Love Goes to Buildings on Fire

The knock on the 1970s is that it was a shitty decade for music, particularly coming after the brilliance of the 1960s. When I first started buying music in that decade, it was of older stuff like The Beatles, or groups that tipped their hat to them, like Queen and ELO. Will Hermes, who is about my age, also came of musical age in the '70s, but he lived in Queens, just a subway ride away from Manhattan, were exciting things were happening.

In his book Love Goes to Buildings on Fire, he recounts the five years, from 1973 to 1977, that music coming out of New York changed the landscape. And while most of the music (except for one artist) didn't get much airplay, it did "change music forever," as he adds in his subtitle.

Hermes styles the book as a diary, starting at the turn of year in '73 and ending with the end of 1977. He cuts a wide swath through all genres--rock, jazz, salsa, classical. He notes that three of the most influential styles of music were born during those five years: punk, disco, and hip-hop. And some of the most influential venues, such as CBGB and Studio 54, first opened their doors during that period.

The spectrum is so wide that you sometimes need a scorecard to keep track of everyone. I was most interested in the conversations about rock. Much of New York's rock scene came out of the sounds of The Velvet Underground: "The Velvet Underground never made it big, but their aesthetic had a lasting effect. In a sense, the '70s began with them." Hermes outlines the creation of the influential Television, which was formed by Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell, as well as The Ramones, The New York Dolls, Blondie (whom he describes as the least likely of the groups from the CBGB hey-day to hit it big) and then Talking Heads, who gave the book its title (it was their first single). It gets a little heady imagining all these bands prowling New York at the same time, opening for each other, checking out each other's shows.

The main characters in the rock sections are Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen, who had high respect for each other (they collaborated on Smith's only hit, "Because the Night"). Springsteen, of course, is the only superstar to emerge from this group. Hermes writes of when he and his guitar player, Steve Van Zandt, drove down to Philadelphia to see Elvis shortly before he died. Hermes notes that Springsteen went on to reach Elvis-like heights, but without the fall.

Aside from rock and roll, there was plenty going on in New York in the other musical worlds. In jazz, Miles Davis went experimental, and jazz lofts were the hotbeds, with artists like Cecil Taylor. Spanish music was huge, with salsa the rage, and artists like Willie Colon and Celia Cruz dominating. In classical, it was the experimental sounds of Steve Reich and Philip Glass which were interesting, especially Glass's collaboration with Robert Wilson on the four-hour long opera, Einstein on the Beach.

But perhaps the most lasting impact from the decade came from hip-hop and disco, which Hermes links: "hip-hop and disco were born of the same rhythmic gene pool." This, even though culturally they came from different places. Hip-hop and rap came from DJs like Grandmaster Flash, spinning records in public places, stealing electricity from city lampposts. Disco spawned from the gay bathhouse scene, and I'm old enough to remember the impact it had, as the tropes of gay culture became "in." After the film Saturday Night Fever was released, in late '77, it was so huge that it couldn't help but suffer a backlash: "Racism, homophobia, and sexism informed the backlash, no doubt, but so did a lot of terrible music churned out by hacks and promoted by aesthetically bankrupt broadcasters."

This was a very interesting book to read, and will inspire a lot of CD buying. At times the writing is a bit clumsy: "Aside from those who hated it, it seemed no one could get enough of the disco sound--certainly not radio programmers, who were riding the 4/4 high-hat-drive beat like perky hookers astride weary johns." But I liked his way of describing New York then, which was at its most seedy--indeed, Hermes surmises that the cleaning up of New York curbed the creative juices of the city. He weaves in the other aspects of New York during the time, such as the graffiti artists, the blackout, Son of Sam, and the continuing financial crisis.

He also puts himself in the narrative, which is risky but pays off, I think. I liked little asides like: "It's hard to convey the extent to which drugs were a part of life in New York during the mid-'70s," or when he attends a Led Zeppelin concert at Madison Square Garden and realizes these guys are old--in their thirties.

I recommend this book to those who lived through the scene, who will nod in recognition, remembering how vile the bathroom was at CBGB, and those who weren't even born yet, as it really puts you there, and you can imagine the hot, sticky nights, the sounds emanating from dank little clubs.