Lewis Shiner, Glimpses (1993) 9+
Glimpses was published 15 years ago and is out of print (though easily available used). I can't believe I never heard of it before. The story can get bogged down by some excruciating family drama, but the parts where 38 year-old stereo repairman Ray is transported from 1989 to the 60s and interacts with Brian Wilson and Hendrix are awesome. It starts when he daydreams about The Beatles recording the original version of "The Long And Winding Road" for the truncated Get Back sessions. His tape deck records the imagined session that never was.
He ends up befriending a guy who runs a small reissue label, who has him try and see what happens if he imagines The Doors recording what was supposed to be their third album, Celebration of the Lizard King. The sessions were originally a drunken disaster and cobbled into Waiting for the Sun. The resulting recording is much more raw and physical than the first two albums, more like how Iggy Pop would have envisioned them. They decide to release it as a bootleg. I picked up last year’s reissue of Waiting for the Sun, which includes a rough 17:00 demo of “Celebration of the Lizard King.” Tracklist:
Unknown Soldier
Waiting for the Sun
Summer's Almost Gone
Wintertime Love
Crawling King Snake
L'America
Celebration of the Lizard King
My Wild Love
Five To One
Next he tackles The Beach Boys' lost masterpiece, Smile, which was supposed to be finished by December 1966. Ray ends up physically in 1966 and walks into Brian Wilson's house with the story that he's from RCA. Over a few days he hangs out with him and convinces him to finish the album, that the world needs to hear it.
"You play the tapes for them. Mike hates it. He says, 'You're blowing it, Brian. Don't fuck with the formula. Surfing and cars, Brian.' He calls Van Dyke in and demands to known what 'crow cries uncover the cornfield' means. Van Dyke refuses to explain himself and quits in a huff. Capitol demands to hear what youv'e got and they hate it too. You lose momentum. You know the album is brilliant, but your confidence is shaken. It's so hard to keep pushing. You fool around, start more new songs and on't finish them. You think if you get it perfect enough, everybody will have to like it. Suddenly it's june and there's a new Beatles album out. It's called Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."
"You're joking."
"No. It's got songs that run together and repeated themes and sound effects. It's not as good as Smile, but it is really good, and it takes the world by storm. It's acknowledged as rock's first masterpiece. It takes the heart right out of you and you never finish Smile. Never."
The first emotion across his face was disbelief. Then he said, "This is too weird. You couldn't be making this up." He got up and shambled around the room. "Fucking hell." He walked all the way around the room four times and sat down again. "Sergeant what?"
Heroes and Villains
Barnyard
Do Ya Dig Worms
The Old Master Painter
You Are My Sunshine
Cabin Essence
Good Vibrations
George Fell into His French Horn
I'm In Great Shape
Child Is Father of the Man
Vegetables
Grand Canyon
FreeFall
Mr's O'Leary's Cow
Love to Say Da-Da
Surf's Up
The book spends a hundred pages on Ray's personal story regarding issues with his dead father and his failing marriage. It's well done, though I wouldn't have been compelled to finish the book if it weren't for the fact that Ray finally works up the nerve to tackle his hero Jimi Hendrix's First Rays of the New Rising Sun. "It was to be his farewell to conventional electric rock and roll. He'd talked about various new directions, especially moving deeper into jazz with Miles Davis and Gil Evans...it was to be the ultimate fusion music: rock, jazz, blues, R&B. Healing music, unifying music. Only Jimi couldn't seem to get it together. Chas Chandler says that the night before he died, Jimi called and asked him to come back and produce the new record, like he had the first two."
I'll let those who want to read the book find out what happens there.
It's interesting that since the book was published in 1993, Let It Be…Naked, Brian Wilson's Smile and First Rays... were all released. None changed the world as Ray imagined or hoped they might. In fact, they hardly made a blip. Sure, Smile earned critical praise when it came out, but it was just another album. I wonder, even if the albums came out as good as Shiner's character Ray imagined, would the world notice? Would anyone care other than a small core group of fanatics? Has the glut of tens of thousands of yearly new releases made people jaded? In 1967 Sgt. Pepper took the world by storm. 40 years later, lots of people, myself included, think it's not that great, not as good as Revolver, The White Album and Abbey Road. Personally I enjoy listening to First Rays quite a bit, but I think once he got that out of his system, Hendrix might have done something much more interesting if he’d gotten around to hearing what was going on at the time with krautrock, Fela Kuti, Master Musicians of Jajouka, etc.
Most of us here probably identify with Ray more than the rest of the world. What lost album would you rescue if you could do what he did? It's a tough one. While I don't think there were any official sessions, I think there was enough material for an album for a third Velvet Underground album that included John Cale. It would have been cool to hear how the second Pink Floyd album would have turned out had Syd Barrett not lost his marbles yet. A third Joy Division album? It’s hard to think of more current examples of what if’s. None of these albums can save the world and globally inspire peace and love. But if Ray and the readers get anything out if it, it's that there are certain albums that can make fighting the good fight more bearable.
