| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
Joe Morris
Old Love
3485 Posts |
 Posted - 13/01/2013 : 19:13:55
|
for ARTHUR LEE's legendary band; it was more like drugs, debauchery and death. Now CLASSIC ROCK reveals the dark side of 'FOREVER CHANGES'. By JAMES HALBERT
Am CID-FUELLED PARANOIA. FEUDS, SCHISMS AND SONGS ABOUT SHARED girlfriends. Love's bittersweet masterpiece, 'Forever Changes', captured the increasingly dark underbelly of flower power. By June 1967, Arthur Lee's ultiracial rock band were two albums old, and their legendary live shows had made them the toast of Los Angeles' Sunset Strip. It had hardly been a smooth ride, though, and there was further trouble looming. Lee's agoraphobia was growing with his ego, and Love's various drugs of choice were frazzling them way beyond the edges.
"The band were disintegrating", says David Housden, editor of Love fanzine The Castle. "Heroin addiction was pulling them apart. Arthur and Bryan (MacLean) initially went into the studio separately, intending to record their songs with session musicians. They had members of Phil Spector's Wrecking Crew play on Andmoreagain' and The Daily Planet:"
"When the rest of the band came into the studio and saw these session musicians struggling to play their music, they literally wept tears. The experience galvanised Forssi and Echols into action, though, and they got themselves together enough to add overdubs on the tracks at future sessions. That's basically what pulled the album round."
Love had formed in 1965, and were the first rock band to sign to the then folk-based label Elektra, later home to The Doors. Jac Holzman, credited as production supervisor on 'Forever Changes', first encountered Love at Bibo Lito's on Hollywood Boulevard. "It was (like) a scene from one of the more amiable rings of Dante's inferno", he recalled; "Silken-clad girls with ironed blonde hair moving to a cadence part musical and all sexual."
At the helm of the outfit cranking out 'Hey Joe' was Arthur Lee, a tough kid from Memphis whose previous outfit The Grass Roots had taken their name from a phrase in a Malcolm X book. Lee wore multicoloured shades and one worn-out boot, its sole flapping loose like a tongue. His main foil was guitarist Bryan MacLean, a 19-year-old former Byrds roadie whose look was quintessentially Californian.
Between them, Lee and MacLean would pioneer Love's Jeckyll-Hyde sound, Arthur's RE1B influences bleeding into Bryan's folk-pop ones, and vice-versa. Also present at Bibo's that night were bassist Ken Forssi, lead-guitarist John Echols, and drummer Alban 'Snoopy' Pfisterer.
The band's eponymous debut album was a competent, if somewhat patchy affair. It yielded a minor US hit with a cover of Bacharach and David's 'Little Red Book', but it was 1967's 'Da Capo', and the startling, proto-punk of 'Seven Et Seven Is' (later covered by Alice Cooper) that first gave the record-buying public a true taste of Love's dark side. Two minutes and fifteen seconds of brooding menace, the song featured producer Bruce Botnick's attempt at recreating an atomic bomb explosion.
Intriguingly, the backdrop to these albums was the band's communal home at The Castle, a Hollywood Hills retreat which had featured in several Bella Lugosi horror flicks. Frequented by The Byrds and Jim Morrison, it became the focal point for all manner of debauchery, and is now owned by Johnny Depp. "Arthur had an attic room where he could hide himself away", says David Housden. "He tells stories of stepping over prostrate bodies as he went down to the kitchen for some cereal, or whatever. He got his ideas for lyrics in the early hours of the morning, you see."
As those lyrics suggested, Lee's penchant was acid, but Ken Forssi and Johnny Echols favoured smack. One story holds that the latter pair had become known to local police as 'The Donut Robbers', because they would hold-up donut stands to finance their growing habit On one occasion, Echols even pawned his guitar for drug-money, borrowing someone else's instrument for the weeks' gigs and rehearsals.
Speaking about the prolonged period of inertia between finishing 'Da Capo' and starting work on 'Forever Changes', Snoopy Pfsterer, later replaced by Michael Stuart, confirmed that Forssi, Echols and Lee weren't the only ones bent on altered states: "We worked very seldom, we were very unorganised, and we spent more time getting loaded and tripping-out than anything else", he maintained.
The darkest skeleton in the communal cupboard, though, was Love roadie Neil Rappaport's heroin overdose. "That's an extremely delicate area, and it would be libellous to point a finger at anyone in particular", says David Housden. "Arthur reportedly threatened Rappaport a few hours before his death, and others testified that there was some kind of violent argument between the two, possibly over the fact that Neil stole the band's van and equipment for drug money. Arthur was allegedly arrested, but lacking any real evidence he was immediately released".
Housden also points out that heroin consumption is often a two-man activity, one person preparing the other's shot. And as we've already noted, heroin wasn't Arthur's drug of choice...
This, then, was the recent history of Love as they approached 'Forever Changes'. It was history charged with myriad tensions and endless repercussions. When Lee started on his lyrics, The Vietnam War, the ethnic-cleansing of the American Indians, and the Watts race riots of 65', were on his mind, too. Interesting recipe for an album? You bet, but here's one more thing to consider : Love's 26year-old front man thought he was about to kick the bucket.
"It's like death is in there", Lee said. "I had a thing about dying when I was 26, and 'Forever Changes' was to be my last words to this life." In 1973, he reiterated that point to John Tobler and Pete Frame, saying that "he just had a funny feeling about it"; the notion of death or physical deterioration. While it seems likely that the Russian roulette of acid trips would have fed this paranoia, David Housden points out that a family genetic disorder was another factor. Lee's uncle had died at 26, and the singer thought he would, too.
A 'i
S ONE OF THE KEY SONGS OF Forever Changes', 'Alone Again Or' was written by Bryan MacLean as early as February, 1966, and it's ndoubtedly the most famous of Love's songs. MacLean's mother Elizabeth McKee also ma to Maria McKee of Lone Justice was a Flamenco fan, and Bryan said he'd been inspired by Spanish music she danced to. Producer Bruce Botnick maintains that its Tijuana brass colours were inspired by a session he'd done with trumpeter Herb Alpert.
One of the song's most discussed elements is its vocal-arrangement. Domineering as ever, Lee added a harmony vocal which he later mixed louder than MacLean's original lead. In 1993, Neil Skok asked MacLean if this had upset him. "No", he said. "That was Arthur. That was the whole package. I didn't care, because I believed I would have my day in the future and playing with Love would facilitate it."
There's no reason to doubt MacLean on that, but hindsight suggests there might have been additional reasons for his acquiescence. During the sessions for `Da Capo', a similar situation had arisen when Lee insisted on singing the lead-vocal on MacLean's 'Orange Skies'. "The true reason he sang that song is that I believed Arthur could really kick my ass", MacLean told John Tobler in 1981. "He was an amazing person physically with his fists...tremendous speed and accuracy in the same way as Muhammad Ali."
MacLean must take most of the credit for 'Alone Again Or', but if you listen to its vocals, you can hear that Lee's instincts were correct, his 'harmony' adding some much-needed melodic movement. Arthur also claimed ownership of the word 'Or' in the song's title, something which added to its mystique.
On the new sleevenotes for 'Forever Changes', re-issue co-producer Andrew Sandoval concedes that he was "initially baffled" by the album's unusual song structures. 'Andmoreagain', with it's meandering vocal and swooning string arrangement, is a typical example. The title is a play on words, the Andmore' part codifying one Androulla Moreno, a lover of Lee's and MacLean's. The 'again' part? That's because Love's debut album had already featured a song called 'And More'.
"I know about Hendrix sharing Dolly Dagger with Arthur, but even though I've done ten years of research, I know very little about Androulla Moreno," says David Housden. "It's certainly a beautiful love song, so Arthur obviously had strong feelings about her. Was it Arthur or Bryan who dated her first ? I don't know. That's another of the tensions that make the album so fascinating; tensions between the dark side and the prettiness."
MacLean whose first girlfriend was Liza Minnelli maintained that he grew-up with showtunes, then absorbed folk and pop. He also famously said that he himself was Arthur's biggest influence as a songwriter. Andmoreagain' would seem to bear that out.
Famous for being the fictional newspaper that Superman alter-ego Clark Kent works for, The Daily Planet' is also a pivotal song on 'Forever Changes: Lee to Max Bell in 1981 : "You asked about that old song of mine 'The Daily Planet That was about people on their little trips. Hollywood people running from the cops. I've been to Hollywood, I've been to Inglewood. Neil Young that's it. He was going to produce 'Forever Changes: In fact I could so far as to say he did produce 'The Daily Planet That's why it's so weird. It's kind of out of sync."
David Housden : "I've heard from various sources that Young did start in the studio with Arthur for 'Forever Changes: It was at a point where Buffalo Springfield were a bit shaky, and Bruce Botnick brought Young in, intending that they produce the album together. He (Young) definitely retained some involvement on 'The Daily Planet Some people claim that you can hear his vocal in part of the harmony."
Whoever produced it, the recording session for this song was certainly fraught, the presence of session musicians drafted-in to cover for the allegedly too-ripped-to-play Forssi and Echols creating much of the tension. Forssi was underwhelmed, claiming that drummer Hal Blaine sounded as though he was "whacking his kit with a wet dish rag. I distinctly remember this girl (probably Carol Kaye) trying to get a bass part down and couldn't do it, because the song had so many changes", he added. "I said, 'Here, I'll do it' and took over."
In the midst of all this, Lee sang of the need for drug-induced change. How wonderfully ironic.
Arguments between Lee and producer Bruce Botnick were another source of tension. "I do remember Arthur never liked Botnick", said Forssi. "He thought he was a nerd, and he was always yelling at him, calling him an arsehole."
Botnick later claimed that Arthur was on acid 24/7 circa 'Forever Changes', but Lee again talking to Max Bell hotly refuted this : "That guy's a fool. People think he produced 'Forever Changes' I did. Bruce Botnick is embarrassed for his own sake. He never saw me do anything with drugs unless I got them from him. He was so against free expression, so uptight that he couldn't even loosen his tie. God made Bruce Botnick for some reason. If I were God, I wouldn't have made him."
'The Red Telephone' a spooky, but beautiful Lee composition is a Pandora's box of a song, his own fears and paranoia merging with those of a society who knew little of San Francisco's daisy chain hippydom. By now the band had vacated The Castle, and Lee was living in a Mullholland Drive mansion overlooking The Hollywood Hills. The opening lyric 'sitting on a hillside / watching all the people die' seemingly a reference to racial tensions still brooding post Watts could hardly be more stark.
The re-release sleevenotes hold that the song's title refers to the Coldwar crisis hotline between the US and The Soviet Union, but others maintain that Arthur himself had a red telephone at home. Allegedly, when it rang too often and Arthur felt his drug-cocooned privacy being invaded, he would hurl the phone across the room.
Lee's view that the times they were achanging, and not for the better, was also captured in the famous photograph which adorns the back sleeve of 'Forever Changes'. Bryan MacLean: "Arthur is holding up a broken vase, trying to look surreal or cryptic. It was his way of trying to attach some underlying significance to everything." David Housden : "It's quite simple. He's trying to say that flower power is dead."
By the time the band got around to recording 'Old Man', MacLean got to sing lead-vocal on his own song. Though, the guitarist later said that whenever he heard it, he felt like crawling under his bed. Some claim that the song's lyrics reflect MacLean's growing interest in Christianity, and that this was yet another source of inter-band schisms. As well as being dissatisfied with his own vocal, MacLean was unhappy with the songs string-arrangement. "He told arranger David Angel that it was way too busy", says David Housden, "and they fell-out for a while. Bryan was exceptionally pleased with Angel's work on 'Alone Again Or', though."
Arthur, too, had trouble with certain aspects of the orchestral sessions, and what he perceived as the institutionalised racism of some of classical players. "The funny thing about 'Forever Changes', there's a full orchestra", he told Bad Trip magazine in 1994. "I walk in, and with the way I looked, the way I dressed, I was sitting there for about an hour before they figured out who I was. They said `oh, we're gonna have to leave 'cause the guy didn't show up', and then the next five minutes: Hey! I'm here! They couldn't believe that one, you know?"
A S KED BY THE CASTLE ABOUT THE AS of 'Forever Changes', Ken Forssi referred to the record as 'The White Album'. This was clearly nother drugs reference : "After we'd got everything on tape, the mixing was 17 or 18 hours straight, I believe. We had the cocaine to keep us awake and alert. We actually used it as a medicine, then to get the thing mixed, because there was a deadline approaching and somebody
wanted this album really bad, really fast. Two or three of us would run out, get some air, do a coupla lines, then come back in ready to go again. After the record was over, I think we all collapsed into a week-long sleep."
When it came to promoting 'Forever Changes', the band's reluctance to play far outside of Los Angeles was a double-edged sword. In Britain the band had considerable mystique, and this might partly explain why the album charted so much higher here. In the US, however, Love's ambivalence toward self-promotion was a major stumbling-block. Mike Harrison, a British aficionado credited for his help on the re-issue package explains :
"I remember asking Jac Holzman (of Elektra Records ) why The Doors were so much bigger than Love. He said 'The Doors did everything we asked them to, promotion wise Love didn't'. Other bands at that time were starting to do bits of TV, but there's never anything of Love apart from the two tracks they did on American Bandstand. Arthur didn't want to leave LA. He wanted to be within reach of his dealer."
Inevitably, something had to give. MacLean, less than happy with 'Forever Changes', was first to quit. He cited the drug problems of the others, but he was hardly tee-total himself. A more plausible explanation, perhaps, was the fact that he was a prolific writer whom Lee was only allowing two songs per album. Lee, Echols and Forssi, meanwhile, were reportedly keen to continue as a Hendrix-influenced power-trio. By 1969, though, only Lee remained from the classic 'Forever Changes' line-up.
David Housden points out that, in Virgin's Encyclopedia Of The Greatest Albums Of All Time, 'Forever Changes' recently leapt from number 40 to number 12. It's growing cult status might partly be attributable to the fact that its original cast is fast disappearing: MacLean and Forssi are dead, Michael Stuart has changed his name to avoid being traced, and Echols is rumoured to be living in the Arizona Desert. Arthur Lee? He's going nowhere. Love's legendary leader is still serving a firearms-related jail sentence.
Letters of appreciation to Pleasant Valley State Prison, Coalinga...
Thanks to Mal Young, Mike Harrison and David Housden. Look out for Housden 's forthcoming biography Love : Forever Changing. Contact David at The Castle, Stonecross House, Fitton End Road, Gorefield, Wisbech, Cambs PE13 4NQ.
TIMEJ ARE FOREVER CHANCIINQ
THE BAND: Arthur Lee (guitar, vocal), Bryan MacLean (guitar,vocal), John Echols (guitar), Ken Forssi (bass), Michael Stuart (drums) ADDITIONAL PLAYERS: Hal Blaine (drums), Billy Strange (guitar), Carol Kaye (bass), Don Randi (piano). Orchestrations by David Angel with members of The LA Philharmonic.
RECORDED: Sunset Sound Recorders, LA, various dates in June, August and September, 1967. It took 64-65 hours at a cost of $35 an hour.
PRODUCED: Arthur Lee, Bruce Botnick. Some allege that 'The Daily Planet' was produced by Neil Young.
TRACKLISTING: 'Alone Again Or', 'A House Is Not A Motel', Andmoreagain', 'The Daily Planet', 'Old Man', 'The Red Telephone', 'Maybe The People Would Be The Times Or Between Clark And Hilldale', 'Live And Let Live', 'The Good Humour Man He Sees Everything Like This', 'Bummer In The Summer', 'You Set The Scene.'
2001 REISSUE ADDS: 'Hummingbirds', 'Wonder People (I Do Wonder)', alternate mixes of 'Alone Again Or' and 'You Set The Scene', 'Your Mind And We Belong Together' (various takes), 'Laughing Stock'.
RELEASED: November 1967 (US); February 1968 (UK).
CHART PLACINGS: 154 (US), 24 (UK). SINGLES: 'Alone Again Or',' Andmoreagain'.
SALES: Despite that initial low US chart placing, some say the album has since achieved Gold status.
TRIVIA: 'Forever Changes' is Ken Livingstone's favourite album. Other aficionados include Robert Plant, Noel Gallagher, and Billy Bragg. Love guitarist Bryan MacLean famously opined that he much preferred The Bee Gees 'Horizontal' album. UFO recorded a reverential version of 'Alone Again Or' on 1977's 'Lights Out' album. It was also a minor hit for The Damned in the late 80's.
rOKEVER MOE
Bill Inglot, co-producer of the 2001 reissue talks about 'Forever Changes'
Was Arthur Lee contacted about this project ? We would have like him to be involved, and I know that we tried to contact him I'm not trying to be mysterious, but it was declined in some way. Don't know why .
On the out-takes for 'Your Mind And I Belong Together', Arthur seems very critical of his bandmates playing. Common scenario ?
The substantiation in the rumour-mill seems to be that Arthur's vision for the band exceeded the playing ability of the others On that tune you hear Arthur shout 'take 36' or whatever, but probably 30 of those takes were about 5 seconds long There are no punch-ups that we deleted.
Bruce Botnick recalls that there were lots of personal problems in Love circa 'Forever Changes'. Any anecdotes about the original sessions ? Seems like a closed-shop...
You have to remember that it's almost 35 years ago. If I asked you what you had for breakfast last Wednesday, you might come up with something, but would it be accurate ? In some ways, a session for Bruce Botnick back then would have been just another day at the office. My feeling, listening to the record, is that people couldn't have been that fried We know that the original multi-track tapes have gone missing, but did any of the ephemera accompanying the masters you have prove illuminating ?
Sometimes those old tape boxes can be really sexy; you know doodling from the band on them and stuff. The only thing with the 'Forever Changes' tapes was that the writing on the box suggested the working title was 'The Third Coming Of Love'.
Any thoughts on the view that Neil Young produced 'The Daily Planet', and was originally mooted to produce the whole album ?
I believe the idea was that Young was going to do the Love album while he took a break from Buffalo Springfield. Once again, everybody has a story, but there's no paperwork to substantiate that that they did any sessions with Neil. Perhaps there was a five-day session, perhaps there was a 30-second conversation at a party. We'll probably never know.
Legend has it that 'Your Mind And Me Belong Together' and 'Laughing Stock' were just two of a number of additional tracks recorded circa 'Forever Changes'. Some even talk of a follow-up album called `Gesthemane'. Any answers ?
There's a whole cult built around this supposed fourth record from the classic line-up, but I can't find any evidence that it exists. I talked to John Haeny (sic), the engineer on the 'Your Mind...' session. He said 'well, my memories of the 60's are a little vague, but I'd certainly remember a whole album!' |
|
|
lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9866 Posts |
Posted - 13/01/2013 : 19:25:57
|
Very good & interesting. Thank, Joe, for these old reads.
________________________________________________
Old hippies never die, they just ramble on.
-lk |
 |
|
|
Joe Morris
Old Love
3485 Posts |
Posted - 13/01/2013 : 21:00:24
|
| Botnick still seems better than Neil, who only came in for the day! |
|
|
|
waxburn
Old Love
USA
735 Posts |
Posted - 14/01/2013 : 00:08:10
|
this article is a bunch of nonsense, neil young is on the record as stating he didnt produce any Love tracks.
for the other stuff , i would recommend Snoopy ZIg Zag article. thats one aritcle that is MUST reading.
 |
|
|
|
lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9866 Posts |
Posted - 14/01/2013 : 19:24:20
|
The article above states clearly that Neil did not produce any tracks, so it is accurate in that respect.
________________________________________________
Old hippies never die, they just ramble on.
-lk |
|
|
|
Joe Morris
Old Love
3485 Posts |
Posted - 14/01/2013 : 20:08:48
|
Echols says in the Ugly Things interview that Neil was really short of cash so he was there. For a day! Had no control and the band were just goofing around with him, no work got done
Did get paid for the day he was there though!
 |
|
|
|
Joe Morris
Old Love
3485 Posts |
Posted - 17/04/2018 : 18:51:41
|
| the book Shaky confirms that Neil didn't work with Love |
|
|
| |
Topic |
|
|
|
old Classic Rock article on Love
