The land before ZIP codes

I inherited this matchbook cover. Note the the Zip Code is labelled Zip Code, as though you’d never seen one before. This probably dates from the early 1960s when ZIP Codes were new. Note that Florida is abbreviated Fla. Before ZIP Codes, state abbreviations had the freedom to be nearly anything. Alaska and Hawaii didn’t have abbreviations because they weren’t states when abbreviations were codified. Maine, Idaho, Iowa, and Utah weren’t abbreviated because it was thought those words don’t have a natural place to be abbreviated. There was a dispute about whether Ohio could be shortened to O. My mother thought it was wrong–how big a hurry could you be in to need to shorten Ohio? Self-appointed language lovers of all kinds hated to see the two capital letters next to each other. Me, I still think they are a blight. Note also that King Edward is giving away plastic cigar holders for the asking.

Here’s the list: Ala., Alaska, Ariz., Ark., Calif., Colo., Del., D.C., Fla., Ga., Hawaii, Idaho, Ill., Ind., Iowa, Kans., La., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., Mo., Nebr., Nev., N.H., N.J., N. Mex., N.Y., N.C., N.Dak., Ohio, Okla., Ore., Pa. (or Penna.), R.I., S.C., S.Dak., Tenn., Tex., Utah, Vt., Va., Wash., W.Va., Wis., and Wyo.

Here’s Freddie Cannon letting us know how to abbreviate Florida.

Martin Mull died

The last time I played through my records, I realized that Mull’s comedy had not aged well. I started a note for this blog about it when I heard he had died. Before I finished it I saw a review in the Washington Post that called him a subversive genius. The writer said Mull mocked Wonder Bread middle of the road America as much as anyone. The example was the lyrics to Ukulele Blues.

I woke up this afternoon HOOO/I saw both cars were gone

I woke up this afternoon, lord mommy/I saw both my cars were gone

I felt so low down deep inside/I threw my drink across the lawn.

I remember when James Brown was on Dick Cavett around 1970. As Brown sang one of his hits, Cavett got up and danced. When Brown was done, he asked Cavett what he had been doing. Cavett said I believe it was the Funky Chicken. Brown said no, if anything it was the Funky Honky.

That was funny, and it was clearly poking fun at white people appropriating black culture. Mull, on the other hand, got his laughs by mocking Delta bluesmen.

Kinky Friedman died

If you listened to this guy for 20 minutes without being offended, then you weren’t paying attention. As he said, what do you expect from a guy named Kinky? It was easy to do a parody of Merle Haggard’s redneck anthem Okie from Muskogee, and many people did. Friedman’s version though included sex with animals. The first song of his I heard was The Ballad of Charles Whitman, a mass murderer who shot from the tower at the University of Texas at Austin. Friedman’s obit in the New York Times included a line – ‘the chancellor cried, it’s adolescent/and of course it’s most unpleasant/but I gotta admit that it’s a lovely way to go’—that showed his word choice and rhythm and rhyme were like Tom Lehrer, a witty guy who never gave offense.

I believe he got trapped in the entertaining caricature who inhabited his songs. He wrote crime stories that were really just another way for him to reach people who shared his displeasure with smoking bans, speed limits, and rights for women. He received 13 percent of the votes in a six-candidate primary for governor of Texas. Good for him, but too bad it took him away from singer-songwritering.

Dear Abbie is a sweet song from a guy asking about love. It mentions backyard fireworks on July 4, so I’m including it now.

Workingman’s Dead, Grateful Dead, Warner Bros., 1970

I’ve always thought this was a great album; today I decided it’s better than that. I praised The Band’s Big Pink and brown albums for trying to bring folks together in divisive times. The Grateful Dead was doing it too with Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty.

Big changes for the Dead on this album. The band decided to be tuneful, of all things. In a memoir one of them said for years they’d leave the Fillmore after a psychedelic set laughing that no one went home whistling that. Then they decided to give melody a chance. Robert Hunter was writing lyrics that described things. The words jumped out at me: are you kind; when life looks like easy street, there is danger at your door; won’t you come with me; come with me or go alone; he’s come to take his children home; ain’t no time to hate; I can hear your voice; don’t think too hard; you know what I’m saying; one way or another, this darkness had got to give; who can deny, who can deny; I can’t help you with your troubles if you won’t help with mine.

They aren’t singing about fighting in the street or Anastasia’s screams. If their words were any more communitarian, they’d be singing Kumbaya. I like that they are positive. Workingman’s Dead: Come for Casey Jones, listen to it all for the tunes and the lyrics.

Live/Dead, Grateful Dead, Warner Bros., 1969

What a wonderful album. All the good parts and none of the excessive and self-indulgent stuff. Dark Star, Saint Stephen, and The Eleven are improvisational but take care of business, almost like jazz. Pigpen made Turn on Your Lovelight a personal statement—take your hands outta your pocket. Death Don’t Have No Mercy made me think of the Reverend Gary Davis. Outstanding all the way down even if you aren’t on acid.

I learned a word from Discogs. A double record set with side 4 on the flip of side 1 (and 2 with 3) is called auto-coupled. It’s for folks who use a record changer—put side 2 atop side 1 on the tall spindle, push the arm over, play them, and flip them over. If you have a turntable, there’s the bother of playing side 1, then putting that back in the sleeve, taking the second disk out for side 2, then repeat. When I was young, my family had a Santa rubber eraser sitting on the tone arm of the record player so it wouldn’t skip.

I still have the insert for this record. It is an 11×17 sheet folded over with Celtic-style art and the lyrics, such as they are.

History of the Grateful Dead, Volume 1 (Bear’s Choice), Grateful Dead, Warner Bros., 1973 (recorded 1970)

The Wikipedia article for this record says a lot, partly by what it leaves out. It was intended to be the first of a series; there weren’t any others. Owsley ‘Bear’ Stanley produced it as a tribute to Ron McKaren, aka Pigpen, who died as it was being produced. Garcia said the band had to agree to this in order to get Europe ’72 the way they wanted. ‘We had to give them four records to get two. It represents us in early 1970, when we’d never done a record,’ he said. Someone’s memoir said that McKaren played a solo acoustic set, which he rarely did, which inspired Garcia and Weir to play a set with just their acoustic guitars. What they left out: None of it was good. I only play this one when I am playing them all.

But if this record was necessary for Workingman’s Dead, American Beauty, and Europe ’72, then I give my heartfelt thanks to everyone involved.

Grateful Dead, The Grateful Dead, 1967, Warner Bros.

Vintage Dead was how the Grateful Dead sounded in 1966. Not good. This was their first studio record, and it was excellent. Much of this is catchy pop music. The organ riff in Cold Rain and Snow sounds a bit like the little tunes to play when warming up, but I can dance to it—it works. In Sittin’ on Top of the World I can’t tell if the singer has figured out that his baby has left and he’s going to suffer. Maybe it’s denial, maybe he’s too high to care, but it is a bouncy little song. The lyrics in Cream Puff War sound serious—you’re killing each other’s souls– but by the end the Just Kidding flag is flying—go somewhere else to fight your cream puff war. The Golden Road to Unlimited Devotion might  be spiritual, maybe, but it is about getting high and dancing barefoot. The New, New Minglewood Blues has a line I know I’ve heard before—my number one occupation is stealing women from their men—but I can’t find it in any rock song older than this.  

A big improvement from Vintage Dead was not to give Pigpen 20 minutes to run Midnight Hour into the ground. He did a good job in six minutes on Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl. The bluesmen such as Junior Wells and Muddy Waters who did the song played it straight. They didn’t want to sound sexy when addressing a school girl. Man, Pigpen went the full Humbert Humbert on this version. The way he sang I want to put a tiger in your sweet little tank still sounds creepy.

Vintage Dead, Grateful Dead, Sunflower Records, recorded 1966

There’s a bottle of Ripple wine on the cover, representing the era. It was sweet fortified wine with artificial flavors. A Wall Street Journal article at the time said that young drinkers liked to get stoned and watch the bubbles. Gallo stopped the carbonation at some point to avoid taxes. Wikipedia said it’s been off the market for 40 years. I know I drank a bottle on September 5, 1976, because I can remember the hangover.

This is a legally made recording, not a bootleg, yet not approved by the Dead either. It was an artifact of an agreement for a record of Bay area bands. That record never came out, but whoever had the rights put this out later. It is widely held (in Bill Kreutzmann’s memoirs and a biography of Mike Bloomfield, for example) that the Grateful Dead wasn’t very good in 1966. This record proves it. It’s standard bar-band material: I Know You Rider; It Hurts Me Too; It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue; Dancing in the Street; and a painful 18-minute version of In the Midnight Hour. I say there must have been 1,000 bar bands that could have done it better.

The Grateful Dead were quick learners—their next record (named The Grateful Dead) in 1967 is incomparably better.

Anthem of the Sun, Grateful Dead, Warner Brothers-Seven Artists, 1968

Alligator is a favorite of mine. The rest of this is a struggle for me. The words I noticed in a quick look through this record’s Wikipedia page—60-cycle hum and microphone feedback, erratic, experimental, mixed for hallucinations, psychedelic listening experience, songs were mirrors of infinity. That’s the sound of people trying to be nice. My notes: for a jam band with two guitar players, this has a LOT of kazoo in it.

The band didn’t like being in the studio, it is said, and they spent a lot of time getting comfortable. One Warner Brothers exec said it was the most unreasonable project the company did. Here are some cuts. See what you think.

Aoxomoxoa, Grateful Dead, Warner Bros., 1969

Bill Walton died, as famous now I suppose for being a fan of the Grateful Dead as being a great basketball player. I’ll play my Dead records for a while (man, I don’t know how much more of What’s Become of the Baby I could take).

I have sung Saint Stephen quietly in a church on the Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico and in Budapest (aargh! Wrong Saint Stephen. I need to reread the Lives of the Saints). Some stoner Zen: One man gathers what another man spills. The song includes a bucket going to the bottom of the well (without the bottom’s falling out). Dupree’s Diamond Blues is a silly song (though violent and not safe for work) about what a man will do for a woman. I like songs that have conversations with the judge. China Cat Sunflower is a classic; it’s on Live/Dead and Europe ‘72, which I also have. Cosmic Charlie isn’t about me, but it is adjacent. Everything’s movin’ here, but much too slow now—that could be me. Also—the very first word is How you do? The last: go home, your mama’s callin’ you.