Tin Pan Scally

"Do you love me like you know you ought to do?"

Like so much of Paul McCartney's solo catalogue, it's taken those outside of his devoted fanbase quite some time to appreciate the eccentric brilliance of his 1971 sophomore effort, Ram. Actually credited to both Paul & Linda (making it unique in the McCartney oeuvre), Ram is Macca firing on all creative cylinders; in fact, the album contains so many ideas it at times threatens to collapse under their weight. Each song bursts with memorable hooks, killer riffs and audacious vocal arrangements.
 
Recorded in New York City from January to March 1971, the album was a marked departure from McCartney's eponymous solo debut, released a year earlier. McCartney had been a self-played, deliberately lo-fi, largely homespun affair, its author seeking domestic refuge from the escalating tensions between himself and his then bandmates. By the time the sessions for Ram rolled around, however, The Fabs were no more and, though still embroiled in litigation with Beatles manager Allen Klein and his former colleagues, McCartney was in buoyant mood and bursting with ideas far too expansive for a primitive Studer 4-track. Recording at CBS and Phil Ramone's A&R Studios in midtown Manhattan, McCartney had, via a series of top secret auditions, assembled a muscular backing band of crack session musicians to help bring the music to life, the core of which comprised drummer Denny Seiwell (later to join Wings) and first-call guitarists Hugh McCracken and David Spinozza. No less than the New York Philharmonic would supply orchestral overdubs for 'Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey' and 'The Back Seat of My Car'.
 
The material is, for the most part, a typical Macca mix of guitar-fuelled rockers ('Eat at Home', 'Smile Away', 'Too Many People'), folky acoustic ditties ('Heart of the Country'), music-hall whimsy ('Dear Boy', 'Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey) and lush balladry (the closing 'The Back Seat of My Car') all dispatched with typical breezy aplomb, a testament to McCartney's musical versatility.
 
Then there are the album's truly uncategorisable cuts. A real oddity in the Macca canon (and arguably the album's zenith), 'Monkberry Moon Delight' is possibly the barmiest thing McCartney's ever committed to record. Built around a seesawing guitar riff, pounding piano, and a series of nonsense verses redolent of Edward Lear, it's rollicking good fun, McCartney barking out his vocal with gleeful abandon over the band's lolloping groove; his demented ad libs during the fade out in particular are the epitome of inspired lunacy:
 
 
Another highlight on a record chock full of them is the atmospheric, ukulele-based 'Ram On', McCartney softly beseeching the listener to 'give your heart to somebody soon, right away'  over a simple but effective three-chord vamp, a dash of ambient electric piano, haunting backing vocals, and a simple rhythm track made up of kick drum, handclaps and the sound of his own foot stamping on the wooden studio floor. It's truly original stuff, and further evidence of just how adventurous and inspired McCartney was feeling during this period. According to its author, the song's point of origin was the back seat of a New York cab during one of his many journeys to and from the studio; the ukulele's portability meant he could take one wherever he went in case inspiration struck:  
 
 
 
The wonderful 'Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey' deftly fuses a number of song fragments into something approaching a mini suite. Though lyrically slight, it's superbly arranged and performed, and as good a showcase of its author's bounteous melodic gifts as any in his songbook, boasting more hooks in its 4 minutes and 55 seconds than most artists can manage in an entire album. McCartney's 'character songs' and whimsical inclinations have often been used as a stick for his critics to beat him with, and admittedly he has occasionally lapsed into tweeness with such material, but here the balance is perfect and, again, the track is performed with such gusto it would take the hardest of hearts not to warm to it. Check out this article, which offers a welcome and all-too-rare glimpse behind the scenes at the Ram recording sessions with particular focus on 'Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey'.
 
In promoting the album, McCartney was at pains to point out his wife's involvement in its creation, and with good reason. How much of the songwriting she actually did might be questionable, but Linda's vocal harmonies are inarguably a vital component in Ram's overall sonic canvas. By her own admission not the most natural singer, she nevertheless manages to negotiate some hugely complex vocal arrangements with admirable skill. Listening to these arrangements, and Linda's key role in their execution, one can't help but wonder why her husband never again used her voice to quite the same extent on any of his subseqent albums. She's unmistakeably present on those records, of course, just not employed quite as effectively. Check out her work on 'Dear Boy' and note the striking vocal blend she creates with Paul:
 
 
Though the three tracks highlighted thus far make for quirkier fare, Ram is not found wanting in the pure, balls-out rock department either. McCracken and Spinozza's electric guitar work is exceptional throughout, and if my ear isn't deceiving me, McCartney's own distinctive licks are discernible on a number of cuts. Each turns out coruscating riffs and solos (check the outro to 'Too Many People') when required, but there's also a considerable lightness of touch shown in their acoustic work on the likes of 'Uncle Albert...' and 'Heart of the Country', McCartney's countrified paean to the virtues of rustic living. The latter also features some nifty, Chet Atkins inspired finger-picking.
 
Ram received a decidedly mixed critical reception upon its release (though unsurprisingly it sold very respectably indeed) and its lyrical content notably drew the ire of one John Ono Lennon, who perceived several songs on the record to contain a number of broadsides aimed at Yoko and himself. Paul denied this for the most part, but did admit to having the Lennons in mind when he penned the line 'too many people preaching practices, don't let 'em tell you what you wanna be' from 'Too Many People'. His aggrieved former collaborator responded with a number of barbed comments in the music press and, musically, with the infamously vituperative 'How Do You Sleep?' on his Imagine album, released the same year, as well as spoofing Ram's cover photo (Paul holding a Ram by the horns) by including a picture of himself on the sleeve grabbing a pig by the ears. To say the relationship between the two was fractious at this point in time would be a major understatement.
 
The remainder of the 70s would see McCartney release a further seven long-players and a double live album, most of which contain their share of deathless gems, but none hang together quite so well, or are executed with such verve and panache as Ram. It's vintage Macca, not to mention the very musical embodiment of arguably the strongest marriage in rock. If you've not yet been exposed to its sundry charms, procure a copy by fair means or foul, stick it on, crank it up, and smile away...

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"I'll probably get blamed for that!"

 
For me, a world without Martin Scorsese's After Hours (1985) would be a significantly poorer place. It's a truly magnificent piece of filmmaking from one of cinema's most gifted sons...and it was almost never made. Scorsese had actually been gearing up to shoot The Last Temptation of Christ only to have Paramount put the film into turnaround at the eleventh hour. Infuriated at the studio's caprice, the restless director began looking for projects to channel his creative energies into while his pet project was on the backburner. The first of these was presented to him in the form of a Joe Minion script entitled 'A Night in SoHo', a blackly comic 'New York nightmare'. Though he had a few issues with Minion's ending, Marty's interest was sufficiently piqued.
 
Shot almost entirely on location in SoHo, downtown Manhattan on a tight schedule and a tighter budget, After Hours is nothing short of a masterpiece, and this blogger's favourite movie by some margin. The central conceit is instantly absorbing, the performances are flawless, the production design spot on, Scorsese's direction typically kinetic and imaginative but always driving the story, the editing nothing short of immaculate. It's also one of the great New York movies; granted, it's not a love letter to the city in the traditional sense but it's the kind of movie only an NY native could make, calling to attention its less obvious, more dubious charms. You won't find any picture postcard shots of Manhattan's famous landmarks here, just a stylised rendering of its darker, seemier underbelly. The city itself almost becomes a character in the movie, a malevolent, omnipotent puppetmaster toying with its victim.
 
Griffin Dunne takes centre-stage as Paul Hackett, a lonely word processor who clearly yearns to escape his joyless, quotidian existence. Following a chance meeting with the odd-yet-beguiling Marcy (Rosanna Arquette) in a coffee shop, Hackett decides to be spontaneous and meet her later that evening at her apartment. In doing so, he unwittingly sets himself on course for the worst evening of his life as, following an unsavoury turn of events, he finds himself stranded downtown, a stranger in a strange land, his continued presence soon arousing suspicion among the locals that he's responsible for a spate of burglaries in the neighbourhood. It's not long before this escalating paranoia threatens to spill over into a violent lynching.
 
 
It's doubtful that any movie character in history has been put through the wringer more than the hapless Hackett. Thanks to one impulsive act he finds himself beset with outrageous misfortune, thrown from one disquieting scenario to another and forced to run a veritable gauntlet of oddball locals, all of whom conspire (consciously or otherwise) to prevent him achieving his prime objective, which is simply to make it back home. To this end, After Hours is an exhausting, frustrating watch, but this is by no means a flaw. In fact, it's the film's primary virtue; one becomes fully immersed in Hackett's travails and the picture is all the more compelling for it. In addition, because Scorsese succeeds so spectacularly in creating a unique environment in which the story can unfold, even the most improbable of events seem perfectly palatable.  
 
On the acting front, Dunne is fantastic, perfectly essaying Hackett's increasing inredulity and desperation as he attempts to negotiate this waking nightmare (at times he's almost heartbreaking in his vulnerability), and he's ably assisted by a superb company of character actors- Catherine O'Hara, Teri Garr, John Heard, Will Patton, Dick Miller and Linda Fiorentino, to name but a few- all of which throw themselves into their respective roles with relish.
 
I first encountered this film whilst channel-hopping late one night in the mid 90s, and must've seen it dozens of times since, on each occasion picking up on some aspect I've missed before, be it a delicious visual flourish, curious character tic or neat foreshadowing of a later plot development. While the illustrious likes of Taxi Driver, Goodfellas and Raging Bull are frequently held up as Scorsese's masterworks, After Hours is just as consistently overlooked. For me, it's his finest work. Period. Now, anyone interested in buying one of my bagel and cream cheese paperweights?
 
Addendum:
 
Some fresh angel has posted the making of featurette from the Region 1 DVD on youtube. Part one :
 
 
Part two:
 

 

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