Remembering Craig MacGregor, born on this day in 1949. —Ed.
In Yo La Tengo’s absolutely hilarious 1997 video for “Sugarcube,” a disgusted studio exec interested only in the bottom line (“Do you want my wife and kids to go hungry?”) sends the cowed trio to “Rock School,” where they’re taught the basics by a pipe-smoking, Kiss lookalike in a fright wig and leather shoulder wings. Amongst other necessary requirements for success (“If you want to write rock lyrics, you must learn about where the hobbits dwell”) their instructor writes the words “Foghat Principle” on the chalkboard and asks, “Does everyone remember the Foghat rule? Your fourth album should be double live.”
Not to be a nitpicker, but there’s a problem with this scenario. 1977’s Foghat Live was the English hard rock band’s seventh–not fourth–release, and it wasn’t a double album at all. A version of Foghat did get around to releasing a double live sequel in the form of 2007’s Foghat Live II, but they were pretenders to a man so it doesn’t count.
Foghat Mach I–whose members included the late great “Lonesome Dave” Peverett on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, the late Rod Price on lead/slide guitar, the late Nick Jameson on bass, and the very much alive and kick drumming Roger Earl on skins–served up blues based, arena-sized meat and potatoes hard rock for teen stoners whose idea of haute cuisine ran to Big Macs. The Foghat of Foghat Live is a blunt instrument–Grand Funk’s an art rock band in comparison. Troggs school primitives they weren’t, and they didn’t rely on sheer volume like Blue Cheer, but their thorazine blooz were a sign of things to come – “Slow Ride” could well be the world’s first grindcore song.
On Foghat Live Foghat keep things as simple as humanly possible. You get just six, count ‘em six songs, but two of them–”Fool for the City” and “Slow Ride”–could be heard blasting from every Chevy Camaro 8-track player in my hometown. “Slow Ride,” of course, is the pick of the litter and the song Foghat will forever be remembered for, and for good reason–aside from Led Zeppelin’s “When the Levee Breaks,” it’s the heaviest and most monolithic slab of molten vinyl ever recorded. Earl plays like he was sired by a pile driver, while Peverett comes on like a lower register Robert Plant and plays a riff as old as the blues itself over and over until infinity. As for Price, he slips and slide guitars all over the place, and goes into full squeal when the song shifts into overdrive near the end.
“Fool for the City” is everybody’s sentimental favorite and the natural show opener. I’ve spent my whole life getting things backwards–turns out Lonesome Dave ain’t some hayseed who can’t wait to see the big city lights, he’s an urban sophisticate who ACTUALLY MISSES the smog (“Air pollution here I come!”). Turns out Earl’s the real rube–that’s him fishing from a NYC sewer on the cover of 1975’s Fool for the City. Me, I’ve listened to the song hundreds of times, and the only thing I’m a fool for is more of Earl’s cowbell.
Peverett’s tonsils are bigger than even Steve Marriott’s at the beginning of the band’s crowd-pleasing cover of Willie Dixon’s salubrious “I Just Wanna Make Love to You,” which opens with a lot of guitar wank before falling into a lockstep groove that Price spins notes around cuz he can. Meanwhile, Foghat’s take on Big Joe Turner’s “Honey Hush” borrows liberally from Aerosmith’s (by way of Tiny Hamilton) “Train Kept A-Rollin,” but they forgo their trademark crunge in favor of good old-fashioned boogie.
The rest of Foghat Live doesn’t overwhelm; according to my aural thermometer the generic life-on-the-road blues “Road Fever” is one degree above average at best, while “Home in My Hand”–is Peverett calling his dick his home or what?–is sub par Bachman Turner Overdrive. When it comes to getting from Point A to Point B, whether it be by tour bus or 18-wheeler, I’ll take BTO’s “Roll on Down the Highway” any day.
Foghat didn’t make music for intellectuals, music critics or the snooty kids at my high school (I should know, by senior year I was one of ‘em!), but they kicked ass and took names. Along with the likes of Grand Funk, BTO, and Black Oak Arkansas, Foghat played high-caliber lowest common denominator music for low brows in low mileage muscle cars smart enough to know that the REAL low brows were listening to ELP and Genesis and DIDN’T EVEN KNOW they were being suckered!
The real Foghat principle goes like this–stay away from French cooking and stick with the spuds. I tried Vietnamese periwinkle snail ham once, and I still have the taste in my mouth.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B+
