When I lived in Cincinnati OH, city of soap-filled air, belched from the smokestacks of Proctor and Gamble, a guy came to town from a city in which they make a lot of automobiles and said that he'd like (only he used the word 'dig') to put on some rock shows for us because, as he said, there was the potential for a good rock scene there. I was working for the local underground paper, the Independent Eye, and we all said sure, why not.
So he did. And it was an atrocious concert held in Cincinnati Gardens; the groups were bereft of any musical value, the audience was herded and fenced like cattle.
Everyone was disappointed. Except for the promoter. He said he'd like (only he used the word 'dig') to put on another, 'dynamite' show for us, this time in the open air, in Crosley Field. And we, the local underground press, were against it. I remember that they came over to talk to us, a-lot of hippie looking guys emerging from a huge Cadillac, plain folks, dressed in washed-out dungarees, to try to explain why we should help them and proselytize for them. During the long humid hot night of wrangling, the promoter said that he'd have some 'dynamite' acts for us, including (there was a hush) Mott the Hoople! I remember there was a lot of laughter, for no one had ever heard of them.
And now, like some long-dead spirit from out of the past, comes Mott the Hoople, and I'm writing a story about them and somehow, a trick of the mind perhaps, when I think of them, I always remember that long hot night and the interminable wrangling and hassling and the smell of soap. But now I have to confront Mott the Hoople in the present tense, so let's get to work.
Mott the Hoople has had three albums released on Atlantic; the first one, a pleasant if derivative set, was marred, it seemed to me, by the endless repetition of the opening chords of the Moonlight Sonata to introduce several of the songs. The songs were nice enough, though, and I looked forward to the second album, figuring that they would probably work out the kinks by then and find something that was truly their own for the potential for good British (unblue-noted) rock was definitely there.
The second album, Mad Shadows, though, was a surprise, filled with a lot of rock n' roll and, to my ears, at least, a lot of noise, so that, while the music was more accessible, it was less adventurous and less interesting.
So the question was, after the first album that was classical in feeling, and a second album that was straight-ahead rock, the question was, people, what in hell was Mott the Hoople up to, and where was their music?
Well, now there is a third album, Wildlife, and it reveals that, while the group has not totally solidified its sound, there are signs that it is conquering the schizophrenia that afflicted the first two albums. This is not to say that there is not schizophrenia on Wildlife: after a most pleasant collection of good songs, the best of which is Whiskey Women, (which is rock, but not shrill about it), the group does a long live version of Little Richard's Keep a' Knockin' that just about screams out See? We can so play it, so there!
Well, you know, just as it's easy for a playwright to write about people who live on the extremes of life, people who are very old or very young or very poor or very rich (we are not used to dealing with the ambiguities of people who live in the middle of existence), it's easy for (ahem!) a rock journalist to, write about groups who have identifiable sounds, who are either very good or very bad. And Mott the Hoople is not easy to write about, for their music is damn good while not being particularly their own, if you see what I mean. I mean, I like Wildlife well enough, but the album is filled with ambivalences and contradictions and lapses in taste, and yet, damn it, the album interests me, perhaps because (and this is coming to me as I type this) it is unresolved and filled with unanswered questions and silly songs. I have a feeling that the group is moving toward something, but that, frankly, it isn't there yet.
That's good; I'm fascinated by movement and I'd like to find out where they've been and where they are and where they are going and where they think they are going (sometimes it's not the same thing). So, the screen dissolves and I'm sitting in a hotel room and there is a pretty little girl on the next bed, good legs and tired eyes and too-red mouth, and I'm talking to Mick Ralphs, the guitarist for the group who shares songwriting duties with Ian Hunter, the pianist. Mick is short and skinny and the pretty little girl has eyes for him, which is all right, for he looks as if he wouldn't hurt her even if she wanted him to.
Anyway, he speaks plainly about his music and the way things have been going for the band. I get the feeling that he's big on control, and, later that night, the feeling will be corroborated, for in concert it is clear that Ian is terribly Dionysian whereas Mick, while he plays long and loud, does not change his expression much, does not throw his arms about.
CHANGES: Frankly, I don't know what to make of your group. I mean, you're all over the place musically so that it's hard to grab on to where you are.
MICK: Our music up to now has been very extreme. By that I mean, well, the first album was very classical, influenced a lot by Procol Harum. In that first album we were trying to find a direction. Now in the second album our producer, who's important to us, Guy Stevens, kind of inflicted himself on us, I'm sorry to say, and the album was really extreme, ranging from very rock to deep melancholy. In Wildlife we were left on our own and we tried to concentrate on the melodies, something like The Band. We wanted to be more at ease in Wildlife, to avoid things that were hyper-emotional.
CHANGES: Well, yeah, but you do Keep a' Knockin' on the album: let's face it, that's a rather frantic live cut.
MICK: Well, we recorded that one in Fairfield Hall in Croydon, and I guess it does make the album a bit schizoid. You see, we'd like to play more relaxed onstage, like we do on the album, but we're forced to play loud rock live so as not to bore the audience. Unless you have a great name you have to go out and bang away at the audience or else they'll just turn you off. Anyway, we didn't have that pressure on us when we recorded the album so that the accent is on the songs.
CHANGES: You say you wanted to avoid extremes in emotion but there are some songs on the album that are very sentimental.
MICK: Well, those are mostly Ian's songs; they tend to be sentimental because he's an emotional guy. Waterlow is one of those sentimental songs, and it's sentimental because it comes from his heart. Waterlow is a park in England where Ian takes his daughter for walks. The visits he has with her are precious to him and, let's face it, he's sentimental about it.
CHANGES. You do a rather rowdy version of Melanie's Lay Down on the album. Any particular reason for doing the song after it was such a big hit?
MICK: Well, we originally did it for a single, purely for commercial reasons, but it really didn't come up to what we wanted as a single, so we put it on the album. I think it's a nice happy track.
CHANGES: I notice that you studiously avoid doing any blues on your albums. With all the British blues groups around, I would think that you'd want to get on the bandwagon.
MICK: Well, we don't want to do second-rate blues and that's what a lot of British blues groups do, second-rate and second-hand blues-I mean, after all, it's America's music, isn't it? Besides, the British groups take, themselves too seriously. We stay away from it; we don't want to sound pretentious. Oh, we play it as warm-ups in the dressing room, of course, but we avoid doing blues I on stage.
CHANGES: On the other hand, though, you're not afraid to get American country sounds into your music. What's the difference?
MICK: A lot of country things originally came from British folk songs, so we're more at home with it, it's not secondhand the way blues would be. We'd have to span an awful lot of cultural ground in order to play blues the way we feel it should be played. And we're not silly enough to try to bridge that gap.
At this point Verden Allen, the organist for the group stepped out of the shower and suggested that Mick jump in so they could be on their way to the Fillmore. Verden ran around the room and into the hall, looking for a hair dryer and I guess he found it, for when I saw them at their concert his hair was dry. And, facing a hostile audience that shouted obscenities at the groups and at each other, they played a loud brand of basic rock that got to the audience so that, for a while, it forgot that masturbatory surliness that has become the mark of New York rock. At one point, Ian jumped into the audience and offered the mike to anyone who would sing with him the 'Shake it, baby, shake' riff from Whole Lotta Shakin'. There were few takers, but then one kid grabbed the mike and sang, a trifle off-key and a trifle behind the beat, but, what the hell, he was having fun and while he sang and imagined himself to be a rock n' roll star, it was nice to remember that one time, yes, rock had been a party.
Mott the Hoople tried valiantly to make it a party again, and, in large measure, succeeded; but let me tell you, man, Ian had to pull out all his tricks to do it. That man was workin'!