Reviews
 Keep It Simple
Van Morrison
Roger McGuinn @ the Huntington IMAC, Long Island, NY - April 4, 2008
Emily Saxe @ the Allen Room/Jazz at Lincoln Center - April 5, 2008
Another Country
Tift Merritt
Be Your Own Pet
Get Awkward
Paul McCartney – The McCartney Years (DVD)
Juno – Music from the Motion Picture
Various Artists
Yes - Their Definitive Story
Day and Night Driving
Seven Mary Three
InterMedia Arts Center 2/2/08
Huntington, NY
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Eagles
Trying to write something nice about this record is about as easy as rejoicing over a trip to the dentist. My personal opinions regarding "Hotel California" harbor somewhere on the border of severe schizophrenia. The fact is that I loathe "Hotel California" as much as I appreciate its artistry. I can't go on enough about how much I love to hate this song. I actually derive pleasure from the anger that it arouses in me. Whenever it comes on the radio, I usually crank up the volume like some deranged madman and bathe myself in the egotistical misanthropy that it educes. Any song that can arouse so much bile really ought to be on the list of worst songs, but there is something here that draws me in, kind of like a moth on a suicide mission. Before it kills me, it makes me feel alive and grateful to be free of the jaded view of humanity that is represented by the song's lyrics.
I say this from the standpoint of a longtime Eagles fan. I've liked them ever since their first album, and that is probably a good part of the reason that "Hotel California" manages to impress and bug me simultaneously. Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Randy Meisner and Bernie Leadon were originally brought together for a series of appearances at Disneyland to back up Linda Ronstadt. Frey came to Los Angeles via Detroit, Henley came by way of a small town in Texas, Meisner hailed from Nebraska and Leadon came from Minnesota. After the shows, Ronstadt went on her way, but the band decided to stick together. All four were diverse musicians who moved within the ever-tightening circle of West Coast country rock. J.D. Souther, Jackson Browne, Poco, the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, and, of course, Ronstadt were all acquaintances who provided the various Eagles with an opportunity to work until they began to attract attention as a unit.
When the Eagles first appeared on the scene, I was charmed by their straightforward brand of country rock and their laid-back, self-effacing style. They were a tonic from the bombast that defined most early-to-mid ‘70s rock and roll. "Peaceful Easy Feeling" and "Take It Easy" summed up their mellow attitude, and although I knew they weren't making capital 'A' art, they nonetheless were a fun band to listen to. With their second album, I started thinking that I might have underestimated their artistic ambitions. Desperado was a brilliant album from start to finish, and it bypassed whatever plebeian expectations were set up by their debut. Producer Glyn Johns helped the band assemble the low-keyed work of genius, and yet Desperado sold only modestly and yielded no hits. On The Border righted that situation quickly enough, with "Already Gone" (#32) and then their first #1 hit, "Best Of My Love", but it unfortunately abandoned the artistic ambitions of their previous album. On The Border also introduced a fifth member into the fold. Guitarist Don Felder had chops to spare, and he toughened the Eagles sound, bringing them closer to rock and roll and further away from country rock.
Although they might have tried to shrug it off, success was already going to the bandmembers’ heads. Their fourth album, One Of These Nights, made it plain enough. Just a glance at the airbrushed photo on the back sleeve was enough to let you know that self-importance had taken the place of self-effacement. Musically, they were now venturing into places where a typical country-rock band would never think of treading. The title song (#1 for a week) veered dangerously close to disco, insipid lyrics and all, while Leadon's leaden instrumental about the effects of peyote ("Journey Of The Sorcerer") was an embarrassingly pompous amalgam that combined orchestration, psychedelia and country styles without any sense of direction. "Lyin' Eyes" (#2 for a couple of weeks) was the most typical sounding single, and it showed that the band had a flair for sympathetic characterizations, while Meisner's "Take It To The Limit" (#4) signified that the band's change in direction might contain more than hot air. One thing that was made plain by all this was that Leadon’s folky instrumental pursuits were completely at odds with the overall vision of the band. Needless to say, Leadon was history sometime after the album was released, cutting off whatever tenuous ties to country music had remained.
For their next effort, entitled Hotel California, Joe Walsh was brought in as Leadon's replacement. His years as a solo performer and with the James Gang had made him a star in his own right, so he was an inspired choice whose presence ought to have lightened things up a bit. Instead, it sounds as though he got smothered. Other than co-authoring the band's ultra-slick ode to the oh-so-cool-it's-dangerous lifestyle of rock and roll, titled "Life In The Fast Lane", Walsh was responsible for only one composition and it was the most plodding Eagles song yet, called "Pretty Maids All In A Row". "New Kid In Town" was the bland first single (#1), followed by the outrageous ego-fest of a title tune, "Hotel California".
In five albums, a simple and unassuming country-rock band in plaid shirts and blue jeans became transformed, through the power of Hollywood and the magic of airbrushing, into the most egotistical and corporate band in America. Depending on your perspective, "Hotel California" was either their most honest or their most despicable composition. Depending on what day you ask me, I'm perfectly capable of either opinion. To really appreciate this song, I think that you need to have a finely tuned sense of irony. When I interpret the lyrics literally, I become incensed at this band's overwhelming indifference to their gluttony and decadence, and their blithe acceptance of their hedonistic lifestyle. If I temper my resentment and recognize the irony in the words, then I am able to appreciate this song on a completely different (and probably accidental) level. The ironic truth is that most Eagles fans didn't have a clue to help them understand the disgustingly egotistical pathos of this song. Because the average stadium rock enthusiast was still capable of being enough of a nitwit to blindly thrust his fist in the air at the sound of the opening chords, it ultimately proved that the Eagles class structure philosophies were as appropriate and damning as Richard Wagner must have been in pre-Nazi Germany.
At least the Eagles were visible enough to stir a reaction. By 1977, other bands – such as Journey, REO Speedwagon, Foreigner, Styx, Nazareth and eventually Loverboy, Survivor, Toto, and Boston - existed solely as product. Any reaction besides clapping and reaching for your wallet would have been detrimental to this brand of corporate sludge, which reduced rock and roll to nothing more than formulaic mass-manipulation. "Hotel California" might have made me feel miserable, but at least it tried to say something. Most songs that inspired me to elaborate on them in this book did so because I thought they were great songs that boded well for the future of pop music. "Hotel California" is here because it made me realize that my expectations were overly optimistic. Rock and roll had surely reached its nadir.
The Eagles became the very thing that their song lyrics catalogued and mocked, and they did it with a smug self-assurance that was astoundingly inappropriate for any self-respecting rock and roll band. If it was rock and roll that you were interested in, then it was time to look elsewhere. California dreaming was definitely over and it was now time to check out.
 
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