Andrew Hultkrans's 33-1/3 book is only the second in the entire series, which is presently up to some 157 titles, so among other things it must be regarded as a pioneering effort. Hultkrans, a Brooklyn-based writer at large and one-time editor of
Bookforum, focuses more on the context of Arthur Lee and Love's classic album in tumultuous late-'60s Los Angeles, basically all library-style research—lots of quotes from books, virtually none from original interviews. It's one way to do it and not a bad way either. But too often this one reads like an industrious term paper, although at least we are spared the heavy footnoting of other 33-1/3 volumes. The Love album is a famously tough nut to crack. My experience with it is much like Hultkrans: drawn to it (late) by its reputation, underwhelmed, until finally finding a way in, when it becomes indelible. Hultkrans says the only other album he's had a similar experience with is Neutral Milk Hotel's
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. That insight comes early and the good news and bad news is that it's one of the most original in the whole thing. There is definitely some kind of psychic connection between those two albums. Anyway, most of the book is focused on California in the late '60s, mostly Los Angeles, and don't think we're going to get out of this without hearing about Charles Manson. It only makes sense, even beyond time and place, because it appears someone with a glancing involvement with Love was later associated with Manson. Joan Didion naturally gets some attention too, as the reigning Los Angeles essay poet of dread, but the person Hultkrans turns to most often is political activist Todd Gitlin. I think we may have the perspective now to see that the overly familiar and much ballyhooed underside of the hippie experience—Charles Manson and Altamont, with a side dish of the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago—has been grossly exaggerated as equal to the values of peace, love, civil rights, and respect for the environment. Yes, stuff like the Weathermen happened. And actually a book about
Forever Changes is not a bad place to bring it all up again and air it out. Even so, Arthur Lee was alive in 2003 and we miss hearing from him here, understanding that he was an exceedingly tough interview to get. It's hard to say whether that would have improved the book but it might have helped put the focus more where it belongs. It is more intensely trained on context, and in many ways unfortunately the band and the album too are relegated to the background. You can't blame Hultkrans because
Forever Changes is a notoriously difficult album to nail down properly anyway. But the result in this 33-1/3 entry is a bit like the joke about losing your keys in the alley but looking for them under the streetlight because the light is better there.
In case the library is closed due to pandemic.
At the time, I owned the first two Love albums and they were favorites of mine. Forever Changes was different from those two, and my teenaged self didn't really connect with it. I see it differently now, but the nostalgia I feel for those other albums still rules my Love Heart.
ReplyDelete"Seven and Seven Is" in on the mountain top of all-time greatest Nuggets/Pebbles songs, for sure. And there are a good handful other Love tunes that when I've run into them on their own I take notice, they sound like catchy '60s psych pop, but I've always struggled w/ their albums and never played any of them the way we used to play fave albums.
ReplyDeleteAt any rate, thanks for inspiring another Love listening deep dive. My hot take is Loaded is to the first three Velvets albums what Four Sail is to the first three Love albums. Inferior in almost every sense except that they are their most quintessentially classic rock albums. Anyway, Four Sail seems underrated. Maybe Love's best? Absolutely adore the sound of the debut, tho, too. Every album has at least one or two songs that sound like they ought to have been massive chart hits. Great stuff.
ReplyDeleteJeff, your review of Hultkrans' book inspired me to get out my own copy the first time in years, for another look. I'd read it when it was new, but couldn't remember my impression. Fortunately I found my book equipped with a set of notes I'd made upon first reading it in 2007, which concludes, "Ultimately a great appreciation of Arthur, once you get past the [Greil] Marcusisms." I'll stand by that after going through it again, for as you note, "It reads like an industrious term paper." I think Hultkrans tries too hard to justify Arthur Lee's visions in terms of Marcus's American Studies syllabus, which brings in too much white male authority -- for me that cranky old Puritan Cotton Mather has no business anywhere near the transcendent Lee. I like to believe that Arthur derives from the proudly African-American examples of Chuck Berry, Charles Mingus, Zora Neale Hurston (Hultkrans notes the latter), and countless others. One thing I do especially like about Hultkrans' book is his display of the lyrics of so many of Lee's songs -- spelled out on the page like that, it's even more revealing to see how much care Arthur applied to putting his words together.
ReplyDeleteAs a follow-up, then I re-read my copy of Barney Hoskyns' Arthur Lee (MOJO Heroes #4, 2001), and it's full of quotes from Lee, Bryan MacLean, Jac Holzman, and so many other players in the Love saga, from interviews done by Hoskyns himself and by a wide selection of other sources. This book gives a really comprehensive portrait of the real-life circumstances of the creation of Forever Changes, as well as the sometimes-rocky subsequent careers of Lee and the other principals. It's a great companion to Hultkrans' book, in fleshing out his more academic take on the Love legend. Thanks for renewing my Arthur Lee quest.
-- Richard Riegel