You know the old rock crit cliche; we’re all just a bunch of pathetically jealous shut-ins too shit-scared to pick up a guitar, so instead we twaddle our intellect. Hell, in his career-summing phone book A Whore Just Like The Rest, Richard Meltzer even cops to the charge (albeit in a crab-like, sideways manner): “So okay, no more shillyshally: I’m in the rest of these yarns. You couldn’t get me out with a crowbar.”
Thing is, rock criticism sometimes coughs up good writing, warts and all — even good criticism. And at its best, A Whore showcases some of the genre’s best, most groundbreaking writing to date (and okay, at its worst, it’s a self-indulgent muddle). So call Meltzer the anti-Guralnick, if you must. Just don’t dismiss him as a voice from the unknowable past; his writing is too vital, too insistent, too individual to be relegated to the dustbin of history.
Yet despite his staggering rep (rock journalism pioneer, author of the seminal The Aesthetics Of Rock), I was ready to do just that before hitting this book’s century mark. Things get pretty dire, with 10 pages of misguided Finnegan’s wank proving the nadir (“first it is warm then it gets cold”). But even at its most undisciplined, his early Dadaist, free-form exercises practically explode with energy and ideas. And scattered throughout the deliberately impenetrable mess are several gems: the mad (and biting!) Marty Balin rave, the fictionalized Altamont reportage, the wish-I’d-been-there Dead piece and the glad-I-wasn’t follow-up. Even the aforementioned wankfest sheds some light (I think) on the ongoing Presley/Thornton/”Hound Dog” debate.
But sometime during the early ’70s, Meltzer slipped the yoke of New Journalism’s linguistic merry-go-round and began crafting a distinctive voice, with effects chosen wisely and communication favored over pointless invention. Ironically (and somewhat perversely), just as his writing began to open up, his love/hate relationship with rock veered precipitously towards hate. Having ditched his keys to academia in favor of the Dionysian promise of rock, he felt betrayed by the music’s increased obeisance to the twin gods of PRODUCT and HYPE. And boy, does he make something of it — over 150 pages of skewered sacred cows, expense account whoring, press junket sexcapades, rock’s cult of the dead, industry-constructed mannequins and self-lacerating hype.
Despite a brief flirtation with country (e.g. an Ernst Tubb piss-take), Meltzer’s final gasp of rock-inspired redemption came courtesy of punk — specifically L.A. punk. In the music of the Germs, X and Throbbing Gristle and the writings of Claude Bessy, he rediscovered all the piss and honesty once proffered by rock, a movement foregrounding “the primacy of sound and expression.” This regrettably brief period inspired some of the collection’s most impassioned writing, herein bookended by a disparate pair of left-field entries: a dizzying Eric Dolphy jazz-out-of-punk piece that purportedly enraged Village Voice scribe Gary Giddins, and a loving, if somewhat admonitory, demystification of Lester Bangs the icon (rather than Lester the writer).
After L.A. punk’s brief ascendancy (“Belsen Is No Longer A Gas”), Meltzer effectively checked out — you couldn’t get rock in with a crowbar. The selections that constitute final third of A Whore Just Like The Rest are often hilarious (the John Cage sendup is genius), sometimes impassioned (a left-of-left L.A. riots rant) and, on rare occasions, oddly poignant (“Of Peep Shows And Piano Bars”). But rock-as-subject no longer inspires (not even genuine anger or disgust), and too frequently his targets seem either obvious or pointless (Wayne Newton, Lawrence Welk).
Only the scattered jazz pieces manage to wed his former commitment qua fanaticism with his newfound verbal clarity. A close reading of Bud Powell’s “Hallelujah” devolves into remembrance of a relationship’s end, while a failed saxophone apprenticeship inspires even deeper appreciation of Charlie Parker’s genius.
Meltzer’s current gig is composing 100-word-plus advance pieces for the San Diego Reader concert listings. Free from editorial constraints with “artist” relegated to punchline or less, his only requirement is to “be entertaining,” i.e. be Richard Meltzer. In effect, his career has come full circle; the Reader blurbs combine his late ’60s verbal experimentalism with his early ’70s what-the-fuck ethic. Funny stuff, too — especially the Idiot Flesh anagram piece. But there’s something unsettling, even rank about the setup. Divorced from a tangible scene, a meaningful context, Meltzer is reduced to the role of circus freak, a ham actor railing against a blue screen.
As befits a de facto autobiography, A Whore closes with an epitaph of sorts. “Vinyl Reckoning” wanders through the graveyard of Meltzer’s record collection, tying memories and anecdotes to individual albums: The Beatles’ 1967-1970 in memory of Darby Crash, Joy Division’s Still, a soundtrack to petty robbery and lover’s betrayal, The Searchers’ final ’60s release, a backhanded nod to estranged running buddy Sandy Pearlman. But midway through, the piece devolves into full-scale rant, with Meltzer castigating noted contemporaries (Robert Christgau, Greil Marcus) for their intellectual gatekeeping and suffocating air of authority. The criticisms are fair enough, but after seven pages, his vitriol begins to stink of sour grapes — “Do you have any idea how degrading it is at this stage of my life to have to beat my own drum?” Pretty degrading, Rich, especially given how well the bulk of A Whore beats it for you.
