New Monday #57
Happy New Monday!
I wrote a complete New Monday on another topic entirely, and then a video popped up, and I have to share it with you, so that’s what you get today.
This is absolute joy personified. It’s six minutes of why all of us love music, love making music. You don’t have to read anything else in this episode of New Monday, the entire point is the video. Watch it and crank it up!
Everybody on that stage is euphoric! I’ve watched this repeatedly and it makes me cry every time. Is it the rapture on their faces? Is it that the band is totally kicking ass? Is it me remembering my own time on stages in clubs, in studios with the 24-track 2” playback slamming through the bigs? All of that.
And it’s seeing Peter Frampton, where he loves to be, on stage and playing.
He's sitting because he’s battling Inclusion Body Myositis. It’s an inflammatory muscle disease. One gets progressively weaker as muscles waste away. The muscles around the knees weaken. The distal muscles — in one’s toes and fingers, weaken. It doesn’t shorten life, but it takes one down a hell of an awful path, especially if what you do requires fine motor control of your hands.
Mr. Frampton has battled many things. He went from sideman to rock god to teeny-bopper idol. He made a terrible movie and lost artistic credibility. In 1978 he was in an awful car accident that led to years of drug abuse and alcoholism. Things took an upturn in the late 80s when he toured with his childhood friend David Bowie on the Glass Spider tour. He credits that with reviving his career. Since then, he’s gotten sober. He’s been able to release records constantly, tour, and do what he loves to do. No longer an idol; now he’s a respected elder statesman. There are the ramifications of IBM—he performs sitting, and he himself notices that he has to think more when he plays—but as you can see in the video, he’s in his element. And he’s announced tour dates!
The Late Show Band is as good as it gets: Louis Cato, Joe Saylor, Nêgah Santos, Louis Fouché, Endea Owens, Jon Lampley, Corey Bernhard. They do a rave-up ending on Do You Feel Like We Do, and then, after a quick four-count, they roll straight into a jazz number under the credits. Fantastic players.
Frampton Comes Alive
Frampton Comes Alive made Peter a household name in 1976. It spent 10 weeks at #1 in the US and charted for nearly two years. It was the best-selling album of 1976. I drew the album cover on my French notebook in middle school.
The record was tracked at various smaller venues on the East and West coasts of the US. He was not yet playing stadiums, but places like the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco and The State University of New York in Plattsburgh. It was recorded to 2” tape at 15 ips. The slower tape speed ensured they could catch all of the songs like Do You Feel Like We Do, which went on for fourteen minutes. It was mixed on the Datamix console at Electric Lady in NYC by Chris Kimsey, who produced Peter’s previous albums.
Chris Kimsey is a monster producer/engineer and worked with everyone. That great clutch of late 70s/early 80s Rolling Stones albums—Some Girls, Emotional Rescue, and Tattoo You—that’s all Chris Kimsey. Fantastic sonics on those records. My favorite drum sounds!
There were a couple of quick fixes on Frampton Comes Alive—microphones moved out of position on a couple of songs, a piano part had to be overdubbed for an intro section, but other than that, everything you hear on Frampton Comes Alive was recorded live. He had a fantastic band: Bob Mayo, Stanley Sheldon, and John Siomos.
Highly recommended quick read: An Oral History of the Making of Frampton Comes Alive. It’s a really interesting look at what happened by the people who made it happen.
That Black Guitar
Peter played a black 1954 Les Paul with three pickups on Frampton Comes Alive. “Phenix” was his main guitar for a decade until 1980. He was touring South America, and the cargo plane carrying all of the band’s equipment crashed right after take-off. It was full of fuel. The plane exploded, burned for hours, killing six crew members. It appeared all the band's instruments were destroyed.
But Phenix survived. It was somehow stolen from the wreck and eventually wound up in a guitar shop on the island of Curaçao. Long story short, thirty-one years later, Peter was reunited with his beloved instrument. Evidently, he knew it was his sight unseen: when he was handed the guitar in a gig bag he knew it by its weight. And it’s still his main axe, as you can see in the Late Show clip. Man and guitar, a bit dinged up but going strong.
Here’s a video about the guitar and its journey.
Do You Feel Like We Do?
As long as we’re on Peter Frampton, here’s a wonderful interview with Rick Beato. It’s a great conversation. Mr. Beato has a unique capability to open people up.
No time to watch the whole thing? Here’s the story of how Do You Feel Like We Do was written. It helps to jam with a band.
I think I have to see that Late Show performance again. There’s no day that couldn’t use more joy and music.
Warm regards,
Luke