“Ram Fever 2009″ Simultaneously Strikes Benevolent Sensibility Cells Of East, West Coasts
A few days prior to activating the crucial “download” buttons on his website, Aquarium Drunkard’s Justin Gage offered yours truly a sneak preview of the project he’d been finalizing: a collection of Los Angeles artists paying tribute to Paul McCartney’s 1971 album Ram, song by song, titled Ram On LA. In his words:
As records tend to do, a revisited appreciation of Paul McCartney’s 1971 solo album, RAM, had begun to see a resurgence of sorts within a number of local Eastside artists, coming up in conversations and on the turntables of various house parties.
The theme was found. Over the course of the second half of 2008 eleven Angeleno artists individually went in to various studios, rehearsal spaces and apartments to record their take on what is my favorite, and arguably, McCartney’s best solo work…. the end result is RAM On L.A.
Released as a high-quality 320kbps MP3 digital download, the not-for-profit compilation is available free via aquariumdrunkard.com. Listeners are encouraged to make donations to No More Landmines, the fantastic cause that “helps and empowers communities around the world by removing the threat of landmines and unexploded weapons.” A cause championed by Sir Paul McCartney himself. Donate here.
Around this same time, it came to the attention of our website that up near Manhattan by the water, WFMU’s Tom Scharpling was putting together a similar package as a promo giveaway for his (Jersey City) station’s pledge drive: an all-star tribute to Paul McCartney’s Ram, titled Tom. (Incidentally, Scharpling’s fundraising show took place two nights ago.) Thusly as swift as lightning did Ram Fever 2009 strike the benevolent sensibility cells of both east and west coasts, simultaneously,and the nation gave birth to an altogether new Ram re-appreciation level; one bicoastal, one indie-rock-centric; one of worthy cause donation, be it anti-mine-of-the-land or pro-freeform-radio-wave-of-the-air; one borne of a love of blogs and freeform radio alike; truly, a level of Ram re-appreciation of which the somewhat, scattershot Ram-previously-appreciating nation had to date never even seen, let alone visited; truly, a level of both Ram appreciation and re-appreciation that would be later withdrawn from the memory bank by brute force alone. To intone that one or both coasts was, or were, “Really Rrramming Rrrram” in plainsong might have been to pluck the easy joke from the nightly harvest; that fit for the stage of Leno, not Colbert.
Go thee forth, then, and get your copy of the Los Angeles version of Ram circa 2009 at AD [here], and don’t forget the landmine fund. This sturdy Los Angeles comp includes artists such as Earlimart, Parson Red Heads and Broken West.
Back on the east coast, boasting guys like Ted Leo and Death Cab, Scharpling’s compilation may already be scarce, but call or click WFMU and see if you can’t talk them into you somehow getting your hands on a copy for your generous donation today. You’ve got a few days left on that pledge drive, if you hustle.
It goes without saying: Purists and buffs, keep Paul’s original on the hi-fi and switch between all three for maximum effect.
I checked out the land mine edition. It’s tough to say this, but I don’t like the diversity of styles. The cause is there, the interest, thrilling to no end. RAM is a masterpiece and a personal touchstone. They missed RAM’s sonic cohesiveness. In my view, the feeling is off, even as a tribute. There’s some kind of condom wrapped around the whole experience. This album was writ in a moment of post-Beatles,”Walden Pond” awareness, just Paul, his music and his mary jane high-tailed away from John’s influences. The record needed more of a sense of McCartney’s warmth as a songwriter. Maybe they should have produced this on an eight track with tube preamps and ribbon mics.
THE WFMU version is even further out there. I appreciate the background vocals and barebones production, and I like the Singer’s Unlimited as much as anybody, but there’s no sung melodic lines, much less a voice to hold onto. It’s (unfortunately) muzak to my ears.
Sorry to keep blogging this. I don’t mean to be unkind to the parties saluting “Ram”. I respect their efforts passionately.
RE: “Ram on LA”, Lawrence Juber, former guitarist for Wings, plays high school auditoriums just for the love of the thing. He’s in LA. Probably knows colossal amounts about how MaCartney’s early albums were made. I feel he should have been brought in for a consult. Outsourcing production weakened the impact of the final composite; there were too many divergent creative voices to balance. A dedicated studio with dedicated coincident mics on one drum kit, to record there a few days, and ultimately collapse it, would have been truer to the original sound.
RE: WFMU, I see what you did there. My bad.
I’ll listen to the covers again. Maybe they’ll grow on me.
I think taken as solo tracks there’s definitely some great stuff out there, but I feel you on the cohesiveness. Same thing happens to just about any tribute album, be it from one band or several. I will go on record now and say that 9 out of 10 times, any tribute or cover song I listen to inevitably makes me want to pull out and listen to the original version. One way to look at this, however, is that that the new artists now have me fully re-interested in the original, which was purportedly the goal all along.