songs for broken hearts, no. 71

I’ve been talking a lot lately in these posts about the shift from pop to rock, its meaning, and my preference for the former over the latter. But I don’t want to give the impression that I don’t like rock. My feeling is that if you’re gonna play rock you might as well play it verrrrrrrrry heavy, and no band in the late 60s and early 70s played things heavier than the world’s finest, Humble Pie. Keep in mind that heaviness doesn’t just mean loud, hard and crunchy, though even here Humble Pie would give Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple a run for their money. I have a good a friend, about 15 years older than me, who got to see Humble Pie at the Fillmore East a few times, and he told me that they completely blew the damn doors off the place. You certainly get this impression from their live albums as well. But heaviness is also about a vibe. It's music that has its balls hanging low, smelling of whiskey, weed and women. Heaviness is where the guitar becomes a phallic symbol. Don’t cock block the cock rock. Let the Pie give it to you, hard and slow, with their loose, rootsy, sweaty, primal heaviness. It’s so fucking good…