Yeah, people love to hit my hot buttons, probably because I am so easy to suck into a debate. This generally happens over politics, but sometimes it happens over other topics. Like, oh say, the Red Sox and music.

Now, I’m not going to reveal the source of my irritation. He knows who he is and, admittedly, he loves to get me going. I didn’t have the opportunity to pursue the drive-by discussion he started with me yesterday because he had me at a disadvantage. I was working. So, I’ll make my case now and, if he so chooses, he can reply by commenting on this post.

The Beatles vs. The Rolling Stones

Before I rip into the Stones, let me say that I think they’re a great rock and roll band…but that’s where it ends. They are defined by one type of music only. Not so with The Beatles. In fact, listen to Rubber Soul. It’s one of the most eclectic albums of all time and many consider it their best. I find it impossible to name a “best” Beatles album. There are many potential candidates for that honor. Rubber Soul is one, but Revolver, Sargeant Pepper and Abbey Road are also stand outs.

Yes, let’s give the Stones the longevity award, but some bands don’t know when to leave, just like sports figures (read: Brett Favre). Yes, they are still propping Mick Jagger up, botoxing his lips and going on stage, but the Stones haven’t made a meaningful album since Steel Wheels, and that was back in the 80s. The stuff since then is mediocre to blah; their best stuff is their old stuff.

In the relatively short time the Beatles were together (a mere seven years; even Wings was around longer), they had an incredible influence on music. Not only is their list of accomplishments impressive, but they were “out there.” They were doing things musically that others were not doing. They pushed the envelope because they wanted to push it, and the Beatles were smart enough to choose a guy like George Martin to help them realize their musical genius.

Eric Clapton may be considered the greatest guitarist in rock music, but even Eric Clapton credits George Harrison with “inventing” the lead guitar solo.  The Beatles were the first to use instruments like the French horn, and the first to use an orchestra (The London Philharmonic) in their music. They were so far ahead of the curve on so many different levels: The concept album, songwriting, and the birth of the music video. The best thing of all about the Beatles was that you always knew it was them — they were very distinctive — but no two songs sound the same.

In fairness to the Stones, maybe they never wanted to be anything but a great rock n’roll band. More power to them. They are all that. I have most of their music as well. Music innovators? Hardly. Pioneers? Not even close.

Come on, Paulie, bring it on!

There are nine and eleven years respectively between my sisters and I. When I was growing up, I really got into music. All I really had to listen to, however, was what my family members were listening to. Elvis Presley was big with both of my sisters, but especially my sister Mamie. Frank Sinatra was a family favorite. My sister Jo-Anne was listening to Brenda Lee and the Shirelles. My dad loved Nat King Cole and Mario Lanza. I’m probably missing a ton of stuff here, but you get the point.

The Beatles landed in America on February 7, 1964 and changed everything for me. I also got “Meet the Beatles” from my mother for my tenth birthday.  The Beatles really gave me my own music, and I was instantly hooked. I’m of the opinion that they remain the most innovative band in the world. It’s popular now for rock bands to play with symphony orchestras. The Beatles were doing that back in the sixties, including the London Philharmonic Orchestra on several albums. They used the French Horn, sitars and synthesizers in their songs. They had a very distinctive sound, but no two songs sounded the same. They deservedly remain a force to this day. They changed the rules of the game.

They had so many unbelievably cohesive albums, like Revolver, Rubber Soul, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band, The White Album and Abbey Road. Each one represented a new evolution of the band’s music. It was simply amazing and you found yourself just waiting for the next album to be released. I remember that Greg and I were just the biggest Beatle fans. We followed everything they did, from visiting India to meditate with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi to the “Paul is Dead” crisis. We spent hours looking for clues on album covers and listened for hints by playing the records backwards.

Back in the day, it wasn’t about FM radio. Everything was happening on AM radio, to be specific 1510 WMEX with disc jockey ‘Cousin’ Duffy. He had come out here from California, where he was infamous and was actually mentioned in the song “Creeque Alley” by The Mamas & The Papas. We all saved our money to buy and mount Eight-Track Players under our dashboards. Yes, you heard it right. Eight-Track Players.

I’ve seen many concerts in my day with various people. But there was a period in our (Greg, Jack and I) lives there — probably the mid-to-late 70s — where we went to concert after concert after concert. I don’t remember how many years it spanned, but it was just a blast. And I don’t necessarily mean just in the state of Massachusetts, either.

It’s really hard to remember all of these concerts, but there are some extremely vivid memories that live on in my mind, like:

Chicago at the Boston Garden. I took my two sisters and my mother. It was a crazy fucking night. People all around us were getting stoned and my sister turns around to me and says, “Ew, what is that smell.” I just shook my head. “Shut up.”

One night it was blowing snow and absolutely freezing outside and Greg, Jack and I were walking around Harvard Square. We wanted somewhere to get warm, so we took a walk down the alley where Passim’s coffee shop was. (Passim’s is a storied place in Cambridge history. There were stories of how Linda Ronstadt sang there when she was very young and used to go to Elsie’s for roast beef sandwiches.) There was a live show that night, but there was no cover charge. We went in to get out of the cold and sat up the front near the stage. What followed was simply one of the most amazing things we’ve ever seen to this day.

Someone named Guy Clark walked out on stage to perform. He was huge, over six feet tall and he played the fiddle. I remember to this day what he opened up with. It’s a song called “Virginia’s Reel,” and he played that fiddle like I’ve never seen before. We had the best time that night. The guy played for probably two hours and it stands out today as one of the most amazing shows I’ve ever seen. That was the one and only time I ever saw him live, but I have a lot of his music.

We saw the J. Geils Band at the Boston Garden on November 15, 1975 in a performance that would become part of the Blow Your Face Out album, considered one of the greatest live albums ever.

We saw another pretty hot country band called Asleep at the Wheel at the Paradise and people were dancing on the tables by the time they got to the song “Route 66.”  Or how about Jonathan Edwards at the Paradise? When he sang the song “Shanty,” you swore that everybody in the place lit a  joint (we certainly did). I remember that the security staff there had no fucking idea what to do. Throw us all out? I know that didn’t happen and it was a hell of a concert.

We were there at the Who concert the night that Keith Moon collapsed on top of his drum kit within the first twenty minutes of the show. They rescheduled and we saw a great performance several weeks later. Just months after that, Keith Moon died from an overdose of a prescription drug he was taking to help him detox. Keith Moon had an affinity for trashing hotel rooms. I had no idea he used to blow up toilets until I took a look at Wikipedia.

It’s hard to pick the single best Linda Ronstadt concert when you’ve seen her more than thirty times in your lifetime. I’d have to say that her performance at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center was one of the very best. At the time we went to that show, I was driving a white Buick Skylark. It was mint. I had a vanity plate that read BLU BYU (obviously for the song Blue Bayou). You drive through the Saratoga Spa State Park to get into the performing arts center. Basically, you drive down a long two-lane blacktop surrounded by these huge trees on either side. Well, we were sitting in traffic on that road when somebody saw my license plate and became convinced that my car was carrying Linda Ronstadt to the show.

Now, that’s not even logical. Why would she ever come to the venue via this route and why would she be arriving so close to show time? But those logical thought processes had left these people. We’re stuck in about two miles of traffic when people suddenly start banging on the windows and doors, asking where Linda is. I’m like, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Who are these people?” We opened the car windows and all this smoke went streaming out. We assured these idiots that Linda Ronstadt was not in the car. We even let them look in to convince themselves. That was truly an unbelievable experience.

People used to assume that my fascination with Ronstadt was because I had a gay crush on her. They couldn’t be more wrong. The fact is that Linda Ronstadt is like a female version of the The Beatles. She’s done it all — country rock, rock n’roll, cajun, big band and mariachi — and she does all of it so well. Her voice at 62 is actually stronger than it was in her thirties because she took on a voice coach prior to the Nelson Riddle phase. She made a lot of money for the record companies and that kind of contribution gets a performer the latitude to do whatever he or she wants. She made great choices.

There were other great shows at the SPAC, like the Emmylou Harris tour the year she released Luxury Liner, and the Bonnie Raitt tour the year she released Sweet Forgiveness. I feel the same way about Emmylou as I do about Linda Ronstadt. She really defied the traditional definition of a country and western singer. The concerts were always in summer, so we’d spend a few days and camp out. One year we were lucky enough to be there during the month of August — the only month of the year when the Saratoga Race Track was open. I remember that we spent one Sunday there. We had breakfast at The Paddock where we drank Bloody Marys. Then we went and played the ponies, where we promptly got trashed on martinis. I have absolutely no memory to this day of actually walking up to a window and placing a bet. But I’m sure we must have done that at least a few times?

I also flew out to see Linda Ronstadt at the Los Angeles Forum on Christmas eve 1978  for the start of her Living in the USA tour. This came about because I had a pen pal living in Westminster, California, who was a huge Linda Ronstadt fan. She suggested I come out for the show and stay with her family, so I took her up on her offer. I got there a couple of days early. The night of the show, we checked into a hotel near the Forum because that’s where we were going to stay after the show. It was near the airport and I was flying home early Christmas morning. The final song was “Living in the USA,” and when the song began, they released 10,000 red, white and blue balloons from the ceiling.

There were so many Linda Ronstadt shows it was crazy. In the 70s, we were like Linda Ronstadt “deadheads” because we traveled to New York routinely to see her at SPAC. We also drove to Connecticut and Maine several times to see her. I can’t remember who I was with, but I also saw her “Canciones di me Padres” tour at Great Woods during the 80s. I remember almost belting the guy sitting behind me because he was screaming at her to sing in English throughout the whole show. I finally told him to STFU and, surprisingly, he did. Had I known that was all it would take, I’d have done it sooner.  I also saw her at Radio City Music Hall in NYC when she went on the road with Nelson Riddle. The last time I saw Linda Ronstadt was 2005 on the revolving stage of the South Shore Music Circus. Beth and I had tickets to see her with Emmylou Harris at the Orpheum after they released Western Wall, but Beth became ill so we gave those tickets to my sister and her husband.

We saw Elton John’s bicentennial concert at what was then called Schaefer Stadium. It was July 4, 1976. Greg had a station wagon, and we tied a huge American flag to the top of it and drove to Foxboro. I couldn’t venture to tell you how much we smoked on the way down and during the huge tailgating party that went on for hours before the show. Elton was notorious for his wild outfits, and the one he had for the Bicentennial Tour was no exception. It was the one in this photo and I believe he wore it at all the concerts that year. We blasted the song Philadelphia Freedom from his 8-track (yes, you heard it right, eight track), even though it had absolutely nothing to do with the bicentennial. (It was a tribute to Billie Jean King.) Fleetwood Mac opened the show. When it was over, we were stuck in traffic for what seemed to be hours. Finally, Greg got so sick of waiting, he drove through a chicken wire fence and onto some back road in Foxboro to get out of the parking lot. It took us a while to find the highway, but we did.

Beth and I saw a ridiculous concert at what was then called Great Woods with Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Shawn Colvin, Bruce Hornsby and David Lindley. Beth was pregnant with Thalia at the time, so it had to be the summer of 1996. They each performed individually and then all together as a band. They were so good together we just wanted them to keep playing. And just before I met Beth in 1992, I saw two concerts at Great Woods (or was it the Tweeter Center by then?) with my marketing services department. One was Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers and the other was Steve Winwood. (Just wait until we get to the “team building” parties I used to have with this crew.)

For all the people I have seen, there are so many I haven’t seen. I never had the opportunity to see the Beatles, but I doubt very much that I would have enjoyed the concerts anyway. I didn’t want to hear a bunch of people incessantly screaming. I wanted to hear the music. That’s why they stopped touring so early in their career. I’ve also never had the opportunity to see Paul McCartney. The closest I’ve come to seeing him live was when I saw the Rock Show movie. (I loved Wings, by the way.)  McCartney is coming to Fenway Park in August, but the tickets will be unaffordable for me right now. I am a real Deadhead, but I never saw The Grateful Dead perform live. I know The Dead still tours today, and then there’s Bob Weir’s Ratdog,  but it’s not the same without Jerry Garcia. On the bright side, Beth and I have just about everything The Grateful Dead has ever done, including all of Dick’s Picks (live recordings of their shows). I’ve also never seen several of my other favorites, like Janis Joplin, The Doors or Bob Dylan. Regrettably, I never made it to Woodstock, billed as three days of peace and music.

Anyway, I’m sorry if this musical trip down memory lane was a bit long in the tooth, but it’s been banging around in my head for several days now. I’ve thrown in a lot of links to make it interesting. Music was — and still is — a big part of my life. I have over 9 gigs of music on my ITunes. If you enjoyed it, I’m glad. Thanks for reading.

Gay people have this affliction called Disco-itis. I know I’ve had it in the past myself, but I’ve been cured. This affliction is brought on by a combination of alcohol, banned substances and gay bars. The more you take part in those three things, the worse the Disco-itis becomes. I came out at the height of the disco scene. (I will confess to you that I think it’s barely a musical form, yet in a gay bar it was intoxicating — probably because I was intoxicated. I have absolutely no disco in my vast music collection to this day.)

Of all the ‘ladies’ on the disco scene those days, Donna Summer was by far the Queen when it came to music in the bars. Donna Summer. One of the biggest bitch homophobes on the planet. The woman who states to this day that AIDS is God’s punishment for being gay. And those aren’t her only homophobic words. I wonder who the fuck she thought was buying all her records? Did we collectively ignore that fact about Donna Bummer, or was that not the case back then? Either way, I don’t do Donna Summer. Anything that broad (and I mean this in the most derogatory way) has made doesn’t get through my front door, doesn’t play in my CD player and doesn’t grace my ITunes library. In fact, my being gay trumps any kind of music. No homophobes need apply…even those of the rock n’ roll variety (and we know they exist as well). Nobody I know would dare bring a Coors beer or Crackerbarrel cheese into my house either. And, by the way, don’t ever ask me to step inside a J.C. Penny. But that’s a post for another day. For this post, consider it a lesbian rant.

The thing about the gay bars and disco is that there are songs that become anthems and their makers become gay icons. Everybody has a different viewpoint — the songs that they see as anthems may be different than yours. One that stands out for me is Shame by Evelyn “Champagne” King. I don’t think that’s a universal song, though. I think most people will say something like, “Oh yeah, man, I remember her now!” But I do think that a song like I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor is a universal anthem. Two others that fit here are We Are Family by Sister Sledge and Lady Marmalade by Labelle (yes, that would be Patti LaBelle; pictured here in this post btw).

Then, there are those songs that you wish you could eliminate from the replay loop in your brain. Every time I see National Lampoon’s Vegas Vacation, that little ditty called Born To Be Alive stays in my head for days and not in a pleasant way either. That’s the song that’s playing as they enter Vegas.  The artist was Patrick Hernandez. Patrick Hernandez? Who the fuck is Patrick Hernandez? Here’s another that fits here: Ring My Bell by Anita Ward. Anybody else remember these two songs and do you find them as annoying as I do?

Outside I wouldn’t put this stuff on my radio, but once I was inside a gay bar and after a few drinks (and does anyone remember Poppers?) my eyes would glaze over and it’d be the best freakin’ music in the world. That lasted for about eight hours. When you woke up in the morning, you felt about as guilty for enjoying that music as you did waking up to the person next to you. (You wondered what you were thinking on both counts.) At the risk of sounding like the Republicans currently in office, I pose this question: What if disco music was a secret government program designed to keep the gays under control?

Harvard Square was a favorite hangout. There was no place in the world like it. I’m not talking about the sanitized version of Harvard Square that’s there now. No sir. Harvard University owns Harvard Square now, and it shows. I’m talking about the Harvard Square that had a great restaurant called Grendel’s Den. The place was just great. It had a lot of Middle Eastern specialties on the menu and the prices were great. It had the Coop. And it had a club called Jonathan Swift’s. It was the only place of its kind, and it’s now long gone. Harvard Square is but a mere shadow of what it used to be. It had its own unique personality and character. People would talk about Linda Ronstadt getting her start at Passim (a coffee house) and going over to Elsie’s to get a great roast beef sandwich. Many of those places are gone now, but they’ve left behind some great memories.

Jonathan Swift’s was to the left of The Garage (which is on the corner of JFK and Mt. Auburn). You’d go in the door and down some stairs. The bar was named for an Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer (for both the Whigs and Tories), poet and cleric. He is remembered for works such as Gulliver’s Travels and A Modest Proposal.

Now, back to the place. There was nowhere else like it anywhere. It wasn’t just a bar. It had a stage and offered live music. Nothing special about that, but the atmosphere was great. Some of the bands that played there were Stormin’ Norman and Suzie, Chuck MacDermott & Wheatstraw, and John Lincoln Wright & The Sourmash Boys.

My friends and I saw John Lincoln Wright there more than once. This time it was the dead of winter — don’t ask me to remember the year. They were already on stage when we got there, so it was pretty dark, but I could have sworn that the woman across the room near the piano was Bonnie Raitt. Of course, I immediately got distracted and forgot that I thought I saw her.

Well, I remembered it a while later when they brought Bonnie Raitt up on stage to sing with them! It was just awesome. She did maybe two or three numbers with them and went back to sit in the audience. I can’t remember exactly what she sang, but it was around the time of the Sweet Forgiveness album, I think. It was great to see her in that kind of venue, smaller and more intimate. We’d all become accustomed to seeing her at what used to be The Music Hall (now the Wang Center). And, yes, she wailed on that slide guitar.

Anyway, that was a great time. And now, it’s time to go celebrate. The Red Sox have slugged their way into first place in the AL East. By the way, where the F#@* is Manny these days?