We who must remain go on living just the same

I could spend all my time writing on this here blog about my heroes dying. Today's installment involves Glenn Frey and Buffin.

Loved The Eagles back in the day. They were my very first concert (well, other some random country and barbershop shows with my Dad) at the then Lock Haven State College in '74. My very first, and a good one at that. Spent many, many hours with their first three albums, especially "On the Border," before drifting away from them. Glen Frey co-authored "Take it Easy" with my man Jackson Browne, and for that, major praise.

Buffin (Dale Griffin to his parents) sat behind the kit for Mott the Hoople, a band I respect and love to this day and maybe the most underrated rock group of the 70s. I never saw them live, but hold several of their albums up as what post-Beatles and Dylan rock and roll should sound like.

Though written by Bernie Leadon about Gram Parsons, this song is a fitting epitaph for both Frey and Buffin, and perhaps for who are already gone and those yet to come.

And the best work ever done by The Eagles.

It's clean the chimneys kids, and it's 1974

Will wonders ever cease?

I actually like a popular song from not only this century, but from this year.

Perhaps because it has echoes of Ian Hunter and Mott the Hoople, but even though "Pumped up Kicks" sounds new, the chorus would not have been out of place on "The Hoople" album. If I hear it once a day, it's still running around in my head for hours.

And while I like it, I don't know if the song is good or just insanely catchy. There is a difference, and right now the song feels like a guilty pleasure. No matter I guess, for now.

I have no idea if Foster the People has it in them to produce anything else substantial, but more than likely we are in a Fastball situation here: "The Way" sounding promising and a bit like Dave Edmunds, and then we never hear from them again.
 
That's a music pessimist (some may prefer the word snob) for you.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

On June 3, one of the great rock and roll singer/songwriters will turn 71. He shares his birthday with my little boy Jack (more on that later).

And Ian Hunter is still out there doing it. His two most recent works, Man Overboard and Shrunken Heads, are prime examples of graceful and not-so-geriatric rock and roll.

Despite the strength of those albums, Hunter's peak period remains with Mott the Hoople, where he set a very high standard indeed. One of his many gems is the poignant and heartbreaking, "I Wish I Was Your Mother," here given a latter-day treatment with a sublime string section.

As someone who has often longed for familial community after my mother (and later my father) died, this hits me where I live each and every time I hear it.

And especially right now.