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I can't think of a catchy phrase to start it all, so I'll just tell you how things went.
And how things went is that today I “listened” to my usual daily record on DeBaser and someone, out of the blue, without any relevance, brought up the fact that they just listened to «Hard Line» by the Blasters for the first time.
How I envy you, my dear, because you are here now, experiencing emotions that I have long buried; because listening to «Hard Line» for the two hundred and sixty-seventh time is not quite like listening to it for the first, even if the grooves still give back Phil's unmistakable voice and Dave's guitar, and the songs are always the same, from «Trouble Bound» up to «Rock'n'Roll Will Stand».
In hindsight, which is a nasty beast when it comes to rock'n'roll, because rock'n'roll is just a senseless passion and thus hindsight should be banned; in hindsight, I can say that «Hard Line» is an epochal record, provided that the Eighties can be regarded as an epoch.
I have always thought, and still do, that it is halfway between «London Calling», «Violent Femmes», and «Warehouse: Songs And Stories».
It relates to «London Calling» with the relentless ambition to reinterpret the History of American Music, and if the third album of the Clash still holds the authority of the Bible, the third (fourth, to be precise) of the Blasters is a worthy summary of the same History, a gem that, when studied thoroughly, opens the doors to a boundless knowledge that can (contribute to) change your life, and it was like that for me; because for a long time I thought that «London Calling» was the most beautiful story ever written through seven notes and that «Hard Line» followed right after.
Of «Violent Femmes», «Hard Line» retains the irreverent approach to History, because, hey, we are still talking about rock'n'roll and rock'n'roll is first and foremost music to dance to in the streets for hours, coming out exhausted with a wolfish grin of forty-two teeth stamped on the face; and it is only for this reason that, even if we get buried under a rain of atomics, rock'n'roll will endure; and it is only for this reason, again, that Dave and Phil put the end to their History (also with a capital H) to the notes of «Rock'n'Roll Will Stand».
It is like «Warehouse», because Phil and Dave, before closing shop, want to make it clear that reinterpreting tradition in the revolutionary light of the present is possible; it is the dawn of the Eighties, the second punk wave rages on, and hardcore claims its space loudly; and the Alvin brothers team up with the X and Husker Du reinterpret «Eight Miles High»; and both, Blasters and Husker Du, say goodbye with what is, in hindsight, their masterpiece.
And it is also like all those records born under a bad star, but rock'n'roll breaks bones even to bad luck, so it always comes out victorious.
The fact is that Phil and Dave, in those days, are like Cain and Abel, and who wears the clothes of one or the other is impossible to say; Warner execs even prevent them from giving interviews together to avoid them starting to mess up in front of the cameras and notebooks; and the tension is such that one of the support concerts for the album is unanimously remembered by the now reconciled brothers as the absolute worst of their short but intense story.
And given that the quarrels between Phil and Dave are “their thing”, the Blasters even lose members: first Steve Berlin leaves, then Gene Taylor, and so it ends that on the cover of «Hard Line» there are only four of them.
But there are also many friends and so many good people and lots of splendid music – from gospel to rockabilly – inside «Hard Line».
Who do we start with?
I, not knowing to read or write, start with John Doe. Now, John Doe is John Doe, but by fate, if he hadn’t been John Doe and if X had never existed, John would still have secured his place in History for co-writing that genuine wonder of a ballad which is «Just Another Sunday» (the third most beautiful of all time), a song of life for anyone who has ever spent a Sunday from hell in a more or less metaphorical room 16 of a more or less damned fourth-rate hotel. These are the Blasters at their peak, halfway between Springsteen’s «Darkness» and Mellencamp’s «Scarecrow».
John Mellencamp is involved because he's there, meaning he gifts Phil and Dave «Colored Lights» with hopes it climbs the charts (but it doesn’t) and lends a strong hand in production. So, if you lend an ear and detect some heartland-rock accent, now you know its source.
Also present is Dave Hidalgo and he too, at that time, is a “big shot” among all the “big shots” marrying the roots and wings of American music; and still today, if someone says Blasters, I can’t help but whisper to myself Los Lobos, and not just because in those times as a kid I had a little cassette and on side A was «Hard Line» and on B «How Will The Wolf Survive», but because it is a matter of concordant passions and feelings. And Dave participates in the lovely fellowship that gives soul and body to that folksie splendor which is «Little Honey». Which, to say, is also this work of John Doe; and then John reprises it with X, but it's not the same thing anymore, not at all.
And then there's much more, among flesh-and-blood old glories – the Jordanaires, who are they? – and others hovering in spirit – and who screams that the ones rocking in «Dark Night» are the Creedence is, as always, my brother, but a mocking fate has separated us at birth – and people who have worked with T-Bone Burnett and with R.E.M..
What does all this rambling mean?
Two things.
The first is that «Hard Line» is an unrepeatable record, born of an unrepeatable season of unrepeatable rock'n'roll. And you can say all you like that music, sooner or later, always repeats itself: beautiful music, but truly beautiful music, never repeats itself.
The second is that I, my dear who today listened to «Hard Line» for the first time, envy you because you will surely have the opportunity to be thrilled again and again discovering who knows what other wonders; while the hope of hearing records as beautiful as «Hard Line», «London Calling», «Violent Femmes», or «Warehouse» again, I have put it in a drawer for quite a few years now.
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