The Tao of Rod

Melissa R. from Richmond writes in to say: "Hey, I'm lovin' reading about Franz Ferdinard and other happening acts, but how about writing about some good ol' fashioned rock and or roll? You know, the hairy chestnuts of wildness?" Hey Missy, read on!

Well, at one time, you've got it, and then you lose it, and it's gone for ever. —Sickboy, Trainspotting

My friend Jason has done some amazing work trying to turn this particular critical saw inside out--you know, the one that holds that most artists are only good for their first record or so, that early work always trumps that which comes later, that the siren call of mansions in Brentwood and second wives with huge plastic knockers drowns out the muse's plaint.

Jason and his friend Britt came up with an alternate way of looking at music called the Advanced Theory, which holds that true genius in rock music often can't be appreciated by those of us transfixed by an artist's early work. When Lou Reed does an album of songs about Edgar Allan Poe, the theory goes, it's not because he's running on fumes. He has Advanced, and it is our job to try to catch up to him.

I love that theory. It has holes, sure, many pointed out by my man Rob Sheffield, who wonders how it explains the Outfield. The thing is, the Advanced Theory can't explain everything.

Which brings us to Rod Stewart.

Despite enjoying many of Stewart's radio hits, I never credited him with having anything to lose, as it were. He's always seemed content to be an amiable buffoon, a cartoon lothario who'd recently settled into a lucrative senescence croaking out second-rate versions of Cole Porter songs. I wished him well but wasn't interested.

Moreover, Rod's pink-satin-blouse period is still fresh in many people's minds, and someone in the comments section of this blog recently noted he was quite upset at Stewart for "mauling" (his word) a Tom Waits song. I sympathize with these objections.

A couple months ago, I was talking with a friend who advised me to check out Stewart's early Mercury records. I still hadn't gotten around to doing so until just before Thanksgiving, when the missus was away and I was totally unable to set my own schedule. I'd find myself eating chips and salsa at all hours, watching movies at times previously alien to me (there's a 2 a.m.?).

One night I watched Rushmore to see whether I'd still like it. At the end of the movie there's a dance scene where everything gets resolved to the tune of the Face's "Ooh La La." Rod, I thought. Rod was in that band.

The next day I went to Plan 9, bought a Faces greatest-hits and puzzled at the confusing price points of Rod Stewart reissues. Some of the reissues of his Mercury records were $5.99 (I bought those) and others were $18.99 in the store and around eight bucks on iTunes. I opted for a combination of the two approaches and bought Smiler and Never a Dull Moment in physical form, and The Rod Stewart Album, Gasoline Alley and Every Picture Tells a Story online.

The problem with the iTunes approach, I quickly learned, is that you miss out on inner-sleeve photos like this:


Or Never a Dull Moment's stylized cover, which shows Rod plonked in an elegant chair he may just have woken up in, with a "How the fuck did I get to Brussels?" look on his face.



Rod Stewart joined the Faces, previously the Small Faces, after he'd had some success with Jeff Beck's band, and Steve Marriot had left the Small Faces to form Humble Pie with Peter Frampton. The arrangement couldn't have been more precarious--Stewart had also recently signed a solo deal. The problem with this was that his solo work almost immediately eclipsed the Faces'; Rod's music was popular with "normal" people, not necessarily the type of hard-core rock fan who went in for the Faces' boozy, sweaty performances. Though the Faces had a couple of minor hits, nothing they produced touched the success of Rod's 1971 No. 1 hit "Maggie May" (from the frankly flawless "Every Picture Tells a Story") or the next year's "You Wear It Well."

If you're wondering whether you're finally mature enough to allow yourself to enjoy blues-rock, the Faces' greatest hits is a good test of your resolve. I dig it despite my deep-seated antipathy to that genre, and not just because "Ooh La La" is such a great song (sung by guitarist Ron Wood, incidentally). There are moments that Rod & Co. come off as total badasses, like "Bad 'n' Ruin," which nips at Zeppelin's heels, or "Sweet Lady Mary," which may have been an attempt to ape Rod's folk-rocky solo stuff, but is a pretty nice song anyway.

Rod's first album, called The Rod Stewart Album in the U.S. and An Old Raincoat Won't Ever Let You Down (I believe that's a condom reference, so it's probably not Advanced) in the U.K., is a better showcase for Stewart's persona, the working-class boy elevated to toffdom through this crazy business of music. It opens with a rangy cover of the Rolling Stones' "Street Fighting Man," which is striking in its lack of irony. One gets the sense Stewart identified strongly enough with the chorus--"What can a poor boy do, 'cept to sing for a rock'n'roll band"--that it seemed like almost autobiographical. Interestingly, the song only begins to resemble the Stones' version a minute and a half before its end, after a false ending. Then there's a totally ridiculous bass-guitar solo that lasts for what feels like two minutes, a Jesus Christ Superstar–style piano/drums breakdown and...a fadeout. I like to think that somewhere there's a version of this that goes on for another thirty minutes, but that's what box sets are for.

The most famous song on The Rod Stewart Album is "Handbags and Gladrags," which was the theme for The Office, and its lyrics nicely encapsulate Rod's W1-by-way-of-N11 sensibilities as he takes aim at a newly minted middle-class layabout. "I heard that you missed school today," he fairly shrieks at the end, "so I suggest you just throw them all away: The handbags and the gladrags that your poor old grandad had to sweat to buy."

There's no small irony in this--Rod's dad was a butcher, and he himself probably rarely came home with blood on his shoes. But, and this is I think key to understanding a lot of British music from the era, he probably worked just as hard as his old man. Rod may have busied himself banging every aspiring model in go-go boots the world over in his downtime, but between his solo LPs and the Faces', he made ten studio albums between 1969 and 1974. Even crazier, most of them are really good. All this while the Faces wore a groove in stages all over the world through epic, constant touring.

1970's Gasoline Alley is probably the closest Rod's and the Faces' careers came to converging, stylistically. Both feature a lot of gritty, tough-guy sentiment, and Ron Wood played most of the badass guitar parts on both of them. After Rod's 1971 solo album Every Picture Tells a Story, however, the Faces were hopelessly playing catchup, writing songs like "Sweet Lady Mary" that mimicked Rod's huge hit "Maggie May" (not that he was above doing the same--"You Wear It Well," from 1972's Never a Dull Moment, and "Farewell," from 1974's Smiler, showed a man unafraid of repeating himself).

That said, Every Picture Tells a Story is darn near perfect, from its jet-setting title track to its so-ridiculously-unselfconscious-that-it-somehow-comes-out awesome cover of the Temptations' "(I Know) I'm Losing You." Who the hell needs Rare Earth when Rod's around?

Aprés this album, goes the crit line, the deluge, the devolution to the mushy Rod of today, more concerned with the trappings of stardom than the talent that got him there. I don't buy it. Because as undeniably awesome as these early Mercury records are, they evince the same aesthetic that Rod Stewart carried to his later work--give the people what they want, tour like hell, work for it, baby. It goes back to that same work ethic, infused with a healthy panto/music hall sensibility that makes not just Rod but a lot of British music endearing. In his striped pants, frilly collars, affected "Scotsness"--oh hell, let's look at that picture again.

Rod then, like Rod now, is more the spiritual heir of George Formby than he is of Long John Baldry, or whatever blues-rock deity you prefer. He's whatever you want him to be. Always was.