Rant-Rave-Revue: Gene Clark, Gene Clark (White Light) [2008 Vinyl Reissue]

Gene Clark

Gene Clark/White Light

4 Men With Beards

Producer(s): Jesse Ed Davis for Washita Productions

Street Date: 1971

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Gene Clark. You may know him as the bowl-cutted guy in the grainy YouTube videos, playing the tambourine in the middle of one of the greatest ’60s bands—the Byrds—or as the lonesome, country-folk solo artist that followed after his early exit from the band. Or, you may have no idea who the guy is at all. Gene who? you might say, looking at me like I have three heads and no noticeable taste in music (some readers may think this already; I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you).

Anyhow, I’ve decided to write my second blog of the New Year (I realize it’s already April; Josh Rouse took a lot out of me, OK?), and in this fascinating twist, I’m going to be reviewing a 2008 vinyl reissue of the 1971 “classic” Gene Clark solo album entitled Gene Clark (at least on the cover of the album), but known to most of the established rock and roll community as White Light (also a name of a song on the album).

(Note: This is not to be confused with the Velvet Underground “classic” White Light/White Heat or the mid-199os Social Distortion revival disc White Light, White Heat, White Trash.)

I was inspired to write this by two separate events, which I’d like to relate in the next few paragraphs.

First, on my 30th birthday, a friend who was “interning” (that phrase is used loosely these days, because most of the time, companies use it to exploit young professionals like my friend) and really, really enjoying the work he was doing at a record/CD distribution company here in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, gave me a copy of Gene Clark/White Light as a gift. He brought it in that lovely, square, brown paper bag that vinyl record stores will give you to stow away your new albums, and I remember opening it and wondering, well, what the hell is this? On the front upper righthand corner is written, in white letters, “Gene Clark,” and about halfway down and not dead center but more like right of dead center, is this picture of a silhouetted gentleman sitting directly in front of a big orange-red sun. (I also remember thinking that it looked like it could be a contented fellow on a toilet, sitting in front of the sun and taking a giant dump at, like, 6 a.m., but I knew what people would say if I relayed that message to any sane person.)

Now, the back of the album was an altogether different idea—there he is, Gene Clark, wearing what appears to be a brown leather jacket or possibly a red cowboy shirt, just eerily staring out of this window (I know it’s a window, because you can see the white silken shades and the reflection of the tall pines in the background—what he’s actually looking at). It’s an absolutely amazing picture. It reminds me of that famous Spanish masterpiece Las Meninas, which hangs in the Prado art museum in Madrid. Las Meninas is this mind-twisting portrait of a court portrait-painter painting a picture of the royal family—but the portrait’s audience (us) is literally in front of the picture (i.e. with the king and queen, whose portraits are being painted). This gaggle of crazy handmaidens and dogs and midgets and such are standing in the foreground of the portrait, obviously there to cheer on the king and queen, who no doubt have been sitting there for hours straight in one pose and are probably getting antsy. And (I’m doing this from memory, so it may be totally wrong) to the left of the foreground is the artist looking, well, like an artist, trying to decipher how best to capture the king and queen—without fucking it up too bad and getting his head cut off and put on a pike. All of that reminds me of this album’s back cover. Except that in this one, it’s sort of a shot of anti-happiness. Gene’s eyes look kind yet tired. He looks like he’s been through a lot to get on the other side of that picture window. And his face is literally blue (not sure if it’s how the photo was exposed or if it’s the reissue’s photo quality, but it’s definitely blue). This picture is a long time (yet not that long) removed from that bowl-cutted youngster tapping that tambourine in time for the Byrds. I’m not sure whether to be fascinated, scared or get caught up in that sadness trapped in his eyes. It’s just the back cover of the album—it can’t do me in.

The second thing that led me to review this album is this book by John Einarson I’m reading called Mr. Tambourine Man: The Life and Legacy of the Byrds’ Gene Clark. It is both journalistic and Gene Clark–fan crazy, so it’s a decent read. It helps that Einarson is an “expert” on this era of rock and roll, too, because he puts a lot of the book into perspective. “This was cool at the time, so this is why it sounds this way” sort of stuff. I recommend it to anyone who’s obsessed with the Byrds like I am.

So given that there were these two solid reasons, I decided that, although the Rant Rave Revue usually does modern-era albums or pre-releases, it would be worth it to start reviewing ages-old vinyl albums and things like that, which make their way into my collection. So without further adieu, here’s my RRR for Gene Clark/White Light:

First Impression(s):

“The Virgin” is the lead song, and it’s not at all what I expect, based on the grim cover treatments—this is a song of life, with a little bit of Grateful Dead and a little bit of Bob Dylan flowing through its veins. I like the harmonica intro/solo, but this always leads me to think: Not going to sell. The harmonica has been one of those instruments that makes its way into songs that do not want to be on mass-market radio—and maybe that was the idea, or it was a subconscious thing. I just noticed at the end that the bass has a nice Motown sort of feel to it, when all the instruments drop away.

“With Tomorrow” is up next, and this is more of what I’d expect on an album with such depressing imagery on its back cover. This is straight singer-songwriter acoustic folk. Like the first song, Gene’s voice sounds amazing. It sounds 100 percent more mature and full-bodied than his days with The Byrds. I also notice that this is a dual-songwriting credit with Jesse Ed Davis. There’s nothing else on this track except Gene and acoustic guitar. Perfect.

“White Light,” or what everyone seems to call this album, is the third track. More harmonica, more mysterious happiness shining through and possibly some Beatles nods (maybe to Rubber Soul, with that downward scale in the melody). Absolutely no electric instruments, save possibly the bass, which is aptly holding things together not super far down on the mix. Another thing I haven’t mentioned is the lyrics: They’re just so full of constant imagery and, well, words, which might be hard to pick up in the first listen. This is an album that is crying out for multiple spins. I like that the harmonica and “lead” acoustic guitar share this sort of New Orleans Zydeco thing in the outro/intro.

“Because of You” is up next. Not so sure about the organ and the percussion. It seems a little dated. Wow, the lyrics and melody Gene’s singing are just so much better than the arrangement. I wonder what it would sound like if you replaced the organ/campy percussion with just a grand piano or something, and just Gene? That, I think, could be a masterpiece. This also has a Dylan-esque structure to it, but not the mouthful-of-words one from Bringing It All Back Home-era stuff. This sounds like later Dylan. Nashville Skyline Dylan? And it’s interesting, because around that time, Dylan’s voice takes on this Levon Helm-like sound to it, and you’re like, who is this impostor? But it’s Dylan just the same. I didn’t have as much a visceral reaction to the different timbre of Gene’s voice here, but it’s definitely a changed thing.

“One In a Hundred.” Now this is a great tune. Love that slide guitar, which I gather is Jesse Ed Davis. It has a Southern flavor to it—a barbecued beat, too. The melody is very Byrds-ian but is much more mature. It’s not about losing a girl or missing a girl. This has adult themes in it. The percussion is held back, with that tambourine in rhythm in the background: signature Gene Clark. Gaudy percussion pisses me off, and this is not gaudy at all. Okay, here comes a chorus of female or children’s voices—sort of like that chorus that comes in at the end of the Dead’s “Ripple.” Yeah, just nice and light.

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Note: I just got up and flipped over the record. This leads me to deep thought about the listening experience of old. I recently read a fantastic 33 1/3 book about Radiohead’s OK Computer, which was written by a British music professor (as far as I can remember), and he spent a quarter to half of the tiny book talking about the music experience, and how it’s changed drastically since the days of vinyl LPs. (He was arguing that OK Computer was one of those first “concept” albums of the modern era, where you could listen all the way through, and it hadn’t been “written” in a sense for the two-sided vinyl LP: i.e. two sides of 20 minutes, or whatever the golden mean is for vinyl. Fans, the world over, have deemed the album one of the best in history.) With the advent of CDs, listeners could pick and choose much more readily the tracks that they’d want to listen to on an album—you know, by hitting skip on their Hi-Fi’s remote or on the actual machine itself. Sure, they could also listen to the CD all the way through, too, without (for lack of better words) skipping a beat, and by G-d, that’s pretty amazing if you think about it. That minute or so that it took me to get up out of my kitchen chair, walk to the record player and turn this record over, could have been at least a minute on a CD that I was spending enjoying the hell out of that little choral piece at the end of “One In a Hundred,” then onto the next song, without (again for lack of better words) skipping a beat. There’s an inherent stress involved in listening to an LP, I think, that probably didn’t exist back then. It’s that notion that you’re going to have to, at some point, whether it be 20 minutes or 25 minutes, flip that record. You’re going to have to go out of your way to get to that other side of music. You’re going to have to work for it. Work hard, I suppose. And what that means is you’re going to have to break the thought process you had about the album you were listening to, stand up, flip over the physical album, those thoughts put on hold (“paused,” I guess) and then sit back down and press your inner “play” button again and go back to what you were doing. Now that’s a process! Well, here comes side B of this album:

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“Spanish Guitar” doesn’t sound like Spanish guitar work at all. This sounds like The Byrds. Not sure if that’s a 12-string guitar in there, or just an interestingly-miked 6-string. This sounds like a Gene Clark song of yore, but it’s again wholly mature compared to the “Here Without You”-type song from The Byrds era. This is not commercial stuff at all, but it’s really, really pretty, which goes a long way. So the Spanish guitar is the vessel of music-making—in Gene’s mind. That’s what he seems to be saying. Is it a classical guitar? Is it just the sound of a Spanish guitar (Mexican or Spain Spanish)? Clark seems to be saying that solo acoustic guitar is a freeing experience. Maybe this is a kiss off to his former bandmates in The Byrds. He’s saying, “I dare you to make an album like this, free of electric guitars and 12-string Rickenbackers. I dare you. You might find that it’s exactly what you always wanted.”

“Where My Love Lies Asleep.” That title in and of itself sounds like Dylan. Or the name of a painting. More of that noncommercial harmonica. It’s name is the first line of the song, which leads me to believe that Clark either didn’t know what to call this song, or this was a song that just came from somewhere mystical—and it just sort of wrote itself. I think the bass is a little too much in the mix. It might be nice to hear a mix without bass on this song. It strikes me as a percussion-less song, with a misplaced bassline. Do I hear some strings? Maybe really low in the mix? Or is that some sort of wind instrument? There is one less track on this side than side A, and that leads me to believe that these songs are going to feel “longer.” They’re all four-plus minutes. This is not pop, by any means, but I can only imagine what Gene was thinking when this was released. Will they respond to it? (And they didn’t, really.)

“Tears of Rage.” Now this is a Dylan cover. And it was covered aptly by The Band quite awhile earlier than this album, sung heartbreakingly (I think by Rick Danko on lead) on Big Pink. This is a much more straightforward cover, but he speeds up the lyrics in a few phrases, which gives it a Gene Clark feel. I like the organ in this mix a lot more than in that previous track. It feels like it belongs here. I also like the percussion. Not gaudy at all. Bass is way low in the mix, too. Clark sings straight through the chorus, whereas The Band really wring every last tear out of the handkerchief on their version. Sure, they also take it a lot slower, but I like this tempo.

“1975.” I wonder what this one’s about? It feels like a George Harrison song. Like a song that should end an album. Maybe this is one of those “hopeful for the future” songs. Gene is looking forward. Remember, this album came out in 1971, so he’s thinking about the long run here. He’s hoping that the future will hold great things for him—or at least happiness. He’s talking about his family. He’s talking about places he’s “never been before.” He’s talking about casting your gaze ahead. I gather that, in hindsight, this was not exactly how 1975 turned out for Gene. Maybe this is one of those songs that is a false harbinger—even though the narrator is singing about good things to come, he knows deep in his heart that it’s not going to turn out this way. He knows that it’s going to be more of the same sorrow. Gene Clark didn’t have the career he wanted for many different reasons, and it’s a shame it turned out the way it did (in many ways). The mix of this song sort of abruptly gets thrown into a fade out, and I’m now sitting here writing in silence (the only thing that I can hear is the hum of the refrigerator and the softly falling rain outside).

That’s it.

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Conclusion(s): This is a great album, certainly. There are parts of it that feel a little dated, and sure, if I were the producer or the music director, I would tweak a few things here and there (as noted), but that would probably bring me the ire of thousands of Gene Clark fans, who tout this as one of his strongest recorded works. I think this is the sound of a songwriter in transition; certainly if you get a chance to listen to his, at times, gaudy but mostly fantastic project No Other, you’ll know what I mean by “transition.” I think it’s funny that this one, at least in the liner notes for No Other, is listed as his first solo album. The 1967 album Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers is really his first solo work, and is, well, good in as many ways as it’s bad. Some of the songwriting is still in the vein of those early Byrds records—immature, at best. But this, if you want to call it his first real solo record, is mature stuff. Not for the pop-loving, screaming-girl crowds. This is laid back, joint-rolling, 1970s folk stuff (if you’re not a pot smoker, like me, I’d suggest maybe a nice bourbon or a single-malt Scotch; or a cup of tea). It’s an album you have to open your ears to listen, and as I mentioned in my stream-of-consciousness middle section, it’s also an album you should listen to multiple times before adding it back to your huddled vinyl masses. Sure, it’s sort of tedious to spin multiple times on vinyl, because that means you’ll have to break your concentration on it half of the times you listen to it all the way through, because you’ll have to get up and turn it over. But …

I’ll say this: If you’re a fan of the vinyl “experience” and don’t mind brain multitasking, you should pick this one up immediately. If you’re of the group of modern folk-loving masses that can’t be bothered to keep getting up out of your kitchen chair (or hell, you might have a physical excuse or a note from your doctor), you would be much more engaged by this album if you simply found a digital or CD version of it.

Great stuff, either way, though.

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