NILS LOFGREN SUCKS EGGS

NILS LOFGREN SUCKS EGGS

Not really, but you read this far, didn't you?

by Susan Whitall

Nils Lofgren does not have an identity problem. You may, though, when you consider that he was discovered at 17 by Neil Young, had a Top Forty LP produced by the likes of A1 Kooper, has carried a public torch (immortalized in Nils Lofgren's "Keith Don't Go") for that guitariste mysterieuse Keith R. of the Stones, but somehow manages to integrate these diverse threads in the small, shy Italo-Swedish human being you see onstage ripping out power chords while airborne from his trampoline.

Not that some of the names people affix to him don't sometimes hurt. One magazine dubbed him "The Punk Guru of Washington, D.C." Nils sighed. "That's in someone else's eyes. I mean, I'm trying to be a normal, mature human being. If I come on like a punk anyway, well, that's God's fault. As long as they're trying to turn someone on to my music, they can call me all the names they can think of."

But actually, the Rock Crit Establishment has been very sweet.

"...this is one boy whose time has come," purred Jon Landau (Rolling Stone).

"...a guitar prowess which invokes,

without copying, the rainbow.sounds of Jimi Hendrix," James Spina (WWD) cooed.

"...some of the most vital and refreshing raw-to-the-bone rock 'n' roll

I've heard in a long time," Steve Clarke (NME) gushed.

Gee. All of this can get embarrassing for a guy if you're as down-to-earth as Lofgren. You can't buy his good will, though, guys. He'll dump on you as surely as if you hadn't said those nice things.

"I just figure that I know as much about rock 'n' roll as anybody else, and if you really want to get a review, you should go ask some kid who bought the record. I appreciate all the good press, even with all the misquotes, and the wrong things that they say or assume that aren't true, but I don't think that reviews sell records—very few kids will go out and buy a record they haven't heard on the strength of the review.

"On the other hand, reviews can hurt people. Here's this guy, doing a few reviews a week, and some brand-new band comes out that he thinks is a piece of shit. If you write it up as a piece of shit—from that view I think reviews can hurt. Writers should be more careful when they take some struggling act and rip them to shreds. That's sick...The best writers have the taste to write constructive criticism, therefore there's no excuse for writers that don't."

Since Lofgren is still relatively a young boy in years his personal history is not yet etched on rock fans' brains, so quickly: He was born on the Southside of Chicago to a Sicilian mother and a Swedish father, never heard a rock 'n' roll song until 1965, took classical accordion for ten years (and still is known to cut loose in Italian restaurants for the hell of it). He thought pop music "too simple" until the Beatles came along and blew him away by using major and minor chords. Nils immedir ately switched to guitar and formed the now-legendary Grin in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. (where his parents had relocated). As for Neil Young discovering him, actually the 17-year-old Nils walked brashly into Neil's dressing room and so regaled him with his conversation arid anxious-to-please guitar riffs that Neil steered him to his first producer. And called him from L.A. when he needed to cut After The Gold Rush post-haste, to demand that Nils play piano on it. Nils had never played piano before. Neil told him that there was a first time for everything, and that furthermore, he was going to sing. Nils protested that he couldn't sing, but ended up doing both under the stern eye of Uncle Neil. After four Grin albums he wanted a fresh start, and A&M gave it to him by allowing him to step out as a solo performer. Nils Lofgren and Cry Tough followed— Tough being produced by the eclectic A1 Kooper, who'd been hot to get behind the studio controls for Lofgren for some time. The new wax is I Came To Dance but—well that's history.

"I'm trying to be a normal, mature human being. If I come on like a punk anyway, well, that's God's fault."

I decided to probe Lofgren's wellknown Stones "thing"—jump in there, be obnoxious: Do you think the Stones have had it?

"Do I think the Stones have had it? No! 1 mean, they may go through personnel changes, but I know, I'm positive, Keith Richard and Charlie Watts and the rest of the band will be playing popular music for people who are young at heart for the rest of their lives. Maybe ten years from now they'll be another band...I have nothing to base it on, but I just think that they love the playing. I think it's a total crock of shit that everybody puts out about how Jagger parodies himself; I mean, of COURSE you're going to be parodying yourself a little, but what are you supposed to do? Have a sex change? Start all over as a female artist? What do people want? People make it out to be more than it is; just let them play rock V roll."

A discussion of new god-heads on the scene brought up Patti Smith's name. Nils perked up.

"Patti Smith? I thought she was a great entertainer. But when I played with her, her sound people totally screwed me around. Their sound man went out and got drunk and came back before my set and fucked up everything. My monitors were fucked all night. Then she took a sound check and took so long to get it together with her sound people that I didn't get a sound check at all. I didn't care—we went out and played fine and the kids really got off, but she's really unprofessional—she's professional as an entertainer, but on a strictly musician level, she's unprofessional. It's partly the people around her, but you have to be responsible for that."

Despite his childhood training in classical jazz, Nils frequently uses the phrase "I'm just a rock 'n' roller" to get out of criticizing other musicians. Despite his criticisms of Patti, he spoke warmly of her lyrics and said he understood where she was coming from, having such a love of rock 'n* roll AND poetry, and wanting to combine the two. I brought up fusion music and recent jazz, hoping to get some sort of rise out of him; did he think there was any feeling behind the playing of some of these really ace session musicians? that,' that's a big mistake. If someone's so technical as a musician that they can't enjoy playing in just 4/4 time, OK. Me, I can't play anything BUT 4/4 rock 'n' roll. Some cats can't even THINK of it. Miles Davis, you can't call him Muzak ^because he's not playing rock 'n' roll. Everybody's coming from a different place; but those guys are into what they're doing.. .1 mean, obviously Beethoven is as heavy as Carlos Santana, and as heavy as Keith Richard ever will be. But I would never buy a Beethoven album."

TURN TO PAGE 69.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 37.

LOFGREN

Naturally, he has warm words for Neil Young; opines that Tonight's The Night (which he played on) was Young's best so far, and is gracious about his encouragement.

"You know, Neil walked off the Stills/ Young tour for the same reason that he keeps going back to Crazy Horse. He's into a vibe—real relaxed— and I guess the rock'n' roll craziness on Stephen's tour upset him too much, to the point where he just said 'Fuck it all!' That's why CSN&Y have tried to make so many albums that haven't happened, because Neil's real faithful to his music, but if the vibe isn't there he just gets up and 'See you later fellas—' "Stills is so talented that he has a right to a point [to be an egomaniac], but he's not exploiting that talent. Maybe he's at 70% of his potential. Even a guy as good as Stephen, when you see he's not doing his best, it puts you off. At least it puts me off."

As far as working with Neil again "Oh, sure. I don't have the time to be a session man for an entire album again, but I'd like to get together and do some things. Nothing definite.... it might not happen. He's hip, but I'm not the same cat I was when I was 17 years old and he met me and I didn't know my head from my ass. He's into playing, too. I'm into playing; But it seems like all the cats with names aren't good enough for him. David Crosby—I mean, he's a great singer, he sings great background, plays OK rhythm guitar— Neil's never going to do a Neil Young/ David Crosby album. Just like a lot of the people with money and a name that you would think would .get together with him aren't good enough to get together with him. He's too into it."

Despite the—dread the word—punk rocker demeaner of Lofgren, with Ronnie Wood tie-dye scarves, rat's nest Keith hair, etc., and the fact that the fellow doesn't have a home ("My mom and dad live in Maryland, and whenever I'm on the East Coast I crash with them; my manager's in L.A., and I love L.A. for working, so I just crash with him. Otherwise I prefer to be in a hotel, getting ready to play a gig."), closer inspection reveals a human being in control of his destiny.

"I used to be a gymnast, [thus the back-flip guitarist act] and I was once in such excellent physical condition as a kid, that even now as a total rock 'n' roll degenerate I still cannot allow myself to get so far away from it that I lose it. Because I'm singing now. I can have a drink or two during the day, have a hit of this or that, but I just cannot get wiped out, and it's easy to do."

Priorities have been drawn professionally, too. There is no time to play session cat totNeil Young.

"I produce an album, Charlie and the Pep Boys. Probably the last time I'll produce an album for years. Why? I love producing, but I'm so intent on what I'm doing that I'm not prepared to take that much time off, to work for somebody else...I have no identity problems; I know exactly what I love, what I like to do, and what I want to be good at." ...

Not that he doesn't seek an outside opinion now and then. Nils is 25 now, but seems much younger in person and in song (Imagine Ted Nugent singing "I Don't Want To Know"), which is probably why he's a hero to the legions of punk kid guitarists who see him as one of their own who's made it. In talking, he would often come back to

"the kid on the street"—who you * picttire as Nils himself.

"Sometimes the most objective opinion you can get is some kid out on the street. I have people come up to me all the time; kids come up and say they love the album but what in the WORLD did I have in my head, working with an idiot like A1 Kooper, adding all that bullshit to what was simple, raw rock 'n' roll. Then I have other people coming up and saying 'Thank GOD you stopped playing such dirty, ample musip.' I think my key is that I'm trying to unify both those ends of it, and I think that's all my next few albums will be doing, bringing it all into one sound."

If that gives your head the spins, rest assured that this healthy, degenerate, poetic punk with the Swedish name and the Italianate features isn't losing any of his energy sleep over it. I'm awaiting the new album which promises both a disco song ("I Came To, Dance") and at last, a cover version of "Happy". And if Nils shows up ten years from now playing heavy metal accordion for Keith's new band, holding up Keith and pulling out his trampoline ("...just keeping the vibe where it should be, light.") I'll recall wh^t he said about the Stones: "As long as they keep making good music, I'll keep digging it... if their hearts weren't in it they'd stop doing it."