San Diego Serenade

Q: What is "Hail, and Farewell Gothenburg?"
A: The sequel to Sweden, never released.

That's always been an intriguing little exchange from the FAQ on the Mountain Goats website. Ah, the fabled "Lost album." There is no better way to get peoples minds a-racing and anticipations dreadfully out of wack. I still remember reading a Beatles biography in ninth grade where the author breathlessly wrote about some vaulted tapes that only he had ever heard, but that were so mind blowingly great that the reader, the simple 15 year old wanting to learn about the Beatles, could not even look at them, lest he wind up like the nazi's upon opening the ark of covenant, and that would be if he was lucky.

Who Cares?

Of course, those tapes turned up on the Anthology series, and later on Let It Be...Naked and nobody gave a damn. Distinguishing between similar sounding takes of a song and deciding which one is "Best" (which is never the released one that you've heard) is a passion enjoyed solely by the joyless elitists. Admitedly, sometimes a reworking of a song can completely change the animal. Bob Dylan's Idiot Wind has three distinct versions, all which change and enhance different emotions. Idiot Wind on Blood On The Tracks is not the same song as the tremendous rocked out Idiot Wind performed live on Hard Rain. The more quiet, reserved, organ tinged version of Idiot Wind from the vaulted Blood On The Tracks NY Sessions pushes the lyrical venom that was so apparent in the live version to the back, leaving mainly the singers pain audible, and is the rare vaulted material that truly is a completely different song. But usually you just get something where the band tried one take where they did "La's" instead of "Na's" on Hey Jude.

Look at this watch...You won't believe what this thing can do...

Of course, an entire unreleased album is a very different situation. Though they just as rarely ever live up to the hype, they are often more satisfying and a more complete vision than the hours of outtakes and alternative versions that even the most pedestrian bands accumulate. Recently, the above Mountain Goats album, Hail and Farewell, Gothenburg recently surfaced on the internet. It had long been rumored to only exist on a single cassette tape, if at all. Evidently, it inspires a good deal of emotion and devotion (a little E & D never hurt anybody) in Mountain Goats fans. Somebody posted it at this SendSpace site. For a casual fan, I think it's hard to tell what distinguishes it from other early Mountain Goats recordings, but the song "Crane" stood out to me as a highlight during the first listen. The band is coming to the Casbah on June 15th, and have recently released a new EP.

And as one long lost album finally surfaces, another one prepares hints that it may do so soon, as Axl Rose announced today. It's hard to say what the best strategy would be for Axl regarding Chinese Democracy. As more and more people come of age musically that have never lived in a world where Guns n Roses has existed as a band, the possibility of them becoming a cross-generational punchline grows greater and greater. I would advise him to shelve everything for two more decades, just to avoid the awkward middle aged stage that claims all men except maybe Jack Nicholson, and emerge when he's in his "Cool old guy" stage, where its considered positive if you get really fat. As far as the new album goes, I think that the best Axl is going to get from people will be the damning faint praise of "It's not as bad as you'd think."

But in the back of my mind will always be this article that Kurt Loder wrote in January, 2001 after the new lineup had played Rock In Rio. I was a sophomore in college, with the above poster of Rose on my bedroom wall, and when I read lines such as:

"a tribe of burly security guards began sweeping away un-credentialed idlers with a snarling insistence rarely seen since the heyday of such preshow prima donnas as Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones.

played with a passion and precision that's unlikely to be matched in any other quarter anytime soon.

he remains one of the great can't-take-your-eyes-off-him rock stars, twirling back and forth across the stage...pausing only to lean back and emit a proverbial banshee wail"

I wanted to believe. Loder ended by tell us to "pray for a tour." Now it appears we may get yet another one from the new lineup (I was at the last tour show in Philly, where Axl cancelled and the fans rioted. I left quickly.) I pray more that Axl is able to make one last contribution to the rock canon before he packs it in. A contribution, not a footnote.