Motörhead, "(We Are) The Road Crew"

A guitar teacher friend of mine was telling me about a student who brought in "The Load-Out," Jackson Browne's interminable ode to his roadies that's best-known for the live version that works in Maurice Williams' doo-wop staple "Stay."

I can't tell why anyone likes this song. Its melody and arrangement are the worst of dad rock sap, making the Eagles sound like Alice Cooper. The lyrics are even worse, coming across like a third-rate, unintentionally funny "Turn the Page" (Jackson's noble roadies are "working for that minimum wage"--well, who's paying them that?) One can imagine Richard Pryor, whom Browne proudly claims to have "on the video," gagging in earshot of this tripe.



Thankfully, it took just a few years for someone else to give roadies the tribute that they deserve.



"(We Are) The Road Crew" was written in the studio in ten minutes and recorded almost as hastily. Guitarist "Fast" Eddie Clarke accidentally crashes into feedback halfway through the solo, but the band kept it in the studio version. Lemmy, a roadie for Jimi Hendrix and Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd before he'd earned his metal god status, sounds like he's been itching to scream this one since his days of unpacking Hendrix's Fender. His restless delivery is perfect for the stories of Another Town, Another Place, Another Girl, Another Face, Another Truck, Another Race. As Mr. Kilmister remembers in his autobiography:

"One of our road crew cried when we first played that song for them. I'm not going to say who it was. We took the lot of them up to the studio one day and played them the track. And this one guy cracked and broke down right then and there. He was weeping, 'Oh, that's a great one. That's great.' It was really nice that it affected somebody that deeply. Bands as a rule don't treat their crews too well. I try to."

Heavy Meddle

Like a lot of males, I was fascinated with Pink Floyd throughout middle school and high school. The Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall and Wish You Were Here were all beautiful and profound to me. But listening now, they sound thoroughly adolescent, and not in a cool, AC/DC-like way. It's more like a high budget version of the kind of well-meaning but self-serious art that you'd see in a high school talent show.

   

When people compare Pink Floyd to bands like Radiohead or Tool, I can only think that it's because they're both weird and arena-famous at the same time. When people compare Floyd to Porcupine Tree or Dream Theater, I can only think that it's because they're both boring. For lack of a better term, most of their songs leave me comfortably numb.

But listening to Dub Side of the Moon, the audacious Pink Floyd reggae tribute album that's somehow more enjoyable than most Pink Floyd or reggae, I was reminded that Floyd have some lovely songs. It's not really their music that I have a problem with--it's their heavy-handed delivery. Roger Waters compared himself to Picasso in Rolling Stone a few years ago, but anyone who'd ever made it to side four of The Wall could already tell he had an astronomical ego that his talents didn't quite live up to. Yet when removed of his band's self-importance and wankery, Pink Floyd's songs lend themselves well to interpretation. 

1. Voivod, "Astronomy Domine"

Pink Floyd got bigger without Syd Barrett, but they never released anything better than Piper at the Gates of Dawn, their 1967 garage-psych debut. The world was still catching up to it in 1989, when Voivod dropped Nothingface and crashed Headbanger's Ball with their version of "Astronomy Domine." I think Voivod's is more haunting than the original--playing the chorus melody on guitar instead of keyboards was a good idea, as was getting rid of the space rock sound effects. Had it not been for this song, Elektra Records might have never taken a chance on Kyuss.

2. Alice Cooper, "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" 

I'll take Alice Cooper's anti-school anthem over Pink Floyd's any day of the week--it's easier make the case that you don't like school when you don't sound like a child pretending to be an adult. But on his recent tours, Cooper's been slyly acknowledging his own influence on Floyd by quoting "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" at the end of "School's Out." It's amazing how much a little verve and humor transforms that song. There's not an HD version online, but the thrill of Alice's show could even come through on a shaky cell phone video.

 

3. Guns N' Roses, "Mother"

Like "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)," "Mother" is best heard in a small dose, out of context. I usually can't sit through it's overwrought lyrics, or David Gilmour's schmaltzy solo, but the melody is actually quite sweet, proven by the sparse, minute-long reading that Axl and Slash gave it near the end of their Use Your Illusion II video from the Tokyo Dome. Subtlety is not something that one usually equates with Guns N' Roses, but "Mother" proves that when called to the task, they delivered.