Late of Late

December came on like a cold dagger. It was so cold my internet was down early in the day. Everything's better now.

            Steppenwolf was not just a cool looking band, but a political band as well. As were many others at that time, the band was firmly anti-establishment, against the Viet Nam War and the various hypocrisies of modern politics, and was pro pot. The members of Steppenwolf were crack studio players who knew their ways around the blues and country music. Their songs were often very eccentric, at times even comic, due as much to musical arrangement as lyrical expression. Consider the example of the evolution of elements that sprang from The Pusher. The earliest version I’ve heard of Steppenwolf’s cover of Hoyt Axton’s iconic anti-drug anthem was a jammy, 21 minute version that came from the Early Steppenwolf LP (recorded when the band was still know as The Sparrow). Instead of the tight arrangement of the song that made it onto the vinyl of the Steppenwolf album, on Early Steppenwolf it begins with a tribal drum part supplemented by a wooden sounding flute. That goes on for awhile before evolving into The Pusher. The drum/flute piece was later recreated in the studio and released as Mango Juice (from At You Birthday Party), and parts of two songs, Round and Down (which begins with a heavily tremoloed guitar playing Wildwood Flower) and the huge hit Rock Me, were seemingly derived from those ideas. Even as late as the Monster album, those same techniques, such as displayed on the tricky song Draft Resister, continued to appear.

            Though kinda tired after the long wait, I was excited by the time we had taken our seats. The opening band was a group of local short hairs who won over much of the audience with a cover of Okie from Muskogee, wherein the word ball was emphasized to some comic effect. Damn me for saying it, but the band (I don’t remember its name) was just to regular and square for my taste. I thought the band played pretty well, and produced a rather seamless show, but I wanted edge, and the band had none.

            I saw several fellow Madisonvillions during the changeover between the bands. A pair of football (one basketball also) teams of mind and Crowbar’s came walking by. “How’s it goin, queers?” I said to them. A security officer in a police uniform stood between me and the guys so that I didn’t clearly see him. The guys stopped dead in their red faced tracks. As the guys passed by I heard the cop say, “He must know em,” to a female usher also standing there. I stayed quiet during the remaining intermission.