Stop Me If You've Heard This One

Stop Me If You've Heard This One

EAGLES Eagles Live (Asylum)

Last month, late on a New York winter's night I hailed a cab, slid in, focused for a few seconds on the driver—a young hispanic according to his hack license—and drifted away. It took me a while to realize I was singing along with the cabbie's portable FM and that he was, too. As we raced up First Avenue, lost in our respective thoughts, Gonzalo & I were both helping out on 'Take Jt To The Limit.'

Eagles again. They sneak up on you when you least expect it. With their sharp attractive hooks, stylish (though often galling) lyrics, and gorgeous singing, they have consistently made much better and much more successful music than any test tube band of cocky California princes has a right to. With precise craftsmanship and skillful management they were, through much of the 70's, among the most popular bands in America. According to continual reports, however, they thought they were the best, the most egregiously underrated, God's own singers of songs, etc., etc., ad nauseum. What they think now is moot since they speak only to business associates and L.A. buddies (the same folks, really), preferring to address the press and public only through their work, in this case Eagles Live.

The meticulous two-LP set brings to mind a quotation from the Old Testament in which God ventures upon Self-description: 'Eyeh asher eyeh,' which translates 'I am what I am,' or 'I will be what I will be,' or, even more germane, 'I am what I will be.' Such explicit Self-satisfaction may be appropriate and becoming to a deity but hardly to a rock 'n' roll band, however high its self esteem or chart position. Recorded in and around Los Angeles (they know their audience) over the last five years ('Hey., everything we do is important') even Irv Azoff would be hard put to distinguish these tracks from the studio originals if the applause wasn't here. And the applause, too, is well managed. At the end of side four it continues into the run-off groove. (Eaglesland—where the clapping never stops.)

Some of my favorite songs are here: a lovely 'Saturday Night,' a flawless 'New Kid in Town,' and 'Take It To The Limit' sung one more time by the departed Randy Meisner through the smug (or scared) miracle of five-year-old tapes. Joe Walsh's songs, which still seem to form a separate category, don't deviate from the previously recorded canon either, though they do sound longer. Not sloppy, heaven forbid, just a bit, uh, monotonous. In fact, there is no compelling reason to buy Eagles Live—'Desperado' is still a good song, but it was a good song on the original LP and on Greatest Hits as well—unless you've completely neglected their previous output. (And my wholly unscientific shoppers poll indicates that there aren't too many new Eagles fans around. At a big Manhattan record store, where Autoamerican was moving so fast the register keys were starting to melt, Eagles Live was racked so high on the wall only basketball players could reach it. And I don't think Kareem is into the Eagles. Maybe Phil Jackson.)

Which is not to deny the Eagles' special gifts but simply to put them in an 80's perspective. I could make a 45 minute Eagles cassette that would help you drive any distance, with t>r without gas, which is far better than most bands ever achieve and worthy of honest praise—and, obviously, why I remain interested. But, if my arithmetic is correct, that averages out to fibe minutes of memorable music a year over their nine years which doesn't begin to keep pace with a) their excessive self-regard, b) the tempo of the times; c) your choice, d) all the above.

There's a moral here: if you're going to be a putz, you'd better be good. If you're going to be a big putz, you'd better be fabulous. Corollary: If they were really smart enough to get away with something like this, they wouldn't have tried. If these guys don't come down from the eyrie and get to work I predict extinction.