Tim Brough's Black Leather Bookshelf

Break Out those White Polyester Suits
4 Out Of 5 Stars

It's hard to not rate this double CD with a fifth star, as it contains some of the most sublimely perfect dance pop of the seventies. As it is, "Greatest" covers a mere five years of a career that went through four distinct phases, and this was basically phase three. Starting with Main Course and going to Spirits Having Flown, it misses out on their 80's comeback and the Beatlesque years in the 60's and early 70's.

But when you listen to these songs, they earmark a period of music. The landmark Saturday Night Fever album and the Bee Gees' three number one hits from that record breaking period are all here and have aged better than most of us who wore "Disco Sux" shirts back in the day would have ever predicted. The Miami-sound that producer Arif Mardin coaxed them into actually predates that album, with the number one "Jive Talking" and top ten "You Should Be Dancing'" being irresistible even before the white suits and gold chains.

Those white suits overshadow the brilliant vocals that the group had developed at this stage. Barry Gibb's falsetto had developed into an instrument unto itself, yet Robin and Maurice had their own leads along with extraordinary harmonizing abilities. "Children Of The World" probably best displays that interplay the brothers shared.

Originally that was the last track on the double album, but the remastered CD drops some bonus cuts. For me, the only real plus is the B-Side "Warm Ride," the rest are 12-inch remixes. Only the re-mix of "Staying Alive" on disc one is from the disco era, the others are new to this CD and superfluous. "He's A Liar" or the live Top 30 "Edge of The Universe" would have been a better pick. Maybe the upcoming 50th anniversary re-issues will have more for us. Still, "Greatest" is prime stuff.

Other Bee Gees collections:



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One of my best friends, Dr Phil Reeves, passed away early Saturday in a sudden and unexpected complication from dental surgery. He passed peacefully in his sleep and was discovered by his partner in his bed.


I am going to miss his dry sense if humor, his love of classical music, the way he doted on his two cats and would put them into hilarious photo montages, and the obvious love for his partner, Graham. But more then anything, I am going to miss a man who was not only an amazing friend, but would go out of his way to help me whenever he could, and in times when I was in very dark places. he stood by me when many would not. I have lost one of my life's few anchors and the world is a sadder place today.



(The photo Of Dr Reeves was taken by me at a co-worker of Phil's baby-shower in January. Albert and Victoria were about 4 at the time of their picture.)

Maybe one of Rock's most underrated guitarists: his 1974 "Band" debut is an American Heavy Metal classic, and introduced the world to Sammy Hagar. Also had hits with his band "Gamma."

By Tris McCall/The Star-Ledger

...and if we don't exactly feel fine, we can sure be proud of everything R.E.M. accomplished.

Yes, R.E.M., the outfit that discovered a way forward for guitar-rock in the synthesized '80s, is hanging up the six-strings. After a three-decade run marked by classic albums, sold-out worldwide tours, and even the occasional hit single -- "The One I Love," "Losing My Religion," "Everybody Hurts" -- the storied Athens, Georgia group is calling it quits.

The distinctive R.E.M. sound was one fashioned from old elements. Guitarist Peter Buck drew jangling inspiration from the Byrds and the Beatles' "Rubber Soul." Bassist Mike Mills and drummer Bill Berry imparted some of the swing of '60s AM-radio pop and the backline growl of garage rock. And singer Michael Stipe approached his simple folk melodies with the melancholy of James Taylor.

Yet the group, to paraphrase their friend Robyn Hitchcock, spelled a brand new world with the same old letters. With his swirling twelve-string arpeggios, the self-effacing Buck inverted the role of the guitar hero. Mills and Berry drove the songs into murky, kudzu-choked territory. And with his initial onstage shyness, his partially mumbled delivery and allusive lyrics, Stipe redefined what a rock and roll lead singer could do. In a sense, R.E.M. was the first truly egalitarian rock band to hit it big in America. There were no stars; no grandstanding; nobody was mixed any higher than anybody else.

                              On early records, the vocals were often buried behind Buck's deft guitar patterns and Mills' thick, swampy bass. Frequently Mills' backing vocals provided a countermelody as important to the song as the main tune. And Stipe's voice was treated as an instrument like any other -- one more thread in a tapestry of sound -- and the lead singer did not seem to object in the slightest. In so doing, Stipe became the unoffical (and somewhat reluctant) flagbearer for the entire college rock movement then providing an alternative to the endless parade of hair-metal acts on MTV. But upon further inspection, Michael Stipe had quite a lot to say.

"Murmur" (1983), the band's first full-length album, addresses difficulties in communication and being heard: which, as it turned out, accurately represented the frustrations of Generation X, forever drowned out by the voices of the Baby Boomers. "Could it be that one small voice doesn't count in the world?," asked Stipe on "Shaking Through," one of R.E.M.'s first great songs. Stipe was not a storyteller -- instead, fascinated by the sound of words, he painted with phrases, allowing repetition and alteration to carry the emotional weight of his poetry. Sometimes Stipe would change a single word in a sentence, or change a single syllable in a word, and in so doing, deepen the meaning of his verse. It was a technique copied by countless college rock lyricists.

By "Fables of the Reconstruction," (1985) the band's third album, the haze was lifting. R.E.M. became defenders and poets of the American south, incorporating elements of colloquial speech into its songs ("Good Advices," "Can't Get There From Here") . Stipe also became an ardent critic of the Reagan Administration. "Document," the band's most overtly political album, was also its commercial breakthrough. Released in the wake of the Iran-Contra scandal, "Welcome to the Occupation" assailed American intervention in Central America; "Exhuming McCarthy" drew a connection between the Red Scare and then-contemporary foreign policy; "Disturbance at the Heron House" poked fun at the arrogance of the establishment. "It's the End of the World As We Know It" was not an explicitly political song, but it shook the skeleton of Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues." Once again, R.E.M. had captured the tenor of the times in broken verse. "Document" would be the band's last album for an independent label: after its success, R.E.M. inked a lucrative deal with Warner Brothers. The college rock underground had grown up.

R.E.M.'s first steps as members of the major label establishment were tentative ones: despite spawning hit singles, "Green" (1988) and "Out of Time" (1991) lacked both the focus and the fire of the band's earlier work. But with the elegaic "Automatic For the People" (1992), R.E.M. composed a modern American masterpiece. The album, a series of profound meditations on mortality and perseverance, aches from the first winding riff of opener "Drive" to the final lingering notes of closer "Find the River." But "Automatic" is not depressing: It is a hard Georgia stare at an unbeatable foe who we all must someday face. The band came away from that encounter with their most straightforward song yet -- "Everybody Hurts," principally penned by drummer Berry, with words for a potential suicide so comforting that they could have been penned by a preacher. In one stroke, Stipe the Mysterious had become a Great Communicator.

On subsequent albums for Warner Brothers, R.E.M. chased -- and occasionally captured -- the thoughtful grandeur of "Automatic." But the band never truly recovered from the 1997 departure of Berry, who put away his drumsticks two years after collapsing onstage in Switzerland from the effects of what would later be diagnosed as a brain aneurysm. Stipe, Buck, and Mills never tried to replace Berry; in fact, for many years, they barely tried to rock at all. Yet R.E.M. had one punch left for those who'd counted them out -- "Collapse into Now," released earlier this year, recaptured some of the energy and expansiveness of the group's late-'80s work. At the time of its release, it seemed to be the sound of R.E.M. turning a corner. Now it'll be remembered as the epilogue to one of rock music's most rewarding -- and inspiring -- underdog stories.

Wow, two incredible composers. As half of Leiber and Stoeller, Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoeller wrote such classics as "Stand By Me," "Hound Dog," "Yakety Yak," "Love Potion #9" and as producers, hits like "Stuck In The Middle With You."


Nick Ashford and his wife, Valerie Simpson wrote Motown standards like "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and "You're All I Need to Get By," as well as his own hits like "Solid."

Meet Elliott
4 Out Of 5 Stars

Elliott Smith was a singer songwriter weened on punk and grunge, with the soul of Nick Drake and a brain filled with arrangements by The Beatles and Brian Wilson. Which made him about as unlikely a pop star as any man on the 90's could have been. Add a still unresolved death while he was recording "From a Basement On A Hill," and Elliott begins to find his name mentioned next to the likes of Jeff Buckley; a gifted singer songwriter whose best work could have easily still been ahead of him.

"An Introduction to Elliott Smith" does a good job at capturing what Smith was all about and where the buzz over him was generated. He had a knack for insidious, low key melodies that would blossom after multiple listenings, as well as the kind of tortured lyrics an angsty person could wallow in for days. "Miss Misery," which hauled in an Oscar Nomination after Gus Van Zandt included it in "Good Will Hunting," is a perfect example. Included here as a demo version, it still creeps under the skin as Smith's light voice whispers "I'll fake it through the day with the help of some Johnny Walker Red." As opening lines to a lousy love affair go, there are few that top it.

But Smtih could also whip up a tasty pop confection, as both "Happiness" and "Ballad of Big Nothing" show in a stately way. Despite the tormented underpinnings, both songs are catchy and melodic, the kind of songs that would stick in your ear until you realized what exactly Smith was singing about. He mastered both the art of production and ambiance (the subtle, cricket chirping of "Twilight"), yet never managed a hit single. Smith only cracked the top 20 with an album after his death, when "From a Basement" peaked at 19. Like Buckley, or perhaps Nick Drake, Smith created a legacy that now has a modest but permanent canon of work that gains in luster the longer you listen.

I just was notified by my friend here, Nipper, that James Bond passed away on New Years eve. He was one of the best known photographers in the kink community, which is where most folks know him by his Nom de Camera, James Bond. Jim was also an expert in Railroading and trains, and I once accompanied him on a late night photo shoot in Los Angeles of an historic Steam Engine that was in a roundhouse for an evening.

Here's Jim in his own words from that interview in 2006.