PHOTOS: RICHIE DOWNS | I won’t deny it; I’ve been in love with Ian Hunter since I was 14. Since the first time I heard Mott the Hoople’s “All the Young Dudes,” in fact. I played the hell out of that song, listened to it again and again, and I still love it every bit as much as I did the first time I heard it. And that’s all I have to say about that, except that I want it to be duly noted that I’ll be really truly pissed, as in sit up in my coffin swinging pissed, if it isn’t played at my wake. And played very loud at that. I bet it’ll sound great on church organ.
Ian Hunter is a real rarity in so far as he is still making vital music despite the fact that he’s 75. Think about that for a moment. At 75 my maternal grandfather was collecting and freeze-drying stool samples (mostly but not all his own) as a hobby. Meanwhile, my paternal grandfather was convinced that Adolf Hitler was alive and well and living in his bedroom closet. Closer to home, the live Dylan (almost an oxymoron at this point) sounds like a frog who has just gotten his tonsils taken out, while Mick Jagger makes a geriatric fool of himself every time he struts about on stage like Mike the Headless Chicken.
But Hunter has managed to age gracefully without going the adult-contemporary route or just trotting out the oldies. He’s still rocking like he means it because he does mean it, and is still writing new songs that actually matter because he lives and breathes rock’n’roll, has ever since the first time he heard Little Richard.
Ian Hunter the former glam rocker never made a very good glam rocker, because at heart he was a down-to-earth punter. He never could have played the polymorphous perverse rock’n’roll Martian like David Bowie or played the teen idol card like Marc Bolan. As for his band, Mott the Hoople, they always looked a bit ridiculous in their glam finery, like factory workers on Halloween. In short, Hunter outlived glam because he wasn’t at all about fashion but was an ordinary earthling whose real talent was for making great music, first with Mott the Hoople and then as a solo artist working with the late, great Mick Ronson and some other excellent collaborators.
The platform boots are history, but Hunter still has his trademark look—dark shades and that great mane of curly hair of his—both of which I was fortunate enough to finally see in the flesh on Sunday, November 2 at The Hamilton in Washington, D.C.
Hunter’s career has had its ups and downs, and some of his LPs are much better than others, but only rarely has he compromised by cleaving himself to the present trends, largely I think because he’s that rarest of all items, a man who takes his rock’n’roll history seriously. At heart he still pledges allegiance to Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, and he always will. And what this has meant is that he has refused to ally himself with the new and the chic, whatever it may be. He never went New Wave or rockabilly or punk or electronic; he’s far too happy working from the basic rock template, and has managed over the years to produce scads of songs that demonstrate that said template can still be used to produce miracles. “Long live rock,” sang the Who, “Be it dead or alive.” Such an idea would never occur to Hunter. He’s a rocker through and through; even more of a rocker, as it turns out, than his hero Jerry Lee Lewis, who has been known to record the occasional country LP. To sum up before we get to the show proper, Ian Hunter is a great figure because he knows what he wants and he knows how to get it, namely by driving an electric guitar through the center of your skull and giving it his motherfucking all.
I’m happy to report that for once I actually caught the opening act, or part of it, and lady luck was on my side because it was the husband-wife duo of Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby. The criminally underrated twosome performed a few of the highlights from their three LPs, including the wonderfully psychedelic “The Downside of Being a Fuck-Up” (an insta-classic) as well the mesmerizing “Another Drive-in Saturday,” which is not to be confused with the Bowie standard but which addresses the glam years, name-dropping “All the Young Dudes” in the process. They both told some good stories, Rigby slamming her hometown of Pittsburgh while Wreckless Eric regaled the audience with tall-tales about his upbringing in an England subject to food rationing, swearing at one point he was reduced to eating coal. The duo naturally played the Wreckless One’s 1977 classic, “(I’d Go the) Whole Wide World,” and Rigby sang her wonderful Ramones homage “Dancing With Joey Ramone” as well as the title track of her 2003 solo album, Till the Wheels Fall Off. They have a wonderfully connubial stage rapport, and were obviously having fun, and made a big, happy din, so big and so happy in fact that I didn’t even notice the lack of a full band. Great stuff.
As for Ian Hunter and the Rant Band (amongst whose members are former Wings drummer Steve Holley and former Bongos guitarist Jim Mastro), they rocked the Hamilton, a ritzy supper club where you could masticate flank steak salad while enjoying the show and rattle the cutlery in lieu of applause. It hardly the environment for a young audience, and I don’t think I saw a single human under the age of 30. It made me wonder what children are being taught in school these days. Is Mott the Hoople even on the curriculum? Is there a single teen out there who can explicate the lines, “You ain’t the nazz/You’re just a buzz/Some kinda temporary”? I believe it was Spengler who said that a civilization that forgets Ian Hunter is a civilization in decline, and I believe it.
The Rant Band opened with the relatively obscure “I’m the Teacher,” a hard rocker featuring a great opening guitar riff and a big instrumental passage. Hunter was in good voice—a little rough around the ages, but at 75 he can still take his voice places much younger singers can’t. I’d have preferred a more recognizable opener, but hey, that’s rock’n’roll for you—you lays down your monies and you gets what you get. Follow-up “Once Bitten, Twice Shy”—which Hunter introduced by saying, “Hello hello hello hello”—was another hard rocker, and I’m pretty certain I saw a member of Great White in the audience, weeping over how much better Hunter’s version is than theirs. Hunter then hung a harmonica around his neck for “Something to Believe In,” a solid but rather bland (and distinctly Springsteenesque) exploration of deep metaphysical concerns vis a vis the human condition off 1996’s The Artful Dodger. He didn’t come to any conclusions, which I found a letdown, just as I found follow-up “Now Is the Time,” also off Artful Dodger, a letdown, for the same reason (general blandness) that left me so ambivalent about “Something to Believe In.” That said the backing vocals were great, as was the organ, and the song did build to a big and satisfying crescendo, which was nice.
“Boy,” a track from Hunter’s solo debut, followed, and it didn’t thrill me either. The melody didn’t give me a hard-on, and while the chorus was nice “Boy” went on and on, stopping and starting without really capturing the imagination, and overall it was simply too complicated a tune for its own good. That said, follow-up “Just the Way You Look Tonight” off Ian Hunter and the Rant Band’s excellent 2012 LP When I’m President was a raucous number featuring a sweet melody, some big piano, a nice guitar solo, and some wonderful harmonica by Hunter. It reminded me a bit of Springsteen too, but Hunter’s vocals were killer, and to sum up “Just the Way You Look Tonight” offers proof positive that Hunter isn’t just capable of producing decent new music, but excellent new music. Afterwards Hunter sat himself down at the piano and the band played a rip-roaring version of “Just Another Night,” one of the many dazzling tunes off Hunter’s 1979 LP You’re Never Alone with a Schizophrenic. True, the guitar work may not have been up to Mick Ronson standards, but “Just Another Night” is a classic rock’n’roller whose roots go back decades, and you can almost (if you shut your eyes and open your ears) hear Jerry Lee Lewis or Chuck Berry covering it.
Up next was one of my faves of the evening, the slow but magnificent “Standin’ in My Light.” Hunter’s voice was up to the task of singing this Dylanesque putdown of a song, with its great but simple chorus, “Move over/Cuz you’re standin’ in my light” and he threw everything he had into such great lines as, “You took my pictures from your walls/Ain’t gonna trade with the pain of the New York Dolls.” It was followed by the funky (was Hunter listening to Bowie’s Young Americans when he wrote it, I wonder) “All American Alien Boy,” which involved lots of speed singing on Hunter’s part and some cool backing vocals to boot. I missed the saxophones of the original, not to mention the female backing vocals, but this one must have been a bitch to arrange and I appreciate Hunter for giving it a go.
“Black Tears” opened on a big, blaring note, and then Hunter came in and sang a bit, before the song exploded in a chorus that rose to the stratosphere like a NASA space shuttle. The guitars were cranked higher than your average tweaker, and there was a Ronson-worthy solo to boot. And up and up it went, and it’s been years since any of Hunter’s contemporaries, with the exception of Neil Young, have produced anything as fiery as this Molotov cocktail of a tune. And things got better and better as the Rant Band segued into “All the Way to Memphis,” one of the best songs about life on the road ever written. Its trademark honky tonk piano and rip-roaring guitars tore along just the way they did when my friends and I used to crank it up on our way through Gettysburg, pot smoke streaming out the open car windows. A great guitar solo took it to its end, at which point Hunter sang, “All the way from Memphis,” after which the audience echoed the line, and if that sounds hokey it wasn’t, or no more hokey than the way I’ve seen audiences sing along with Mountain Goats’ “No Children” or Drive-By Trucker’s “Let There Be Rock.” Some songs you simply have to sing along with, you can’t help yourself.
“Flowers” from Hunter’s overlooked 2009 LP Man Overboard was a catchy midtempo number, which opened on a low key note and really caught fire on the chorus, on which Hunter sang, “Well give it up, give it up” (which the background vocalists would echo), before delivering the damning lines, “Sometimes flowers ain’t enough.” It included the great lines, “I can’t see God/The trees are in the way,” which made my night all by themselves, and was followed by the powerful “When I’m President,” in which Hunter throws his name into the ring while backed by a nifty opening guitar figure and one of the catchiest choruses to come our way in years. That the man wrote this tune in his seventies is a tribute to his faith in rock’n’roll, and his refusal to settle for the anodyne offerings that come our way from his contemporaries. I can’t say it enough; he’s a rocker, always has been and always will be, and I suspect he’ll still be turning out standout tunes in his grave.
The fierce “When I’m President” blew me away; the hushed ballad “Michael Picasso” made me cry. And I can count on one finger the number of artists who have ever made me cry at a live show. A tribute to the late Mick Ronson, “Michael Picasso” is perhaps the most touching song written by one man to another. Hunter calls Ronson “the spider with the platinum hair,” and asks, “How can I put into words what my heart feels/It’s the deepest thing when somebody you love dies.” I think I broke down when he said “good night” to his old friend, or maybe it was when he sang, “Heal me/Won’t you heal me,” to his old friend. Or it could be when he finally lifted his voice to the heavens and sang, “And we all sit in a room full of tears/On a windy day/And I looked out/But none of these words seemed right.” Goodnight Michael Picasso indeed.
Next up was “Ta Shunka Witco (Crazy Horse),” a history lesson about the great Oglala Lakota war leader who met General George Armstrong Custer at Little Big Horn and put an end to his political ambitions, to say nothing of his genocidal ass. The tune featured zooming guitars and what sounded like a flute, but I didn’t see a flute, which means either the flute was being played by a midget or was being produced by a synthesizer. In any event the song was a bit static for my tastes, and could have used a little bit of Neil Young’s Crazy Horse for that wild, slaughter at Greasy Grass feel. It was followed by the defiantly big and abrasive “Bastard,” which is beloved by many but not by me, because I could never listen to it without hearing that sound the Rolling Stones were aiming for in the late seventies; you know, rock’n’roll sensibility meets dance club beat. Besides, when it comes to big and loud I infinitely prefer the old Mott the Hoople greats, such as “Violence,” “One of the Boys,” and “The Moon Upstairs.”
Hunter and band then surprised me with “Sweet Jane,” the Velvet Underground classic that Mott the Hoople employed as the opening track of All the Young Dudes. I always loved the muffled and distant sound of Mott’s version, and I enjoyed the Rant Band’s take, but Hunter’s phrasing gave it a herky-jerky feel that, like, man, assassinated the smooth. Lucky for yours truly Hunter followed “Sweet Jane” with the intensely moving (and oddly titled) “I Wish I Was Your Mother,” which left me weeping for the second time that night. What, am I becoming a sob sister in my dotage? Hunter played harmonica, Mastro the mandolin, and Hunter perfectly captured the lovely yet jealous spirit of the song with his plaintive vocals. They then played the pounding but very melodic “23a Swan Hill,” which featured the band singing the title and Hunter singing bitterly, “This ain’t right, there must be more to life/Than breaking and entering/Doing peoples’ heads in alcohol, nicotine/Thinking what I might have been.”
Next up was The Rant Band’s “Life,” a midtempo tune with a so-so melody but some good lyrics, chiefly Hunter’s instruction to “Laugh because it’s only life.” The crowd gave a roar in the affirmative when Hunter sang, “I hope you had a good time/Hope your time was as good as mine/My you’re such a beautiful sight.” Hunter and band then broke into “All the Young Dudes,” and I finally got my lifelong wish of seeing Hunter sing it in the flesh. It gave me goosebumps. I could complain that while the audience was carrying the news, it couldn’t carry a tune, and in so doing made a real hash of the choruses, but the crowd was obviously ecstatic, and it moved me to see how much a song recorded in 1972 still meant to the people who heard it and loved it the way I loved it, that is with a passion they’ll take to their graves.
Afterwards the lights went up and the crowd shuffled out, and I found myself thinking of how far I had come from my adolescence, and how I was most certainly a different person. But some things never change, and my love for Mott the Hoople is one of them. So far as I’m concerned my brother’s still back at home with his Beatles and his Stones, and I’ve drunk a lot of wine and I’m feeling fine, and I’m still at home in Littlestown in front of the mirror, practicing my rock star moves to one of the songs that really matter, that are life or death, and I’ve wanted to do this for years.
WRECKLESS ERIC AND AMY RIGBY
