The Band, A Band's Band

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down- The Band MP3

1/12/12

beeradvocate.com rating- http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/5316/50097

Full Sail LTD. 03 Pilsner- Brouweji Lane- Greenpoint Brooklyn, NY- 32oz. Growler into Pub Glass- 5..5% ABV (damn!)

Head- Nice head, creamy but dissipated prettty quickly

Color- Pale gold, straw

Mouthfeel- Light but with presence

Aroma- Lemony, light hops maybe some grass

Taste/ Overall- This is a a really clean crisp beer with a bit more complexity than an average pilsner. Its got some life to it but is very drinkable. I will easily put this growler away. More appropriate for a spring or summer day in my opinion.

On the turntable is Rock Of Ages- The Band- Recorded at the old Academy on 14th Street in Manhattan over the "eclipse of new years 1971-72". This record stands as the 2nd most important live record produced by The Band. I never got to see The Band preform but I did get to see the Levon Helm Band play in Central Park in the summer of 2010. I chose this LP to listen to tonight for two reasons. First I haven’t listened to it in at least 4 years. I am reacquainting myself with a lot of records that had been boxed up and I am now working my way through like they are new records to me. Second I am reading The Band’s biography Across The Great Divide by Barney Hoskyns. It’s a good read so far and I am about 2/3 of the way through. The Band's music is is unlike any other bands music. They were innovators who incorporated traditional strains of American folk music into modern compositions and simplified the recording by circumventing the traditional studio environment and creating their own recording environment which now is common place. There story and impact on popular culture and music resonates to this day.

The Band ushered in a new era of music which at least temporarily grounded egos and made artists like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton reassess their own careers and musical directions. Clapton needed to be talked down from a ledge (figurtively, not literally)after hearing Music From Big Pink and the original Basement Tape bootlegs. He was disillusioned with the direction of his own band, Cream, at that time. I just finished up reading about the recording of this LP and it gave me some well needed perspective on the origin of this record. I bought this double LP at one of the first WFMU record fairs I went to. My only previous experience with The Band before buying this LP was through the film The Last Waltz. It’s funny that my first exposure to The Band was through their final “OFFICIAL” performance. It also happened to be the first time I saw Neil Young, Muddy Waters, Van Morrison and Joni Mitchell perform. They all turned out to be all artists whose catalogs I would later become extremely familiar with but at the time of watching the film had only been aware of their hits.

It’s a mystery to me why I chose this LP to buy first. This was before I had my own computer to do research so I didn’t really know exactly where to start with the Band’s catalog and did not really know anyone who could lead me in a particular direction. I was aware of Music From Big Pink and still wonder why I didn’t start there because it probably would have made more sense. I am actually embarrassed to admit that I don’t own Music From Big Pink something I plan on remedying in the near future. The truth of the matter is I stumbled on to this record and bought it blind (in the sense that this was my first exposure to the band other than the hits I knew from the radio and from the movie The Last Waltz). The cover art for this LP is terrible and I can't pinpoint what would attract me to it but luckily the music was as magnetic as it was timeless. In the book Across the Great Divide Hoskyns points out this LP was released at the same time as some other popular double live LP's but to my knowledge this album in particular is rarely mentioned in discussions of great live albums of the 70's. I wonder why?

Both The Last Waltz and this LP are augmented by a horn section. The horn section for me is most effective for me during the song The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. The performance of this song during The Last Waltz really defined why people regard this movie as one of the best music films of all time. I hate to use this superlative but it is a truly “electrifying” , especially Levon Helm’s vocal underpinned by the brass section, which left me speechless. I had never heard this song before and it was great to re-experience it on the Rock of Ages LP. The funny thing is when I finally heard the original version from The Band’s self titled LP I was actually taken back a bit because it didn’t have quite the dramatic affect as the live versions.