Listening to the Ike and Tina Turner box set
- and i guess you could call this motel music - the true feeling of the road is being lost in some place too small to have a name, just some place under the glower of humid clouds... and airless like;
"You wanna breathe get back in the motel god-dammit -"
"Got all the air we need in there, that's why they call this place the oxygen tent."
"Oh really?"
And the wired laughter of the band and their flunkies and their attitude and the nervous eyes of the man behind the counter. And maybe that's a cop lounging in the back there too...
"Where are we again - pig-iron Illinois or some shit? "
"Now sir I don't take kindly on that - just askin' politely just" -
"Hurry up and sign the register Ike"
"She always like that?"
"Aint that the damn truth - done signed a registrEE like lightning - I tell you boys you aint like to argue with that fine girl, got the devil in her -"
But then everyone shakes so bad when the qualudes start kicking in, smothering everything down into the stale pillow of 1975 and there's more motels, more more more motels, more music - more haunted, frightened, fierce, angry, strutting, begging, gloating, love broken, sexually dangerous music .
"You keep racking up the hits like this people gonna be checking your arms haw haw!",
"Shut up Joe" and her ams in the long sleeve blouse are blue black bruised and hidden and anyway Joe "don't know a hit from his ass - aint that Bible? Everyone thinking we got hits when we KNOWS we had no bite o'no cherry since that wise-ass whitey Spector put the hex on us and bad. Wall of sound? Someone should drive that fucker into one - hell, maybe someday I'll do it myself!"
"Ah c'mon honey, we just needs to get some sleep - I need -"
"You? You need? What I need is for - goddamn it's 1965 and they aint got radios fit for a dog to dance to!" And the screech of the frequency raging through the transistor into the motel - and hell if it aint the future again and "I can pick up the damn aliens on this thing and you'd better believe it!" The gold radio screeching and whooping like the moog on Baby Get It On, you hearing that?
"Man, you're listening to aliens and - you're really OUT there y'know?"
"Out there? What' you mean out there - go tell it to that jive ass Sly Stone, wouldn't even let me in the studio. And his dog, you seen that dog right? Growling and jumping at the fence and... man, some punk oughta shoot that dog down - or shoot Sly maybe."
And that's Bolic studios - reality is on hold right now.
And I don't know who plays on all these tracks but if that rhythm player is Ike then he could make his instrument snap like a switch-blade and slam like a belt buckle and this much oppression aint no wonder what happened to the band. This is anything but easy listening. Kay got Paid , Joe got laid - well maybe so, but it aint really likely to turn out fine and is that Keith Richards hell no, that's Tina singing tracks with voices like I aint ever heard her use before, none of the usual stage flash musical front - but soft and pretty, and another so deep and wiry and raw and sorrowful - each voice different and each voice just one more revelation hidden in this collection - but all the same just one more layer to the musical psycho-drama, where no/one is innocent and nothing is what it seems and no voice you hear is entirely natural - everything jazzed up in the talk of the times - and being what they were expected to be and -
"what people expect is a show god-dammit!"
"I never did expect nothing from you Ike but - a little respect."
She's fly, alright now, high rolling, high stepping, got the power in her and knowing the man done wrong but that man aint nothing without her and that's right, she's got the power now.
Or maybe she was just telling herself that - even as Ike's voice comes smoothing through the speakers like a cartoon wolf from the 1940s, "Well I aint YOUR bunny" she told him, but that was early on - and he was hard for the working - fire a girl out on her fanny for a flat note; "Hell if it's good enough for JB, we gotta have discipline and we want a sharp band ready to pick up and play - I mean PLAY, can you get to that?"
Even as Ike's voice loses itself in the mix and he's a ghostly stagger lee - best give that man a wide berth, just keep walking, he aint no good. Cept when he's pleading up from the quilted flooring of the bathroom and the stuff he took done make his spit go yellow.
And someone put their fist through the mirror and she's looking at all the tiny broken faces of herself and she knows the truth of what it's telling her - magic mirror like the story says.
And anyone who's actually had a relationship cannot listen to this stuff without wincing, without feeling the same longing, the same delirium, desire, guilt and feeling for the characters in the drama even at their evilest, or their most zoned - and there's always another number coming up gonna make you dance your blues away...
"That's right I'm talking musical hypnosis honey - can't get no doctor gonna help you keep from dancing."
And the studio throbbing like his temples as the motel walls are too thin and he's hoping no-one from the band has gone and aggravated the cop out there - they got enough troubles without another pig-iron joke come messing up their -
and what he's thinking is - if I can just find me a good girl singer someone strong (but not too strong) and then the last piece of the jigsaw will fall right and the picture - the big prize - and all of it will be his and he's smooth like a comb through well greased hair and slick too and he's moving out onto the stage and his guitar is whipping up like a snake escaping a basket and fierce, she's real fierce and she's a girl in the audience and she's watching close and hard and hot and her name is Tina.
"You wanna breathe get back in the motel god-dammit -"
"Got all the air we need in there, that's why they call this place the oxygen tent."
"Oh really?"
And the wired laughter of the band and their flunkies and their attitude and the nervous eyes of the man behind the counter. And maybe that's a cop lounging in the back there too...
"Where are we again - pig-iron Illinois or some shit? "
"Now sir I don't take kindly on that - just askin' politely just" -
"Hurry up and sign the register Ike"
"She always like that?"
"Aint that the damn truth - done signed a registrEE like lightning - I tell you boys you aint like to argue with that fine girl, got the devil in her -"
But then everyone shakes so bad when the qualudes start kicking in, smothering everything down into the stale pillow of 1975 and there's more motels, more more more motels, more music - more haunted, frightened, fierce, angry, strutting, begging, gloating, love broken, sexually dangerous music .
"You keep racking up the hits like this people gonna be checking your arms haw haw!",
"Shut up Joe" and her ams in the long sleeve blouse are blue black bruised and hidden and anyway Joe "don't know a hit from his ass - aint that Bible? Everyone thinking we got hits when we KNOWS we had no bite o'no cherry since that wise-ass whitey Spector put the hex on us and bad. Wall of sound? Someone should drive that fucker into one - hell, maybe someday I'll do it myself!"
"Ah c'mon honey, we just needs to get some sleep - I need -"
"You? You need? What I need is for - goddamn it's 1965 and they aint got radios fit for a dog to dance to!" And the screech of the frequency raging through the transistor into the motel - and hell if it aint the future again and "I can pick up the damn aliens on this thing and you'd better believe it!" The gold radio screeching and whooping like the moog on Baby Get It On, you hearing that?
"Man, you're listening to aliens and - you're really OUT there y'know?"
"Out there? What' you mean out there - go tell it to that jive ass Sly Stone, wouldn't even let me in the studio. And his dog, you seen that dog right? Growling and jumping at the fence and... man, some punk oughta shoot that dog down - or shoot Sly maybe."
And that's Bolic studios - reality is on hold right now.
And I don't know who plays on all these tracks but if that rhythm player is Ike then he could make his instrument snap like a switch-blade and slam like a belt buckle and this much oppression aint no wonder what happened to the band. This is anything but easy listening. Kay got Paid , Joe got laid - well maybe so, but it aint really likely to turn out fine and is that Keith Richards hell no, that's Tina singing tracks with voices like I aint ever heard her use before, none of the usual stage flash musical front - but soft and pretty, and another so deep and wiry and raw and sorrowful - each voice different and each voice just one more revelation hidden in this collection - but all the same just one more layer to the musical psycho-drama, where no/one is innocent and nothing is what it seems and no voice you hear is entirely natural - everything jazzed up in the talk of the times - and being what they were expected to be and -
"what people expect is a show god-dammit!"
"I never did expect nothing from you Ike but - a little respect."
She's fly, alright now, high rolling, high stepping, got the power in her and knowing the man done wrong but that man aint nothing without her and that's right, she's got the power now.
Or maybe she was just telling herself that - even as Ike's voice comes smoothing through the speakers like a cartoon wolf from the 1940s, "Well I aint YOUR bunny" she told him, but that was early on - and he was hard for the working - fire a girl out on her fanny for a flat note; "Hell if it's good enough for JB, we gotta have discipline and we want a sharp band ready to pick up and play - I mean PLAY, can you get to that?"
Even as Ike's voice loses itself in the mix and he's a ghostly stagger lee - best give that man a wide berth, just keep walking, he aint no good. Cept when he's pleading up from the quilted flooring of the bathroom and the stuff he took done make his spit go yellow.
And someone put their fist through the mirror and she's looking at all the tiny broken faces of herself and she knows the truth of what it's telling her - magic mirror like the story says.
And anyone who's actually had a relationship cannot listen to this stuff without wincing, without feeling the same longing, the same delirium, desire, guilt and feeling for the characters in the drama even at their evilest, or their most zoned - and there's always another number coming up gonna make you dance your blues away...
"That's right I'm talking musical hypnosis honey - can't get no doctor gonna help you keep from dancing."
And the studio throbbing like his temples as the motel walls are too thin and he's hoping no-one from the band has gone and aggravated the cop out there - they got enough troubles without another pig-iron joke come messing up their -
and what he's thinking is - if I can just find me a good girl singer someone strong (but not too strong) and then the last piece of the jigsaw will fall right and the picture - the big prize - and all of it will be his and he's smooth like a comb through well greased hair and slick too and he's moving out onto the stage and his guitar is whipping up like a snake escaping a basket and fierce, she's real fierce and she's a girl in the audience and she's watching close and hard and hot and her name is Tina.