1
My internist says if I do what he says, I will never die of a heart attack. Actually, he sent me to a heart specialist, because my cholesterol number is insane. This doctor, Sandra Fallon, gets this in-depth test and then creates a program for the individual. I take 5 mg of Crestor every day. She says upping the dose would not improve my condition. Of course I take other things she's prescribed, but at my last test, I had a high particle number. I was just retested last week, I'm going to see Fallon next week, you see I don't want to die of a heart attack.
I went for that scan when I first saw her, where they uncover how much plaque you have in your heart. I was in the fortieth percentile. As in, at my age, sixty percent of the people have more plaque, forty percent less. Freaked me out, my internist had to talk me down from the ledge. You think you're perfect, but you're not. Now I hew to a strict diet of no rice, no bread, no potatoes, no pizza...my nutritionist calls rice "filler food." I asked her about all the people my age I see eating fries and...she said they were going to DIE!
Not everybody, of course. But look at David Letterman and Bill Clinton, they had heart problems and they got scared straight. No one is forever and you want to increase your odds.
As for smoking and emphysema...I gave up smoking at five. My mother was an occasional smoker, I saw a lit cigarette in the ashtray, I asked her for a hit and she said SURE! So I took one puff and that cured me. That's right, I never wanted to look cool in high school, hell, I never WAS cool. So when I see youngsters puffing today I shake my head...who are you rebelling against, yourself?
2
Rock stars die young, or as Joe Walsh puts it, the challenge is staying alive, not dying. So whenever I see a rock star pass before his or her time, I wait for the cause. Too often it's "misadventure," a euphemism for O.D.'ing. Some of your favorite rockers are hooked on drugs. Who would have thought Tom Petty would get hooked on heroin long after his initial success? As far as the fentanyl that killed him...I ain't taking anything my doctor ain't prescribing. That may make me a nerd, but if you buy pills on the net, on the street, you never truly know what's in them. Another reason I quit smoking dope in the seventies. Sometimes I'd get fantastically high and wonder...WHAT'S IN THIS? There was no way of knowing.
Which is all to day, when I read that Ric Ocasek died, I held my breath until the cause was released.
Heart disease and emphysema.
3
Now the 1970s were an era of platinum sales and sold out arenas. But there started to be a backlash, against what was labeled "corporate rock." I purchased the Ramones' "Rocket To Russia," because I loved "Rockaway Beach." But it wasn't until Joey Ramone died, back in 2001, that the band was acknowledged for the breakthrough they were. The Sex Pistols, with their one LP, got most of the attention in the mainstream. And now three of the four original members are dead, they cannot bask in the Ramones' newfound glory.
But after the Ramones, there came a new sound, "New Wave." Can't tell you exactly what it sounded like, it was a catch-all for those not members, nor influenced by their progenitors, the legendary classic rock acts and the virtuosos in bands like Yes and ELP. Was Graham Parker new wave? At first he was considered so. Certainly Elvis Costello. And despite Costello's legendary appearance on SNL, most people were unaware of the new sound, which came primarily out of England, there was a slew of bands if you were a fan, but they weren't even played on AOR radio, they were too edgy, you needed free format outlets, like the original KROQ, before it was the tight-playlisted ROQ of the 80s.
Now at this point, record stores were religious temples. Chains littered the landscape, certainly in L.A. We not only had Tower, but the Wherehouse and Licorice Pizza and then Music Plus, where all records were always discounted. But if you were a true fan, you went to the indie shops. Aron's in West Hollywood, Rhino on Westwood Boulevard, my favorite Grammy 'n Granny on Gayley in Westwood. Because Grammy 'n Granny had the best promos. And I was one of their best customers, so they held the promos for me!
And when I walked in the clerks would talk to me about the new releases. There was a bin right in front of the store, and therein one day I saw the Cars' debut LP.
It turned me off. If you don't put yourself on the cover...
And I wasn't turned on by the woman in the picture, maybe she just wasn't my type, this did not look like a serious band, and then I heard them.
4
My girlfriend's parents were staying at La Costa. We drove down for the day. And on the way back, it was either KMET or KLOS, every Sunday night they'd play the complete side of an album. The industry hated it, this was the heyday of taping. But if you were a fan....
My BMW 2002 had a Blaupunkt in the dash and two rear deck mounted speakers. This was before the head unit was stolen and I upgraded, but even that setup pumped out a ton of sound. And the deejay gave a long intro and then dropped the needle.
Now the track was entitled "Good Times Roll," which was hard to fathom, since this was the moniker of a classic. But when the sound started pumping out of the speakers, this was a whole new kind of good times.
It sounded new. Infectious. It was loud without being in your face. I got it immediately. And that's oh-so-rare.
"Let them leave you up in the air
Let them brush your rock and roll hair
Let the good times roll"
Too much has been made of the Cars' lyrics, with totally different words, the tracks still would have hit, they were just that powerful. To what degree was that the result of Roy Thomas Baker's production...who knows? But he was a master, he'd done Queen.
But one thing was for sure, the band was in on the joke. They'd chosen the song's title intentionally. They wanted to have good times, but these were a new kind of good times. You could either get on board or not. But really, once you heard the sound you had no choice. I won't say it was like "I Want To Hold Your Hand," but on some level it was. There was no turning back, you got excited. This sound opened the channel for all kinds of new acts. And one thing's for sure, you had to turn it UP! And when you did, the good times played in your head.
Then came "My Best Friend's Girl," which at first hearkened back to the early sixties in sound, the track was totally different from "Good Times Roll"...and then this teenish song went through changes and had a great melody and...it wasn't the girl of the sixties, she had the nuclear boots, he wasn't pining for her, he knew he no longer had a chance, he was just telling the story, and pissed that she was now together with his friend. And there was even a guitar solo...who created this elixir of a mish-mash?
Even catchier was the third cut, "Just What I Needed." This was straight down the middle, it was an obvious hit, it was old, yet new. The Cars had what today's act don't, they knew how to meld sound, changes and a chorus to make a hit. You only had to hear "Just What I Needed" once. And, once again, they weren't feeding us pabulum. These were the cool kids commenting on what was going on, coming from the future back to the present.
The very next day I went back to Grammy 'n Granny. They still had two promo copies, this was before the almost instantaneous buzz began. I brought the album home and played the second side.
"You're All I've Got Tonight" was as catchy, as much of a hit as "Just What I Needed."
Even better was "Bye Bye Love." It was more intimate, akin to "I Want To Tell You" on "Revolver," with its descending riff. But even better was the way Ric uttered the words in the chorus..."bye, bye, love," after the bridge, they weren't quite sotto voce, but somehow less in your face than what had come before.
And then the album cut, "Moving In Stereo," the longest cut on the LP at 4:46, it wasn't made for the hit parade, but your bedroom, it was the song you ended up playing the most once you'd played the album a dozen times or so.
The Cars went from nobodies to A-list stars almost immediately. From nowhere to part of the firmament.
I bought the second LP, "Candy-O," the day it was released in the spring of '79. I just had to.
With the Vargas cover, I now understood the aesthetic, I got the cover of the debut.
You dropped the needle and you heard..."Let's Go."
The synth line alone puts the track over the top. The song was a tear, you went from zero to seventy instantly. And the concept was so rock and roll...LET'S GO! Take chances, explore the world, act, don't think. She likes the nightlife, take her hand and GO OUT!
But my favorite cut on "Candy-O" was "It's All I Can Do." It was so sweet, both in sound and message. It was a new piece in the puzzle.
"It's all I can do
To keep waiting for you
It's all I can do
It's all I can do"
How many times have you been in this situation? You're tapped, you've given it your all, it's their move.
And, once again, that synth!
Everything was so right. It's like they perfected it and pushed the faders up to drive your head just shy of explosion.
But, once again, it was the longest track, the album track, this time the very last cut, that got under my skin, that I kept playing.
Certain words stuck out..."uranium lover." The nuclear threat was emotionally greatest in the early sixties, this was almost an anachronism.
And the "museum directors"? How did this fit in?
But one thing's for sure, the chorus became part of your DNA.
"She's a lot like you
The dangerous type
Oh, she's a lot like you
Come on and hold me tight"
Girls go for bad boys. But boys go for bad girls. They ogle them, they're fearful of interacting, they let them wrap them around their little fingers...before the girls move on.
"Dangerous Type" was a mental movie.
I'd love to tell you I loved "Panorama," but I didn't. It never revealed itself to me. And then I gave up. Each LP was getting worse. After three, I was done.
But "Shake It Up" was a return to form. I heard "Since You're Gone" all over the radio, same deal with "Shake It Up." But they were no longer my band, I'd ceded them to the masses, it was the same act, I'd seen the trick, now the band seemed to be playing to the audience. And after four albums in four years, the Cars seemed to know this too. So they waited two and a half years to release their next, "Heartbeat City," made with Robert John "Mutt" Lange, who we'd first seen credited on those Graham Parker LPs, as well as City Boys', and then he'd done "Back In Black" and the Def Leppard LPs and was the easy choice for best producer in the world, the one who'd come through, who'd deliver, didn't he rescue Foreigner from the dead, endless repetition?
I don't have to laud "Heartbeat City," you saw the singles on MTV when everybody was watching, the Cars were part of the firmament, they'd come back and conquered.
The follow-up, without Mutt, produced by Ric and Greg Hawkes, was almost an afterthought, times had seemingly surpassed the Cars. The band broke up, but Ric Ocasek stayed. He produced LPs, he was married to a supermodel, he never faded away, he was always in the conversation, until he died.
3
The shock was that he was 75. He didn't make it just after puberty. He'd paid his dues, that's why the Cars could emerge fully-formed, the players had so much experience the band's expertise was easy to showcase.
Now the strange thing is if you play the Cars' records today...you're shocked, too much old stuff you have to apologize for, you wonder why you once liked it, but not this music, it sounds as fresh as '78, '84, as a matter of fact it sounds even better. Radio always muffled the lyrics, now they stand out and their wisdom and insight and humor stick out. But even better is that sound, an amalgamation of the old and new filtered through a hit record sensibility, the Cars didn't want to stretch out and noodle, they wanted to get it right, in a compact fashion, anything unnecessary was excised.
Now unlike Eddie Money Ric Ocasek wasn't friends with everybody, he wasn't the life of the party, he suffered no fools, he spoke through his music, that was enough, it was less emotion than intellect, the tracks were all you got, the band members were not individual stars, all you got was this vision, unique in the landscape, direct and oftentimes ironic, it kept you guessing, but the music did not.
So what we're left with is not stories so much as the impact of the sound, which was indelible then...
And still is.
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