saw Michelle in secret (indeed, there are no published photographs of the couple together). Whatever comforts he doubtless found with Michelle were just as powerfully counteracted by the festering conflict within him, exacerbated by his fragile psychological state.

The relationship was doomed from the get-go, and yet Gene saw it through, conflicted all the while, and waited for Michelle to end it – which she did, following his controversial appearance at a Mamas and the Papas gig that June.

******************************************************

“Fourteen or fifteen things…”

After the abrupt dissolution of the Gene Clark Group in 1966, Chip Douglas joined the Turtles, then left to produce the Monkees, only to later return to the Turtles’ fold as producer. With him, he brought ‘You Showed Me,’ the Clark-McGuinn song from the Preflyte/World Pacific days. ‘You Showed Me’ was one of “14 or 15 things” included on a demo tape, featuring solo performances by Gene Clark.

“It was given to me by Eddie Tickner,” says Chip of the tape. “I think it is Gene’s original tape from his four-track.”

Also included on the tape -- and subsequently released on the Byrd Parts 2 compilation in 2003 (with Chip’s bass and backing vocals overdubbed in 1997) -- is the doom-laden, introspective ‘If I Hang Around.’

‘If I Hang Around’ oozes suspicion, guilt, mistrust, disillusionment, paranoia, self-doubt and indecisiveness. In short, it captures Gene’s emotional instability at his darkest hour.

He was all of 21 years old at the time he wrote it.

What Am I Doing Hangin’ Round?

The title of the song is infused with more significance than its pedestrian, rather informal, tone would initially suggest. Like the best of Gene’s lyrics, the extrapolation of one pivotal word acts as a crucial, game-changing qualifier. Just as ‘I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better’ had its “probably”, here we have the word “If”. And from this simple two-letter word springs myriad answers, each of which harbours its own ramifications. Significantly -- perhaps even typically for Gene -- none of the envisioned outcomes promises anything more than continued misery. Yes, the asking of questions stacked upon other questions promises innumerable outcomes, but what's the point if despair is the only certainty in any road taken?

The term “If I Hang Around” might be reflective of the narrator’s inner torment, as if he were asking himself the question: “If I go through with this…” This idea is compounded by the appearance of yet another question in the same line: “Should I sympathize?” In terms of the relationship with the woman in the song, the narrator is clearly fraught with self-doubt, along with a paralyzing inability to make decisions.

The first line of the song (“Your hair hangs down, covers your eyes”) suggests a certain amount of insecurity on the narrator’s part. Is the woman’s head hung low out of a sadness requiring sympathy (“Should I sympathize?”). Or does the possibility exist that she knows the affair is merely a short-term diversion, a product of capricious lust, and deliberately averts her eyes to spare her own conscience? This insecurity leads him to ask once again, “Should I sympathize?” – only this time the meaning is quite different: he’s wondering (Aloud? Or to himself? It is unclear) whether he should bother to involve himself in someone else’s troubles at all.

The second verse further chronicles the woman’s changeable nature. One moment she surrenders to her passions, but just as quickly extricates herself from the situation (presumably a reference to her unexplained cycle of entrance/departure from the narrator’s bedroom).

This repetitive process of sexual surrender/detachment irks him. Clearly he feels he’s being manipulated, and so he considers fomenting his own retreat in a bid to turn the tables and make her feel insecure: “Should I make you think I would leave?”

Paraffin pastel printings

Nascent New Age notions of astrology, tarot card readings and the like certainly found favour among the Hippie counter-culture; certainly candle wax readings would have fit right into this mentality. Now picture the couple going for one of these readings, at her behest. The distain for the fortune-telling “paraffin pastel printings” is as palpable as his frustration with her unflinching belief in their accuracy. Her naïve insistence in believing in the random wax droppings leaves him wondering if this is her way of laying the foundation for their eventual breakup with a view towards absolving herself (“Should I find future to leave?”).

Musically, this song could have fit in nicely on either Younger Than Yesterday or With the Gosdin Brothers. Even as an unadorned acoustic demo, the song’s potential is palpable. Imagine Crosby’s ethereal harmonies floating atop Gene’s solemn lead, McGuinn’s softly plucked Rickenbacker, and some tender harpsichord.

Even without these elements, a sense of gloom permeates the music. A clandestine relationship requires forethought, secretiveness, shadows, drawn curtains and alibis. Clark, who suffered from acute claustrophobia, captures the essence of a forbidden love that is relegated to hidden rooms. The intensity of the narrator’s desire for his lover is matched only by the suffocating requirements of the relationship.

And yet, as the final verse tells us, he chastises her for leaving their love nest for the light of day (“Super-insensitive reaching out for the sun”). It is a typical Clarkian quandary: the place that brings most happiness is a place of darkness and isolation from the outside world.

Gene’s fondness for incisive alliterative description appears again in the brilliant line, “Perceptive protection perceiving no wrong is meant done.” Here he suggests an awareness of his lover's preconceived exit strategy as a convenient means of absolving ("perceptive protection") herself from the responsibility of having hurt anyone as a result of her actions.

In effect, she has granted herself absolution and left her hapless lover holding the bag.

In a final, desperate plea to salvage a hopeless situation, the narrator wonders if offering his troth might somehow forestall the inevitable (“If I hang around, should I say you’re the only one?”). But by putting it in the form of a question, it appears even he remains unconvinced of what he’s saying. He’s asked yet another question instead of proffering anything resembling a convincing statement.

The two-line chorus seems to be little more than an empty kiss-off, an impotent threat, which, in effect, says, “I’m going to haunt you. You’re going to remember these days and regret having ended it”:

“Someday you’re gonna think about it some more

You’re gonna toss your head and remember what loving is for.”

But the “it” of the chorus might just as easily refer to their passionate moments of intimacy. She will of course move on to other lovers, but at some future time, when alone in private thoughts of sexual reminiscence, she will think of him and lament the loss of their relationship, notwithstanding the dubious prophecies written in candle wax.

And so while I made the earlier assertion that ‘If I Hang Around’ reveals its author as suspicious, guilty, mistrustful, disillusioned, paranoid and indecisive, he somehow evinces remarkable insight in the intricate workings of their relationship without having answered any one of his questions.

‘If I Hang Around’ is further evidence that while Gene was burdened with the debilitating effects of his still-fresh despair following his departure from the Byrds, he could always turn to his music and poetry as a means of explaining the mysterious complexities of romantic relationships with remarkable lucidity and intense passion.

****************************************************

*There is something incredibly moving about this act of retreat. I suggest you re-read the quote from Rick Clark in the Einarson book about this period, as he explains it with the knowledge only a brother could possess.

**The Gene Clark Group was, like the Sings for You demos, the musical embodiment of Gene’s indecisiveness during this period: He had no concrete vision for the band,

nor was he able to express what he wanted from Chip, Joel and Bill.

My Sincere Thanks to Readers of The Clarkophile

2012-02-17T11:05:00.005-05:00

I'm pleased to report that, since the inception of The Clarkophile in 2008, it has currently reached a total of 25,393 visits and 43,379 page views. When I conceived the idea, I remember thinking I would be the only one visiting the site.

Thanks for proving me wrong.

Obviously, Gene Clark is much more popular than many of us (including myself) had ever imagined.

I really appreciate your taking the time to let me know your thoughts about Gene's music.

Thanks for the support and the comments!

'If I Hang Around' Part 1

2012-02-10T16:12:00.007-05:00

Gene Clark in '66/'67: Caught between the Byrd he was, and the poet he was becoming.

'If I Hang Around'

1966 demo recording, released on Byrd Parts 2, Raven Records 2003

Post-Byrds/pre-Dillard & Clark disillusionment

As mentioned in my earlier discussion of the Gene Clark Sings for You acetate, it is now painfully apparent that, after his hasty departure from The Byrds, Gene simply had no clear-cut direction in which to take his music in furtherance of a serious solo career.

Einarson makes it very clear that although Gene recorded extensively throughout this period, the material he came up with (outside of the uniformly excellent tracks on his debut, of course – although these too run a gamut of stylistic explorations) positively reeked of disillusionment, crippling self-doubt, lack of focus/follow-through, and general confusion.

The Sings for You material featured one nicely produced orchestral track (‘That’s Alright By Me’), alongside seven other dubiously produced, clumsily performed outings, wherein Gene’s melodies could be clunky, out of tune and monotonous (‘7:30 Mode’), lazy and undistinguished (‘One Way Road’), or simply carelessly assembled and shoddily performed (‘Past My Door’).

A lyricist of consequence

The lyrics, however, are another matter entirely. Impeccably written, full of abstruse musings, ornate descriptions and complex, multi-layered wordplay that asked the listener to tease out meanings like some kind of biographical puzzle, it is easy to picture Gene sitting down to write these songs with a pen and paper. It is altogether more difficult to picture him sitting with his guitar to write these songs. At times, the music seems like no more than an afterthought.

Somewhere between the lavishly detailed, disciplined poetry of the Sings for You material, and the callous disregard evident in its subsequent recording, there was some form of disconnect; one that prevented Gene’s muse from reconciling his established reputation as the master of minor-key melancholia with his astonishing emergence as a lyricist of consequence.

“...akin to Dylan singing in front of the Left Banke”

Similarly, other forays into the studio produced a mixed bag of also-rans, false starts and attempts to regroup/relaunch Gene’s career both prior to and after the commercial failure of the Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers debut.

The demos recorded by the Gene Clark Group in 1966 were deemed a disappointment by all involved, prompting Clark to quickly extricate himself from the situation.

In 1967, there was the dreamy and mysterious ‘Only Colombe’/’The French Girl’ 45 that sounded, as Sid Griffin so memorably put it, “akin to Dylan singing in front of the Left Banke.” Notwithstanding their excellence, these tracks were deemed unsuitable, and plans for the single were aborted shortly before its projected release.

Then there were the three recordings (‘Yesterday Am I Right’ ‘Without You’ and ‘Don’t Let it Fall Through’) made at Gold Star, featuring Gene and trumpeter Hugh Masekela (along with Chris Hillman on bass), the results of which, according to John Einarson, were “bizarre.”

Apart from ‘Only Colombe’/’The French Girl’ (as featured on the Echoes compilation, approved by Gene shortly before his death) none of this material would ever be revisited. It was simply cast aside.

Gene’s batting average in the Byrds was pretty much unimpeachable. He contributions to the first two Byrds’ albums oftentimes provided the most satisfying moments of otherwise uneven releases. Gene’s songs gave Mr. Tambourine Man and Turn! Turn! Turn! their commercial appeal as well as their emotional depth; ‘Eight Miles High’ gave Fifth Dimension its backbone and one of the Byrds’ best-loved songs.

But in 1966 and 1967, estranged from both the Byrds and apparently his own muse, Gene was struggling.

So what from this era could be considered an unmitigated success?

‘If I Hang’ around is the answer.

(Part 2 will follow)

Next instalment coming soon: If I Hang Around

2012-02-04T18:17:00.001-05:00

The Kai Clark Band

2012-01-11T15:15:00.006-05:00

Belated Happy New Year, everyone.

Recently, I received an email from Kai in which he provided a link to the brand new electronic press kit of The Kai Clark Band. Check it out!

For the transcript of my interview with Kai from May 22, 2010, go here.

I'll be back very soon with a new entry (coinciding with the High Moon's release of Two Sides To Every Story), along with the waaaaa-aaaaay overdue recording of my band's interpretation of Gene's 'Past Tense' from the Sings for You sessions. For personal reasons, we were forced to abandon work on it over a year ago, but we're determined to polish it off by the end of the month.

Backwoods Gothic

2011-09-23T15:23:00.009-04:00

From City to Country to City:

No Other, the Silverados and Two Sides To Every Story

Following the commercial failure of 1974’s No Other, his sprawling and ambitious tour de force, it seems reasonable to assume Gene Clark suffered a crisis of confidence, possibly even a breakdown of sorts, in the three years prior to the release of Two Sides To Every Story in 1977.

With No Other, he manifested the potential that everyone knew he had in him; that had been evident since his days in The Byrds: he produced A Great Work. It is a daring, brash album, cinematic in its scope and vision, filled with Gene’s incomparable, idiosyncratic, if occasionally impenetrable, poetry, and some of the most soaring, dramatic music heard this side of an opera hall. Bombastic? Over the top? Hell, yeah. That was the whole point.

No Other is the single greatest achievement from a former member of The Byrds.

And Gene wrote or co-wrote every song on the album.

But Asylum’s refusal to widely promote the album or sponsor a major tour – especially after Gene’s notorious confrontation with David Geffen in Dan Tana’s – effectively sealed the fate of Gene’s Grand Artistic Statement, and cast it headlong into the ignominy of the cutout bins.

A brief aside…

Imagine this fantasy scenario.

It’s 1975, and the title track from No Other has become a surprise midsummer hit, prompting a multi-legged stadium tour of North America and the U.K. A handpicked assemblage of L.A’s best musicians and background singers backs Gene. The album is lauded by critics and fans as Clark’s long-awaited masterpiece, heralded by everyone from old Byrds devotees to prog-rock aficionados. Gene Clark signs a lucrative contract with Asylum and becomes a major star through the ‘70s and ‘80s.

As we all know, what actually transpired bears no resemblance to this (But if the idea of witnessing ‘Lady of the North’ wafting heavenward in the open air doesn’t give you goose bumps, you’re best advised to stop reading this blog right now). In reality, Gene hooked up with two journeymen musicians, Duke Bardwell and Roger White, and, musically speaking, retreated from the glitz of the city to the comfort of bluegrass hill country.

There is something very heartbreaking (ah, but isn’t there always with Gene?) about the idea Gene Clark touring his masterpiece – not in limos and private jets, but in the back of a van, playing small dinner clubs.

And yet the Silverados period, notwithstanding his escalating intake of booze and drugs that marred some of the performances, was the moment at which Gene created a truly unique, if entirely non-commercial, sound. From Byrds pop to the stark balladry of the White Light period and the glam-prog of the then recent No Other, Gene and the Silverados reconciled differences between ostensibly disparate musical styles. To paraphrase Van Morrison, Gene, Duke and Roger got down to the real soul inside the very bones of the songs.

This was an abrupt change in the direction of Gene’s music. Spectorian bombast had transformed into bucolic simplicity; the alienation of city life led back to the earthy, mystical country of his childhood. With this in mind, Gene’s then brand new composition, ‘The Daylight Line,’ spells out the story of his post-No Other disillusionment as clearly as a leaked diary entry:

I'd be home in the city but really that is not my place

I could go down in pity or leave and take a look at my face

Gene’s performances with the Silverados were anathema to No Other. Think of how ridiculous it sounds on paper. How could three guys reproduce what took $100,000.00 and a small army of L.A.’s session elite to capture in the studio? This was tantamount to Springsteen touring Born to Run accompanied by kazoo and toy piano.

And yet somehow, in spite of Gene’s drinking, money woes and disinterested audiences, Gene and the Silverados gelled as a unit. As the surviving recorded evidence attests, they recast every discrete period of Gene’s music into a unified, ebullient, yet haunting whole, to create what can only be described as backwoods gothic.

No small achievement that.

Neil Young built his career on sudden changes in style, but there was one big difference – he could afford to. By 1975 Young had achieved considerable commercial success, both as a solo artist and as part of CSN&Y, and therefore had the luxury of screwing with bandwagon-jumpers by releasing Tonight’s the Night while they pined for another ‘Old Man’. When you’re Gene Clark, a guy who hadn’t hitched his wagon to a mega-unit-shifting project for ten years, such a volte-face was another in a series of career-killing decisions. The intended audience for Gene’s fusion of Appalachia and (for lack of a better term) “rock,” with its plaintive, at times wild, yodeling, tasty guitar pickin’ and folksy three-part harmony, did not buy records destined for the top 40.

Doubtless these very thoughts factored into Tommy Kaye’s fateful decision to unceremoniously turf the Silverados, and repeat the No Other formula by hiring slick studio pros.

But listen to ‘Home Run King’ as performed by the Silverados. Then play the studio cut. Which one has more personality? It is as simple as that. Studio sheen and faultless musicianship cannot compete with the kinetic energy achieved by three guys who had rehearsed together, travelled in a van together, eaten lousy road food together, and had, as a solid unit, played a series of low-paying, low profile gigs in smoky clubs.

Kaye’s firing of the Silverados was the country-rock equivalent of Chris Thomas suddenly bringing in Brian May, John Entwistle and Phil Collins to back up John Lydon on Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols. It was a decision that effectively sabotaged Gene’s backwoods gothic statement. For whatever reason, perhaps due to his plummeting sense of self-confidence, Gene let it happen.

In the end, the studio pros made no difference. Upon its initial release in 1977, Two Sides To Every Story was eviscerated in Rolling Stone, courtesy of this notorious review:

To those who admire Gene Clark, Two Sides to Every Story is a heartbreaker—in the worst way. ("Is this the dullest album ever made?" was my original opening sentence. "Probably" would have been the second.) Lugubrious to the point of laughableness, the once-classy Clark creeps through a series of Gibranian ballads that is so Antonioni-slow the songs actually seem to stop. Dead. Like this. Bereft of either interest or ideas, this plodding work can only be described as California-liturgidical.

Interlarded among the endlessness are some lame bluegrass ("Home Run King," "In the Pines"), listless rock & roll ("Marylou") and the worst train song ever ("Kansas City Southern"). Producer Thomas Jefferson Kaye is a great help, offering an interminable supply of nothing but the moldiest clichés.

Actually, there is one clever phrase: "You're either/Just the newspaper boy/Or you're either Babe Ruth." How much for a late city edition, Gene? (RS 239)

PAUL NELSON

In terms of Gene’s post-1977 career, I have often referred to this review as delivery of the coup de grâce. Never again would he be signed to a major label as a solo artist.

Tommy Kaye bears a certain amount of blame, for sure. Whether hampered by cocaine burnout or late-‘70s L.A. ennui (or both), Kaye was unable to coax anything resembling spirited performances from the musicians. Nelson was partially right: some of the tracks are plodding, but others, like ‘Hear the Wind’ or ‘Past Addresses,’ simply required a more muscular approach; more oomph from the players – more backwoods soul. In some cases, a less morose, slightly quicker tempo, would have worked wonders. The bones of a great album are there, but some combination of crucial decisions – involving everything from musicians to song selection – had a deleterious effect on the results.

But it was Gene’s inability to get past the failure of No Other that also contributed his undoing. His obvious doubt in his own skills as a composer led him to record three covers, plus an ill-advised remake of one past glory (which presages the formula later employed on 1984’s Firebyrd: ‘Mr. Tambourine Man,’ ‘I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better’).

Another brief aside…

Imagine a confident Clark entering the studio with the Silverados (augmented by keyboard player and drummer) in late 1976, early 1977. Consider the attractiveness of this particular line-up, recording an album with this running order:

Side 1

Home Run King

Lonely Saturday

The Daylight Line

What is Meant Will Be

The Wheel of Time

Side 2

Sister Moon

Hear the Wind

Past Addresses

Silent Crusade

Glib summation: Once a home run king himself, the failure of Two Sides To Every Story sent Gene packing to the minors posthaste.

But it’s only with benefit of hindsight that we may propound these theories about what happened to Gene, or second-guess what he should have done. It’s likely he did not analyze matters as much as I have herein, and was simply trying to do the best he could to survive. He might even laugh at a term like “backwoods gothic” (then again, he might have appreciated someone taking his music this seriously). And who are we to judge? Two Sides, even with all its flaws, still has moments of brilliance. In places it is as moving as anything he ever wrote. We ought to be thankful it’s being re-released.

In a world where you’re either just reporting the accomplishments of others (like a newspaper boy) or you’re the heroic achiever himself (like Babe Ruth), Nelson got it wrong in the vicious kiss-off line in which he compared Gene to the former.

After the failure of his masterpiece, Gene’s punch-drunk ego was almost certainly near collapse. But what Nelson failed to grasp is that even if one is no longer a home run king, it is a designation that cannot be taken away. Even if the Babe strikes out at the bottom of the ninth, run one behind, two out, with a man on third, he can still claim to have achieved what others can only fantasize about. In the end, he’s still remembered as a home run king.

From here on in, there would be no more home runs, no signing bonuses or lucrative

commercial endorsements. But for those who followed his career as it slid into the minors, there was still a series of doubles and triples yet to be heard from Gene Clark.

Interview with Kai Clark, May 22, 2011

2011-06-04T23:02:00.015-04:00

Oftentimes musicians who happen to be the children of famous rock stars, try to avoid direct association with their parent's material (one doesn't see Jakob Dylan firing up 'Absolutely Sweet Marie' in concert). Presumably, this arises out of a (fully understandable) desire to be taken seriously in their own right. But attempting to disassociate and distance themselves from their parents' accomplishments asks for a willing suspension of disbelief, wherein the listener is expected to forget who that person's father is, regardless of similarities of look, mannerism or stage presence.

Not so with Kai Clark, one of Gene Clark's two sons. As evidenced in his band's April 29th, 2011 performance at L.A.'s Roxy to promote High Moon's re-release of his father's misunderstood 1977 album, Two Sides to Every Story, Kai openly embraces his father's music. On that night, Kai and his band, along with some special guests, performed the album from start to finish. Kai also dug into a selection of songs either written by, or closely associated with, his father. And with a giant photograph of Gene Clark in his '60's prime literally watching over him, Kai performed his father's music with palpable exuberance and pride.

And it didn't stop there. Adding to the bittersweet nature of the evening, Kai was joined onstage by the members of the Gene Clark Group [Joel Larson, Bill Rinehart, Chip Douglas], who had last played together some 44 years ago.
As you will see, for Kai the Roxy gig became more than an album release party. It became a celebration of his dad's life, music and legacy. It also served to inculcate within him a deeper appreciation and understanding of his dad's extraordinary gifts. Full circle indeed.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Q. I just wanted to talk a bit about the reissue of Two Sides to Every Story. How did that get kick started?

A. Well, a young man named of George Wallace, who started a label called High Moon Records -- they were doing the Love album, and I think they were looking for another one. So they released the Love Black Beauty album, as you probably know, as well as the Two Sides to Every Story album. So they’re releasing stuff from around similar eras.

Q. The recent show at the Roxy, how did that go? I’ve watched some of the clips on YouTube. It looked like a lot of fun.

A. It was actually a really good show. It was wonderful. We had a full house. I had some special guests. I had a guy named Tim Bluhm from the Mother Hips, a northern California band, come up and did some stuff. And then we also had the Gene Clark Group reunion, which was the original guys from the Gene Clark Group. That was really cool to have them come up. That was kind of a last-minute thing. So that was pretty interesting. The show went really, really good.

Q. Did you have a chance to sit around and chat with Chip, Joel and Bill that much?

A. Yes, I – well, Chip was around quite a bit. Joel and them were there off and on.

Q. I’ve spoken to all of them, because I was going to write a piece on the Gene Clark Group. Had you met them prior to this?

A. No, I hadn’t. And Bill was quite a unique character as well...

Q. [Laughs].

A. They’re some cool guys. It was fun for them. It was kind of last minute. They came over and we put it all together.

Q. How many songs did you perform?

A. We did four songs. We did ‘Tried So Hard,’ ‘Keep on Pushin,’’ ‘Elevator Operator,’ and one more. I’m trying to remember which one that was.

Q. ‘I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better’?

A. No, we did ‘Feel a Whole Lot Better’ with my group, which came out really good. The whole set was we did the album, front to back, Two Sides to Every Story, then we had the Gene Clark Group come up and do four songs. And then our finishing set we had ‘So You Say You Lost Your Baby,’ ‘Polly Come Home,’ ‘Eight Miles High,’ ‘Mr. Tambourine Man,’ ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’ ‘I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better,’ and a couple of other ones that we really liked. And that was just a blast. At the end we had everybody come up onstage for ‘Eight Miles High,’ our finale song. It was really fun.

Q. In terms of the Two Sides to Every Story album, what songs do you think were the hardest to pull off?

A. We worked pretty hard on all the stuff; it all came along pretty good. As far as the hardest to pull off, I would say it would have to be ‘Past Addresses’ -- or ‘Sister Moon’ has a real high vocal part in it [chuckles], so for me it was … It was all pretty good. I mean, they’re unique songs; they have a lot of parts to them. Those were probably the tougher of them.

We had Steve Ehret come up for ‘Sister Moon’ and ‘Give My Love to Marie.’ ‘Give My Love to Marie’ is a real slow ballad. I think he started singing it in a different key, so… [laughs] But you know, some of them were prepared more than others and that’s just normal when you’re having some people come up like that and join you onstage. We had a great time.

I was onstage for three hours, so I didn’t get to get out and mingle as much as I would have liked to, but that’s part of being up there in front and playing a show.

Q. Do you know the exact release date of the Two Sides reissue?

A. You know, there was a small holdup somewhere in Holland, so I think they just have one little piece of paper that’s floating around somewhere that they’re waiting to – it’s just somebody’s got to put a stamp on it and send it back.

I know they’re trying to do it sometime in June. It could go as late as July. They’re just – it’s had a little holdup with that, with some sort of release – because it’s a worldwide release, so I know there was a little bit of a holdup with something in Holland and I’m not quite sure what. But I think that’s getting taken care of, and then it should be out, I figure, by the end of July at the very latest.

Q. Have the bonus tracks been finalized yet?

A. You know, they haven’t. George is working on that and he’s got a lot of great ideas. He has some interview stuff that he might be interested in putting on there, so I’m really not sure of what he’s got as far as the bonus tracks ready to go.

Q. I gave George my wish list...

A. You know, he found some really cool stuff, so I’m sure it’ll be a good little collector’s thing for people out there when they get a hold of it.

Q. I’m going to apologize for this question ahead of time because I know it’s a stupid one, but it’s one of those questions you have to ask. Are you a fan of your dad’s work?

A. Yeah, you know, I wasn’t as much as I have as I got older. I think as a kid, I grew up in a whole different era, and I wasn’t even born until he had already done so much. So, for me, I become more of a fan every day, and especially after doing this album and having to go through every song and learn it just the way it was on the album, it really opened my eyes into how unique his music is. You know, as an adult and as a musician because I write a lot myself. So I had so much of my own material, I had never delved that far into my dad’s material. But now that I’m older, and I’ve gone through this album and stuff, I really have this great respect for my dad’s writing ability and his singing -- and the whole package together was quite unique. I think when people listen to more of his stuff, it’s hard not to be a fan. It grows on you, and you really become enveloped in his emotions in the song. It’s quite unique, I think.

As a kid it was kind of hard to understand it. I think most kids listen to catchy pop and this kind of thing, especially in this day and age. I mean, I’ve always been a fan, but I think now that I’m an adult and I’ve been through more with his music, I’m really a big fan of my dad’s stuff now.

Q. What other musicians do you respect and admire?

A. Boy, there’s a long list of them. You know, growing up, of course Jimi Hendrix -- being a pioneer. Definitely I love country music, so Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, on those sides. A great blues musician, Taj Mahal, Keb Mo, these kind of people as well, definitely have a place in my listening – Bonnie Raitt, all these great musicians that I grew up listening to as well. I mean, the list goes on and on. I really like bluegrass and stuff like that. I could go on and on.

Q. What are your goals musically, for your own career?

A. I have a son now and a wife, and we’re getting our own place up here in northern California, so my goals musically are just to be happy. I don’t need to make a million dollars, I don’t want to be on the cover of Rolling Stone. It would be nice but I don’t have these too high of expectations. I definitely would love to tour and play and make a living at playing music would be comfortable for me. Something where I could tour part of the year and make a living and be at home part of the year with my family and raising my son. I think that’s important. I missed a lot of that growing up with my father because he was always – always gone, you know?

But I love playing live. That’s one of my favourite things, travelling and doing shows.

Q. It just occurred to me that in two days it will be the 20^th anniversary of your dad’s passing ---

A. Yes – yeah.

Q. I can say without hesitation that that had a huge impact on my life. I can’t even begin to imagine how it would have affected you. How did you process something like that; how did you deal with that kind of grief?

A. Well, when he passed away I was 17, it was my graduating year of high school. My mom was going through rough times with drugs and addictions and stuff, so I had to be pretty independent at a young age. [My dad’s death] was a pretty big kicker, on top of everything else I was going through at the time.

So, dealing with the grief, it was tough. I think I was angry for a while when I was young. Now that I’m older you know, it really doesn’t affect me that much. I mean, I get emotional, especially with the release [of Two Sides to Every Story], and being on stage and playing my dad’s songs and stuff. It’s hard to say how it affects me. Sometimes it’s tough. He pops into my head all the time. I thought of him as dad, where millions of people thought of him as Gene Clark of the Byrds or whatnot.

Q. Has the anger passed?

A. Yeah, that was just when I was young, you know, I was kind of angry. It was just part of being young and not understanding it all. It’s hard to take when you’re a kid – and, you know, so much else was going on too. I got over the anger and then it just turned into love and admiration of my father, regardless of what things I went through. Because I can’t imagine what him and my mom must have gone through. you know, with the fame and the money and the people and who do you trust and where do you go. I think that was why they raised us away from all that up in Mendocino.

Q. Do you have a favourite song by your dad?

A. The one I really like, which we did at the show, it’s one of my all-time favourites, is ‘So You Say You Lost Your Baby.’ ‘Polly Come Home’ is a great song too.

Q. That must have made you very proud when Robert Plant and Alison Krauss covered those two songs [‘Polly’ and ‘Through the Morning, Through the Night’] on Raising Sand?

A. Yes, and I got to meet Robert and Alison in 2007 and that was a great experience. They were really great people.

Q. That would have exposed your dad’s music to a whole new generation of people.

A. Yes, it did. T-Bone Burnett, what a great guy -- and that’s someone I would really like to work with in the future. I may have the opportunity to work with him pretty soon. We got some stuff in the works. Just trying to finish up some recordings.

T-Bone did a great, great job of producing that album. He actually found those songs in a play on Broadway. An Irish fellow, I can’t remember his name, had those in his production and T-Bone saw them and said “These would be great” – because I think he was in the works of doing that album with Robert and Alison. So, pretty cool story how it came about, behind those two songs. And what a great job they did.

Q. Are there any plans for future archival releases?

A. You know, it’s hard to say. We always try and do things with respect. There’s a lot of stuff out there that’s not in respect to my father’s name. There’s a bit of stuff out there that is not of the quality we would like to portray of my dad. Of course there’s bootlegs and this and that. We actually just recently found some bootlegs being out there. You can’t catch them all. Me and my brother [Kelly], we incorporated father’s name, and we try and do very respectful stuff of dad’s. I would love to do an archival release at some point. There’s been a couple that have touched on it, but I think there’s so much more ---

Q. Oh yeah.

A. … and I think that it’s gaining more attention. I would like to see more current artists doing dad’s music and kind of touch the younger generation. There’s so much out there that’s a possibility. Dad had so much music. The older I get the more I discover and find, “Wow, this is great!”

Actually, because of this release there’s been a lot of stuff coming out. People are seeing this release and they’re bringing out the stuff they have, which is great because we’re finding some unique gems.
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SPECIAL THANKS TO KAI CLARK

Also from the Two Sides to Every Story release party at the Roxy:

Coming Soon...an interview with KAI CLARK

2011-05-26T21:39:00.001-04:00

This past weekend I had the great pleasure of chatting with Kai Clark, Gene's son. We discussed, among other things, the 20th anniversary of Gene's death (then 2 days away), the forthcoming reissue of Two Sides to Every Story, his recent performance of the album -- in its entirety -- at the Roxy, and his impromptu gig with The Gene Clark Group, Joel Larson, Bill Rinehart and Chip Douglas.

Thanks for the comments!

2011-03-03T14:52:00.000-05:00

Hello, I just wanted to say thanks to all the people who have left messages over the last couple of months. I truly appreciate each one.

'Taken By Surprise' (Unreleased, circa 1977)

2011-03-02T11:58:00.003-05:00

Taken By Surprise

[writer(s) unconfirmed; possibly co-written by G. Clark-T.J. Kaye]

Taken by surprise

Taken with her eyes

I saw my reflection in the clear blue skies

She takes me higher than anyone can

I felt my heart and my soul

In the palm of her hand.

Taken by surprise

Oh, mesmerized

Now I wonder is there where it lies

She takes me higher than any man can

I felt my heart and my soul

In the palm of my hand.

Taken by surprise

Taken with her eyes

I saw my reflection in the clear blue skies

She takes me higher than anyone can

I felt my heart and my soul

Were reborn again.

The post-No Other period is usually thought of as the Gene's extended fall from grace; a 16-year period of artistic decline that played out in an ignominious descent from major label status to -- well, the horrors of the Cinegrill in April 1991.

It has long been the mandate of this blog to refute that opinion...with extreme prejudice.

Of the myriad reasons one may be thankful for the recent announcement of the forthcoming reissue of Two Sides to Every Story, the possible emergence of bonus material is truly a cause for celebration. It's all benefit of hindsight, of course, but when one considers Gene ditched already penned aces like 'Wheel of Time' and 'What is Meant Will Be,' the decision to rely on so many covers is inexplicable. Indeed, as I'm sure I've said here before, I've always felt the failure of No Other threw Gene into an extended period of creative self-doubt. He would routinely pick covers of dubious quality -- (cf. 'Mary Lou' from Two Sides, 'Vanessa' from Firebyrd) to the detriment of superior material by his own hand ('Crazy Ladies', 'Last of the Blue Diamond Miners').

It's difficult to know where 'Taken By Surprise' fits into all of this. From Einarson's invaluable Mr. Tambourine Man, we know the song was performed by Gene and Tommy Kaye with the ragged-but-righteous KC Southern Band. But it is not listed among Gene's published works, which begs the question: who wrote it?

My guess is it's a co-write. Lyrically, there aren't any obvious Clarkisms---there is no complex imagery,

no metaphysical puzzlers to consider. That said, one must consider the post-No Other Clark had largely abandoned the cosmic questioning that characterized his masterwork, in favour of simpler, would-be radio-friendly tales of love and loss ('Release Me Girl,' 'Something About You Baby'). The tendency to view songwriting as workmanlike craft as opposed to poetic expression of soul would be the chief conflict in Gene's writing from this point forward. (But who could blame him for wanting to appeal to the masses and re-establish himself as a writer of hits?)

And what of the music? Well, put succinctly, 'Taken By Surprise' is a slow-burning gem. Obviously featuring the Three Byrds Land in London personnel, the backing feels like a sloppier version of Zuma-era Crazy Horse. Featuring massive duelling guitars (FACT: the KC Southern Band was the heaviest band to emerge from the Byrds family tree), the song begins with a riff which sounds uncannily like a slowed-down take on Ringo's 'It Don't Come Easy.' It's a five minutes-plus guitar fest, interpolating the crunchy sound that characterizes the KC Southern's Three Byrds Land set --- but cleaned up some, like a newly shaven saloon habitue in a fine new suit.

The big difference here is Gene's singing. On much of the live KCSB material, Gene adopts his regrettably generic "Southern Rock" voice (epitomized in his pronunciation of "Kansas City Suh-thren"
---ugh). Here, however, it's pure Gene Clark. As the backing gets heavier, rockier, Gene's voice does not. Thankfully, he does not trot out the gravelly affectation that makes the Land in London version of 'Kansas City Southern' so unlistenable. That is not to say he's laying back and going through the motions. It's a tremendously moving performance, one of controlled intensity in which sensitivity triumphs over bombast.

So is it a Gene Clark original? As stated, my guess is it's probably a co-write with Tommy Kaye.

Does it matter if it's a Gene Clark original? With a vocal performance as moving as Gene gave on this occasion, the answer is no.

It will be a great shame if 'Taken By Surprise' is not included as a bonus track on the upcoming reissue. But if it is, you'll excuse me if the first thing I do is check the writing credits.

CLARKOPHILE NOW ON TWITTER

2011-02-09T09:08:00.000-05:00

Clarkophile on Twitter

Gene Clark news and updates, upcoming blog entries & more.

'Past My Door' from Gene Clark Sings for You, played on radio/up on YouTube

2011-02-06T14:27:00.000-05:00

Gene Clark - 'Past My Door'

An abbreviated version, missing the last 1:15 secs, but still, this is most of the track, including all of the lyrics.
After 44 years...pretty friggin' amazing.

Original Clarkophile entry re 'Past My Door' can be found here.

Two Sides to Every Story being re-released!

2011-02-02T22:18:00.002-05:00

The announcement was made today on the Yahoo GC site. Tremendous news.