Jimi Hendrix
“Jimi Hendrix is a guitar player.” – Capn Marvel
“I mean, sure, he had a white rhythm section, but Jimi – well, he was a darn Chinese guy! That’s right, black!” – Mark Prindle
“He was dusty – he had cobwebs and dust all over him.” – Pete Townshend
Albums Reviewed:
So, Jimi Hendrix, right? Jimi Hendrix…hmmm…what to say about Jimi Hendrix…OH! He was a decent guitar player, eh? And by “decent,” ofcourse, I mean “most influential and unique in rock history.” Yes, that. I mean that. I’m not gonna deny that to the man. “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” BY ITSELF cements Jimi’s place as Guitar God to end all Guitar Gods, but lets dig a bit deeper, shall we? He also had top-notch skills at studio manipulation, and might be my favorite “headphone artist” of all time besides Pink Floyd (if you toss out the bullshit (and most likely not his fault) production on his first album, at least). He had a great voice, too! Much better than Geddy Lee’s! I mean, sure, yeah, Jimi’s a tad bit overrated, but so are hundreds of other artists (I mean, they can’t ALL be as good as Spin says!). He wasn’t a great songwriter, for instance. Good, yes, but not GREAT, and as time went on he got by more and more on his guitar chops and studio experimentation than his songwriting skills. That and he’s not, like, a GOD, like many people claim. So, therefore, he’s a little overrated. He couldn’t write a song as well as, say, John Lennon (but who could? I mean, besides Paul McCartney) and he’s not God. He’s still really great, though.
However, as much as I’d like to, I just can’t bring myself to give any of his albums a 10. The songwriting is strong enough for one on Are You Experienced?, but the production is pathetic. His next two records have much better production, but the songwriting isn’t at the same level. If he had just been able to match the two up for one record…MAN, that would’ve been AWESOME, but what are you gonna do? In the end, I find myself digging all three about equally. AYE? has incredible songs but awful production. Axis finds slightly weaker songwriting and a bout with sameyness, but also improved production and a cool, hard-to-pinpoint vibe that runs throughout. Electric Ladyland rejoices in extendo-tracks, jarring inconsistency, and really, really cool headphone tricks. They all have their strengths, they all have their weaknesses, and they all come out just about even in the end. To my ears, at least. I should also mention that Jimi has an absolutely sickening number of post-mortem releases, and, for the moment, I’m taking the easy way out and reviewing none of them. I just a little while ago picked up Live at the Fillmore East and hope to, slowly but surely, build a decent-sized Jimi discography. But to get all of that shit would cost me seventy bazillion dollars.
Oh, and hey! Jimi had a band! And quite a good band, too. And an interracial band…in 1967! I’m sure Strom Thurmond loved that one, eh? I wouldn’t be surprised if he filibustered for 72 hours or something to prevent it, and if Trent Lott then defended it after the fact on BET. WHY THE FUCK IS CONGRESS STILL FULL OF BACKWARDS, OLD RACISTS!!!!!??????? I bet Jesse Helms still owns a plantation and continues to hold out hope that that whole “slavery being abolished” thing is just temporary. But I’m getting off track. Jimi had a band, two white guys who backed him up and actually had bigger afros than the black guy (crazy, huh?). Everyone all over the WRC seems to rave about Noel Redding’s bass playing, but I really can’t see it. I’m just not a bass-o-phile. Sorry. And why would you listen to the basslines when JIMI FUCKING HENDRIX is playing guitar? Huh? I like Noel because he wrote a few really goofy pop tunes that Jimi so nicely placed on the band’s second and third albums, not because of his bass playing. Mitch Mitchell, though, I like because he was an absolutely FANTASTIC drummer, and the only reason he doesn’t get any credit is because he was in Jimi’s backup band. He’s like Keith Moon on Ritalin. Put him in Cream and you probably wouldn’t notice much of a difference, except that “Toad” might not exist, which is a good thing.
But who are we kidding? It’s Jimi’s show, right? Right! So, onto the reviews!
Are You Experienced? (1967)
Rating: 9
Best Song: “Are You Experienced?”
As I mentioned in the intro paragraph, the principle problem I have with this record, and something that I’m sure will stand in the way of some misguided fools digging it all that much (because the song quality is absolutely TOP FUCKING NOTCH), is the craptastic generically terrible sixties production values. There’s no power to anything. Mitch Mitchell sounds like he’s off in a corner 20 feet away hopelessly bashing away on a 5 dollar piece of George Steinbrenner drum kit, I can barely ever hear Noel Redding’s bass, and Jimi’s guitar, while obviously superb, sounds like it’s being played even farther off and in a different corner than Mitch’s drums. And the headphone from which each instrument comes in changes depending on the goddamn song, which is just a LITTLE annoying. There’s a few instances of the famous Jimi crazy stereo panning tricks, ofcourse, but they PALE in comparison to the neat-ass stuff that can be found on his other two records. And what’s weirdest is that a few of the tunes here actually HAVE GOOD PRODUCTION! “The Wind Cries Mary” and “May This Be Love” have the same beautifully mellow sound and vibe that makes the best tracks on Axis so frickin’ cool, and the orgasmic title track’s production is absolutely orgasmically incredible, with goofy guitar neck scratching sounds (or tape loops? I DON’T KNOW!) and marching drums and piano goop off in the background somewhere. “Have you ever been experienced? Well…I haaaaave!” And that feedbackin’ solo! Bitchin’, man. Fucking AWESOME, and it only makes the production on “I Don’t Live Today” sound that much more fucking amateurish and awful.
THANK GOD FOR THE SONGS, though. Even though I’ve never been able to get my picky head around the production values on this fine piece of rockin’ and rollin’, the quality of songwriting is by far the best of Jimi’s career. Let me just list off a few tracks for you: “Purple Haze,” “Manic Depression,” “Hey Joe,” “The Wind Cries Mary,” “Fire,” “Foxey Lady” and “Are You Experienced?” are ALL ON THE SAME ALBUM. ONE ALBUM. WITH ALL THESE SONGS. I’ve got no clue if this was originally the case (since I have the Super Smash Bros.-tacular 17 track version, with all the US and UK version tracks and singles and other assorted marijuana-related paraphernalia gathered together in one shiny, hour-long place), but, I mean, THAT is an album.
But, the
thing is, that’s not even half of the songs here! Just great songs popping out LEFT and RIGHT,
with GREAT guitar playing and GREAT drumming and ADEQUATE bass-playing (or
maybe really good, I’ve got no idea. If
the player in question is not Chris Squire or John Entwhistle,
where their quality is the focal point of the band, I’ve really got no goddamn
idea how good a bassist is) and REALLY TERRIBLE production. Nearly ALL of Jimi’s
best short, standard rockers can be found here.
You’ve got the ones that everyone knows like “Purple Haze” (the first
track on MY version, and isn’t that riff quite possibly the album-opening moment
to end all album-opening moments? If in
fact it opens the version of the album you might have? And if it doesn’t, wouldn’t
it be cool if it did? And if you
don’t have this album, why don’t you?) and “Foxey
Lady” and “Hey Joe” (which I guess you could technically call a ballad
because it’s sorta slow…but, I mean, it’s absolutely
fucking FEROCIOUS, man! “YEAH! YEAH I
DID! I SHOT HER!!!!!!!”), but
what about the ones you might not know?
Like “Stone Free (WITH A COWBELL!)?”
Or “Highway
Jimi the rocker and Jimi the masterful riffmeister is the main picture you get from this album, but we do have little excursions into other territory. I’ve already mentioned how some tunes (man, “The Wind Cries Mary” is a great fucking song) remind me of the best parts of Axis. In addition, we’ve got a meandering 6-minute noisefest called “Third Stone From The Sun” that RULES and a short little blues thing called “Red House” that RULES. We also have random little forgettable nothings like “Remember” and “Can You See Me” and “51st Anniversary,” but moments of Jimi’s godlike guitar godliness usually save these things from being TOTAL throwaways, so it ain’t no thing, my nizzle. Or something. I’m very white.
The song quality on this record is so high and the historical influence is so immense that I feel kinda bad not giving this a 10, but, I mean, it’s honestly not that close. A few songs have set up their futons and hot plates in Complete and Total Mediocrity Hall, and the production is quite possibly the worst example of rampant sixties studio cluelessness I’ve ever heard. And PRODUCTION MATTERS, people. Why do you think I like Pink Floyd so much?
Because of Nick Mason’s expert drumming, ofcourse!
Axis: Bold As Love (1967)
Rating: 9
Best Song: “Little Wing”
This little album often gets forgotten about, and that’s not hard to understand, sitting so unassumingly between the jawdropping collection of individual songs that is Are You Experienced? and the big, fat, frothy Oxford Classical Dictionary of Jimi Hendrix double album that is Electric Ladyland, but isn’t it the quiet ones that are often the most rewarding? You could go for the easy glitz of the first album, or the bombastic variety and all-over-the-place-ness of the third, but then there’s shy, quiet Axis: Bold as Love sitting in the corner, quietly reading and sipping on a bottle of Evian. Why don’t you go talk to her? Sure, she’s boring on the surface, but maybe, underneath, she’s got just as much to offer as her two friends that just started dancing on top of the bar and doing body shots off your douchebag friends (assholes, can’t you leave some for me?).
That’s really the approach you have to take to this one. I though it was a boring little lull between two big ol’ ostentatious mother-fuckers of an album for the longest time. But it hit me eventually. This record just has a vibe. After the funny as hell opener noise thing “EXP” (which starts with the exact same intro as “Stone Free!” Watch for it!”), and excluding the heavy and riff-happy “If 6 Was 9” (at least before it turns into a noisefest like “Third Stone From The Sun” that RULES at the end), all the songs on this album more or less sounds the same and run for the same 2-4 minute length. It doesn’t seem like much at first, but it’s cool, you see. It’s like a 40-minute version of “The Wind Cries Mary.” And that’s a cool song, right?
And, ofcourse, the production finally does NOT suck Sarah Michelle Gellar’s perky, startingly attractive nipples. It’s good! There’s nowhere near the number of tricks that Jimi tosses all over Electric Ladyland, but it actually feels like a real album this time, instead of a bunch of crappily produced, really, really, really good songs smooshed together. To give you an idea of the vibe I’m talking about here, the standout tracks are “Little Wing” (FUCKING YES, FUCKING YESSSS) and “Castles Made of Sand,” pretty and delicate, yet stunning ballad-y tunes that show off Jimi’s ability to play with subtlety when needed.
That’s really the underlying thing about Jimi that I get from this album. On AYE? Jimi proved he could rock out with riffs and feedback and solos and poop better than just about anybody on the PLANET. On this one, he proves that he could turn DOWN his amps and still play just as impressively. And he’s starting to experiment in the studio! Listen to that backwards guitar soloing in “Castles Made of Sand” and TELL me that’s not one of the coolest goddamn things you’ve ever heard. And like the entire title track at the end, especially the closing coda part, with those swwwoooooooooooshing keyboard (?) things and MANIC soloing from my man Mr. Hendrix. The best moment on the album, I think! And the beginning of “Rainy Day Wish,” with the cymbal flourishes and all…well, HOW COOL IS THAT? HUH? I’M ASKING YOU!!!! HOW COOL IS THAT????
However,
while the record is indeed more unified and has MUCH better production that its
predecessor, the songwriting has slipped a bit. Jimi is excelling
at writing softer “Little Wing”-esque things right
about now, but his hold on the random short “Purple Haze”-esque
Jimi rocker is starting to turn south. It seems like almost half of the songs
here are almost indistinguishable from each other. Like, what’s the real difference between “Spanish
Castle Magic,” “Ain’t No Telling,” “You Got Me Floatin’,” etc., except that some
of them have gooftastic (FUNNY!) backing
vocals and some don’t? And Noel “I’m the bassist!
Yay
for me!”
But, as I’ve mentioned countless times, the sameyness of the record and somewhat lackluster qualities of a number of songs are saved by the overwhelmingly cooooool vibe that this puppy has. It’s all relaxed and laid back and melloooowwww. Even the random rockers’ not being all that hot helps, because all the more delicate and GREAT songs just shine through even more. There’s depth here, man. Just pay attention. The guitar playing is as impressive and intricate as ever, just more muted. AYE? established Jimi as a groundbreaking guitarist and musician. Electric Ladyland would establish him as one of the great studio experimenters and fucker-uppers in the annals of rock this side of Roger Waters. This record establishes him as one cool fucking dude, man.
Electric Ladyland (1968)
Rating: 9
Best Song: “1983…(A Merman I Should Turn To Be)”
On this one, the short, normal-length songs from Jimi become even MORE hit-or-miss than Axis (and more miss than hit, I count three short songs (that aren’t part of that orgasmatronic side 3 suite thing) that Jimi actually wrote and I enjoy), but Jimi again makes up for it, crafting an album that, despite its alarming lack of quality average-length songs composed by our man Mr. Hendrix himself, nevertheless rules IMMENSELY. A whole bunch of times this record just falls flat on its face, but the HIGHS, man! The HIGHS!!! They’ve NEVER been this high before. Have you heard “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)?” Not a bad song there, eh?
Man, do I dig this thing. Just like Axis, the production here
most definitely helps the record’s cause, as Jimi
gets full-on control of the switchboard and shows that he is a MASTER of crazy
stereo panning headphone tricks (AND I LOVE CRAZY STEREO PANNING HEADPHONE
TRICKS!!!). Also, since this is a double
album and he’s no longer under the kind of time restrictions that led to
“Little Wing” getting cut off after like two goddamn minutes when it CLEARLY
deserved to go one for another couple (I never mentioned that in the last
review, god DAMN is that song too short), Jimi takes
a stab at a few looooooooooooooong tracks, and both
of them turn out splurgetastically. The 14-minute live-in-the-studio wanky blues jam “Voodoo Chile” may not be everyone’s handle
of really, really cheap vodka, but it most definitely IS mine. Jimi on guitar and a hyperactive Steve Winwood
on kick-ass vintage sixties groovy organ, just kicking out JAM after JAM
after JAM after tasty, finger-lickin’
The long tracks are what makes this album great, but the many of the short tracks, unfortunately, are what makes this album Jimi’s third consecutive 9. I’ve never been the biggest fan of the title track, placed after the obligatory album-opening noise collage “…And The Gods Made Love” (which I LOVE, by the way! And I LOVE “EXP” too! HA!), even though everyone else seems to get off to it repeatedly and violently in a strangely psycho-sexual manner. It’s boring (but not as boring as most of that goddamn Wilco album that everyone’s giving me shit for “underrating.” If you ask me, I OVERRATED it. I don’t think I’ll ever listen to that record again, and I gave it a 7. That’s objectivity for you!). Moving along, side 2 is the worst album side Jimi ever produced in studio, and the only tracks I enjoy are the Noel Redding-penned goof-fest “Little Miss Strange” and the neat keyboard-filled side-ender “Burning of the Midnight Lamp.” I honestly wouldn’t give a flying fuck if “Long Hot Summer Night,” “Gypsy Eyes,” and the blues cover “Come On (Pt. 1)” ceased to exist, and I can say the same thing about “House Burning Down.” These are just half-assed songs, and this album doesn’t have the same laid-back, cohesive vibe that Axis did, so their half-assed-ness sticks out more here, although, try as they might, they still just cannot overshadow the unabashed BRILLIANCE of the other three-quarters of this record.
Ofcourse, although many of the shorter tracks here just aren’t much to look at, a few are GREAT, and one of them is the best fucking normal-length song Jimi ever wrote. “Crosstown Traffic” is a neat, fun, catchy, upbeat rocker that could fit right in on AYE? were it not for the fact that the production doesn’t blow massive dick. You remember my point about the stereo panning? Well, listen to this song, and you’ll see EXACTLY what I’m talking about. In addition to this, we’ve got the record’s most famous tune, that super-duper-pooper Bob Dylan cover, “All Along the Watchtower,” and THE BEST FUCKING NORMAL-LENGTH SONG JIMI EVER WROTE, “Voodoo Child (Slight Return),” an absolutely perfect album closer if there ever was one. Start off with the best riff Jimi ever came up with. Add the best soloing Jimi ever did and a healthy does of MASSIVE, ASS-KICKING ROCK AND ROLL POWER, and you have the recipe for one of my favorite rock songs of all time. But, even then, the Under The Sea (SING it, you crazy Jamaican lobster motherfucker!) Suite is still cooler. It’s really, really, really, really, really cool.
Really cool.
I like all three of Jimi’s albums pretty much equally (hence the identical ratings), but, if placed at gunpoint (hey, never know…), I’d very hesitantly rate this record as Jimi’s best, followed by AYE? at #2 and Axis at #3. This album is just so goshdarn cool, it’s by far the one I get the urge to listen to most out of the three, even if it’s the longest. I could seriously listen to the whole Under The Sea (Fuck, man, Ariel is HOT) Suite for hours on end. It’s just that awesome. Jimi rules. He’s better than U2.
Live At The Fillmore
East (1999)
Rating: 7
Best Song: “Izabella”
Let me tell you: if this thing were about a third as long as it is, I might give it a low 8. Yeah! Or maybe not, since Band of Gypsys IS this exact same thing, only a third as long, and the other web reviewing guys who are better than me all say it’s really boring. Anyway, the point is that two hours is a long fucking time to sit and listen to a guy solo up and down a bunch of blues scales, even if that guy is Jimi Hendrix. If there were more than three musicians on hand here (like Steve Winwood on organ or Tiny Tim on some sort of zither contraption, perhaps), then maybe it’d be an orgasmic experience akin to “Voodoo Chile” from Electric Ladyland, but alas no. Besides Jimi, we have a rhythm section of two of Jimi’s old buddies, Billy Cox on bass and Buddy Miles on drums, and no one else. And the thing is that Cox and Miles really aren’t bad at all. Neither makes you sit up and take notice at their incredible playing abilities, but they’re both very nice, solid players, especially Miles and his simple yet funky and effective drumming. But neither of these guys are fit to carry anything, and since Jimi is a pretty mediocre singer and you have maybe 4 or 5 real pop-ish songs sprinkled throughout these two discs, you’re basically left with two hours of Jimi Hendrix soloing over good yet unspectacular rhythm section work. Occasionally he rips (like the middle solo section of “Stone Free,” which just totally blasts my head off), but more often than not he’s just good and nice to listen to. And this goes on for two hours. See my point?
OK, so it’s not quite that simple, but the realities of Jimi the fat, nasty riffmeister and Jimi the psychedelic experimenter are tough to find here, leaving us with Jimi the talented blues soloist most of the time. The band breaks out “Voodoo Child (Slight Return),” which is nice to see, and its intro still kicks ass, but the rest of the song (read: soloing) doesn’t sound all that different from most everything here. The only times Jimi cranks up the distortion and employs a guitar tone worthy of his reputation are the aforementioned “Stone Free” and the cover of “Wild Thing” stuck all the way at the end of disc 2 (however, both of those instances are face-meltingly good). Disc 1 contains some very nice moments, from “Stone Free” and “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” to some rockin’ pop tune called “Izabella” that kicks my butt from here to next Tuesday with its speedy rump-shaking tempo and tight-ass structure and guitar work. The riffing in “Power of Soul” also strikes me as pretty good, and somehow I don’t hate the version of “Machine Gun” found on this disc (although I can’t say the same for the one found on disc 2…yes, there are two, they total 25 minutes, and they’re both VERY SLOOOWWWW). Also, let me say that I have listened to this thing in all orders imaginable, so my assertion that disc 1 kicks disc 2’s ass is not because I’m coming to disc 2 having already listened to an hour of blues wanking and with no intention of hearing more. It’s just not as good.
See, except for a weird, short cover of “Auld Lang Syne” (did they perform this on New Year’s Eve, or is this a joke? I’m confused!) and a nice little pop tune called “Changes” (and no, not the one by Black Sabbath or Yes or David Bowie…) sung by one of the other two guys (Buddy Miles I believe), disc 2 can best be described as one hour-long guitar solo. Thankfully it’s nice and tolerable because it’s JIMI FUCKING HENDRIX, but the structure and energy that were at least semi-common on the disc 1 material go into hiding during tracks like “Stop” and “Earth-Blues” and “Who Knows?” where I have no idea whatsoever what they sound like, as well as the aforementioned version #2 of “Machine Gun,” which probably shouldn’t even have a version #1. It comes out at the end for “Wild Thing,” which ROCKS, but by that point I’m too tired of too much rote blues jamming to care all that much.
For me, if a power trio is gonna solo for an hour, even if they do a good job of keeping some structure and making sure their jams are always going somewhere (which these three do a good job of, I’ll admit), someone besides the guitarist has to do something interesting. Whether that means a crazy jazz-inflected drummer or a massively distorted fuzz bass (something I am a TOTAL sucker for, by the way), I don’t know, but adequacy backing up a two-hour guitar solo will only get a REALLY high rating from me if the guitarist is in full-on ass-kicking mode for the whole time, instead of just chunks here and there (i.e. the case here). The fact that Jimi Hendrix is the one playing here is the biggest (and possibly only) reason the rating up there is a 7, because when he’s fucking around he still sounds good with his wah-wah and his “experimentation,” and when he decides to kick ass he can fucking BRING IT like few others. When he really gets going here (witness, for instance, his work at the end of “Hear My Train A-Comin’”…just jawdropping) it’s all the rhythm section can do to just keep up with him, and even that they barely do. Some super high points here (specifically most of the first half of disc 1), but too much unexciting blues wanking to sift through to make listening to all two hours all that worthwhile.