The Bea­t­les’ Revolver has gar­nered some of the high­est prais­es rock crit­ics can offer. But not every­one loved the record when it came out. In a 1966 issue of Disc and Music Echo mag­a­zine, the Kinks’ Ray Davies wrote a snarky, unspar­ing review of the album, tack­ling each song in a few sen­tences. In high con­trast to the cur­rent sen­ti­ments of Rolling Stone or All­mu­sic, Davies only seems to have liked a few tracks, and those the most tra­di­tion­al­ly upbeat: He called “I’m Only Sleep­ing,” “a most beau­ti­ful song” and “the best track on the album.” He also quite liked “Good Day Sun­shine,” writ­ing “this is back to the real old Bea­t­les. I just don’t like the elec­tron­ic stuff. The Bea­t­les were sup­posed to be like the boy next door only bet­ter.” And “Here There and Every­where” Davies calls the “third best track on the album.”

That’s most­ly the end of Davies’ felic­i­ty. His review sav­ages some of the most pop­u­lar songs on the record. Of “Eleanor Rig­by” he writes. “it sounds like they’re out to please music teach­ers in pri­ma­ry schools.” The best he can bring him­self to say of the track is that “it’s very com­mer­cial.” “Yel­low Sub­ma­rine,” Davies writes, “is a load of rub­bish, real­ly.” And his take on the trip­py “Tomor­row Nev­er Knows” cuts the song’s ambi­tions down to size: “Lis­ten to all those crazy sounds! It’ll be pop­u­lar in dis­cothe­ques. I can imag­ine they had George Mar­tin tied to a totem pole when they did this.” Maybe the cranky Davies was moti­vat­ed by pro­fes­sion­al jeal­ousy; maybe he’s one of the most hon­est review­ers of the record—his take uncol­ored by starstruck­ness. Who knows? He does admit that it’s “the first Bea­t­les LP I’ve real­ly lis­tened to in its entire­ty.” Read Davies’ full review here.

via Dan­ger­ous Minds

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Hear the Iso­lat­ed Vocal Tracks for The Bea­t­les’ Cli­mac­tic 16-Minute Med­ley on Abbey Road

The 10-Minute, Nev­er-Released, Exper­i­men­tal Demo of The Bea­t­les’ “Rev­o­lu­tion” (1968)

The Bea­t­les: Unplugged Col­lects Acoustic Demos of White Album Songs (1968)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Before the Grate­ful Dead record­ed their clas­sic epony­mous coun­try psych album, before they were the Grate­ful Dead, they were the War­locks, “play­ing the divorcees bars up and down the penin­su­la,” Jer­ry Gar­cia tells us above. Their book­ing agent “used to book strip­pers and dog acts and magi­cians and every­body else.” Their first few gigs “sound­ed like hell,” says Gar­cia, “very awful.” In this Blank-on-Blank-ani­mat­ed 1988 inter­view with for­mer Cap­i­tal-EMI record exec­u­tive Joe Smith, Gar­cia gets into the ori­gin of their name (a sto­ry involv­ing the East Coast War­locks, who might have sued. What he doesn’t men­tion is that the Vel­vet Underground—inventors of East Coast psych—also played at that time as the War­locks.)

Smith was with Warn­er Bros. when the Dead were signed in 1967. His rela­tion­ship with the band then was frus­trat­ed, and he went so far as to call the record­ing of their sec­ond album “the most unrea­son­able project with which we have ever involved our­selves.” But this con­ver­sa­tion is a fun­ny, cor­dial exchange between two very affa­ble peo­ple with sur­pris­ing­ly good mem­o­ries of the time (Smith also once said the Dead “could have put me in the hos­pi­tal for the rest of my life”). Jer­ry tells the sto­ry of their invi­ta­tion to Mer­ry Prankster and psy­che­del­ic genius Ken Kesey’s acid test par­ties in La Hon­da, Cal­i­for­nia. It’s more or less the his­to­ry of the West Coast acid rock scene and its apoth­e­o­sis at Haight-Ash­bury, so kind of essen­tial watch­ing, I’d say, but at less than six min­utes, you can afford to be the judge.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ken Kesey Talks About the Mean­ing of the Acid Tests in a Clas­sic Inter­view

UC San­ta Cruz Opens a Deadhead’s Delight: The Grate­ful Dead Archive is Now Online

The Grate­ful Dead Rock the Nation­al Anthem at Can­dle­stick Park: Open­ing Day, 1993

Library of Con­gress Releas­es Audio Archive of Inter­views with Rock ‘n’ Roll Icons

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Club own­er Hil­lel Kristal’s leg­endary CBGB died a slow death. A long, drawn-out affair that, when it came on Octo­ber 15, 2006, seemed inevitable. The old venue’s state then was per­fect­ly described by Ben Sis­ario in the New York Times as “the famous­ly crum­bling rock club that has been in con­tin­u­ous, loud oper­a­tion since Decem­ber 1973, serv­ing as the casu­al head­quar­ters and dank incu­ba­tor for some of New York’s most revered groups.”

But CBGB’s still had some life in it, as did all of the old New York haunts that fold­ed under Giu­liani and Bloomberg. CBGB out­last­ed so much of old New York that it seemed inde­struc­tible, and thus slight­ly annoy­ing until it was gone. Yet it need­ed to be seen into the next world in real style, and so it was, all thanks to Pat­ti Smith.

On the club’s clos­ing night, Smith and band con­vened to pay trib­ute to that “dank incu­ba­tor” by play­ing not only the bands it birthed but those who came before. At the top, see their live take on the Stones’ “Gimme Shel­ter.” It lacks the strange del­i­ca­cy of the orig­i­nal, but once Smith takes off her glass­es and Flea, who sat in for a few tunes, cuts loose, it’s a seri­ous rock­er. Smith’s ad-lib at the end is as cap­ti­vat­ing as her announcement—“Rolling Stones!”—is unnec­es­sary.

Smith’s band also played a Ramones med­ley (above) more than wor­thy of the for­mi­da­ble Queens four­some. Sure, any­one could play these songs—that was the point. But not many could so well cap­ture the Ramones’ tune­ful enthu­si­asm in the New York band’s ances­tral home.

Last­ly we bring you Smith and band’s “Pale Blue Eyes.” Although this footage pre­dates Reed’s pass­ing by sev­en years, it’s still a poignant trib­ute to the man who per­haps more than any oth­er musi­cian and writer inspired the ethos of the old CBGB. With­out Lou Reed, we would have no… bet­ter not to fin­ish that sen­tence. Enjoy the CBGB trib­ute above and see more of the final night’s cel­e­bra­tion here.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

CBGB’s: The Roots of Punk Lets You Watch Vin­tage Footage from the Hey­day of NYC’s Great Music Scene

The Ramones in Their Hey­day, Filmed “Live at CBGB,” 1977

The Talk­ing Heads Play CBGB, the New York Club that Shaped Their Sound (1975)

Pat­ti Smith Sings “You Light Up My Life” with Com­pos­er Joe Brooks on 1979 Show Kids Are Peo­ple Too

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Joni Mitchell turns 70 today. A child of rur­al west­ern Cana­da, Mitchell endured a series of ear­ly hard­ships that might have crushed a more timid soul — polio, teen preg­nan­cy, an unhap­py mar­riage — but she always man­aged to fol­low her muse.

Mitchell made a life­long habit of guard­ing her artis­tic free­dom and turn­ing adver­si­ty into advan­tage. When a child­hood piano teacher slapped her on the wrist with a ruler for the offense of play­ing by ear, Mitchell decid­ed she did­n’t want any more for­mal music edu­ca­tion. When she found it dif­fi­cult to form gui­tar chords with her polio-weak­ened left hand, she learned to explore alter­na­tive, open-chord tun­ings that have giv­en her music an extra dimen­sion of rich­ness and vari­a­tion.

As a folk singer in the 1960s, Mitchell man­aged to ful­fill both sides of the Bob Dylan/Joan Baez dichoto­my: In one per­son she was both the song­writer of genius and the woman with the gold­en voice. And like Dylan, Mitchell did­n’t remain a folk singer for long. “I looked like a folk singer,” she once said, “even though the moment I began to write, my music was not folk music. It was some­thing else that had ele­ments of roman­tic clas­si­cism to it.” She went on to explore jazz, col­lab­o­rat­ing with Charles Min­gus, Jaco Pas­to­rius, Wayne Short­er, Her­bie Han­cock and oth­ers. “Impos­si­ble to clas­si­fy,” says her biog­ra­phy at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, “Mitchell has dogged­ly pur­sued avenues of self-expres­sion, heed­less of com­mer­cial out­comes.”

As a musi­cian, Mitchell is most­ly retired now. She con­tin­ues to paint and write poet­ry. To cel­e­brate today’s mile­stone we bring you a pair of great per­for­mances from her younger years. In the clip above, from the Jan­u­ary 21, 1968 episode of the CBC’s The Way it Is, a 25-year-old Mitchell plays her clas­sic ear­ly songs “Both Sides Now” and “The Cir­cle Game.” Even after 45 years, the songs can send a shiv­er down your spine. And below, from the 1970 Isle of Wight Fes­ti­val, Mitchel­l’s evo­lu­tion as a writer and per­former are evi­dent in the lilt­ing, melod­i­cal­ly inven­tive “Big Yel­low Taxi.” In a pre­vi­ous post, we have also high­light­ed Mitchell play­ing a 30-minute set on British TV in 1970.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Music, Art, and Life of Joni Mitchell Pre­sent­ed in a Superb 2003 Doc­u­men­tary

Joni Mitchell: Singer, Song­writer, Artist, Smok­ing Grand­ma

James Tay­lor Per­forms Live in 1970, Thanks to a Lit­tle Help from His Friends, The Bea­t­les

Dick Cavett’s Epic Wood­stock Fes­ti­val Show (August, 1969)