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- [00:00]
A
So anyone who, you know, saw the documentary, which I don't think you've even seen the documentary and have you go on. Okay. Anyone who saw the documentary remembers, you know, towards the beginning, they spend some time talking about the Hassles, which is Billy Joel's kind of like. Honestly, the Hassles were this like, you know, Long island, you know, doo wop pop rock group or whatever from mid late 60s. It sounds a lot like the songs that Lou was writing for Pickwick.
- [00:28]
B
That's a Quarryman for. It's the. It's the Joel Quarryman, basically.
- [00:34]
A
Exactly. And obviously, you know, he didn't necessarily meet his John Cale the way that Lou Reed did, but he did meet his John Small, who was another member of the Hassles and ended up joining Billy when they broke away to form Attila in 1969. Moving from this kind of generic, again, like I said, song factory, pop rock, doo wop type shit into something that definitely has its own unique flavor scent, musk. Whether or not that's your particular flavor or musk, that's. That's another question. What. What do you think about Attila?
- [01:21]
B
I don't.
- [01:23]
A
You don't?
- [01:24]
B
I listened to some of it and I didn't want to listen to more of it. I don't know. It's just. What does there say? Like, it's just kind of one of these instances where you run into something where it is a. It. It's among others, you know, like there. It's one of these things that only exists for there to be standouts within a genre. Like, you have to have stuff like this for the great artists of a particular movement or scene to be seen against a backdrop of stuff like this. And the. This is just that, you know, it. Basically, it's like they. They were just doing their best to fit in and they succeeded. Did they succeed beyond their wildest dreams? They fit in so well that, like, you can't even. It's hard to even like, see them. It just sounds like, you know, stock music of this. Like you asked somebody to make something that sounded kind of like this, this and this, and then they went ahead and did it.
- [02:38]
A
I think that's partially true. I think there is something kind of interesting about like, the. It is kind of a stripped down approach to this type of music, whatever you want to call it, psychedelic rock, hard rock, proto metal or something. Because it is basically just the organic, the drums. And there's something kind of impressive about that to me. The fact that they, you know, it's like this whole cacophony that they're able to conjure is just the product of two guys. It's not a necessarily pleasant cacophony to be listening to, but I do. I kind of appreciate the fact that it is literally just the two of them. Billy and this John Small character who, it should be noted as the guy that he ended up stealing Elizabeth Weber, his first wife from. And, you know, Attila, obviously, is the band that gets blown up as a result of their infidelity. Their tryst. Not a matter of trust, but a matter of tryst. How about that?
- [03:35]
B
He went and pillaged like a hun, this relationship.
- [03:41]
A
That's right. Like Attila himself. Wonder Woman with your skin so bare. Wonder Woman with your long red hair? You have the velvet touch you have I want so much My love is.
- [03:58]
B
Burning fire My need as wide as I. Okay, maybe I was being a little bit too broad in my comments. I do. They are a little bit unique in a way, like. But not in a way that makes it, like, good. It's like, it doesn't really go well together. Like, whereas you have something like the Doors or, you know, where the organ is, like, repurposed for this kind of more assertive rock musician ship. And then you even have stuff like. Like Vanilla Fudge or whatever. Like, that has its. That there's some of that in here, but it's kind of like it lacks the restraint of something like, you know, not that the Doors are, like, famously.
- [05:10]
A
Restrained is not the word that I would associate really, with the Doors or Certainly.
- [05:15]
B
Well, certainly not Vanilla Foot. But. No, but that's the thing. They don't have the rest, like, they. The restraint is just in that there's two guys. It's a duo, as he said, making all this noise. But this racket, you think about, like, something like, you know, this wouldn't happen for many, like, a decade later almost. But like, suicide, you know, that's like two guys, a really crazy organ. You know, there's like. The reason that something like that works is because there's, like, a sense of purpose to it where this just feels like really loud noodling with a little bit of reverb.
- [05:52]
A
Yeah, it's kind of like really shitty suicide. I think that's a good point of comparison because even down to the frontman, like, Alan Vega was doing his own Lou Reed riff, in a way, I feel like Billy Joel was kind of doing his own Lou Reed riff, but a very different Lou Reed riff.
- [06:07]
B
Well, it's also funny thinking of it in relation To Suicides. Two guys, an organ and a dream to make something really intense and embrace it. And one calls their band Suicide Again. Much. Several. Several years beyond this point. But the other, you know, just thinks, like, what's cool? What's. What's intense? What's. What's something that. What, like Attila the Hun. And then they.
- [06:35]
A
The COVID The COVID is so great.
- [06:37]
B
It's just them.
- [06:40]
A
They're in what appears to be, like, Ben Hur extra. Like, suits of armor.
- [06:45]
B
Yeah, like barbarians. Yeah, like. Yes. Centurion barbarian helmets and.
- [06:54]
A
Suits of armor. And what appears to be some sort of furs. Fur. Yeah. Draped over Billy's shoulder. And then they're standing amidst what appears to be like, a meat locker. Just a bunch of sides of beef standing around them.
- [07:08]
B
And it looks like there's sand or what kind of.
- [07:11]
A
I can't tell what that. Ground. I guess dirt or.
- [07:14]
B
Yeah, dirt or.
- [07:15]
A
Who knows?
- [07:16]
B
I mean, that aspect of it makes it. You know. I wonder if that was, like, added. Like, if the meat was added in. I wonder how that happened. Because there's no meat locker where you've got, like, dirt floors.
- [07:31]
A
And Billy looks. He almost looks like. Like a. Like Louis XIV or something. He's got this incredible hat. Pompadour. Yeah. That's just overflowing. This mane. Robust mane. And then this kind of, you know, proto pedo mustache on.
- [07:51]
B
He kind of looks like McCartney and the psychedelic mustache era. But if you just put your hands over your fingers over the sides of his head and just look at the top of his head and. You know what I mean.
- [08:06]
A
I know what you mean.
- [08:07]
B
But, like, sergeant Pepper.
- [08:09]
A
Yes, but there's always. There's like, an underlying prettiness to Paul McCartney. Like, he's always got this kind of cherubic, you know, kind of joyous baby face to him. Even into his older years. Billy Joel is just like, you know, kind. Those features have been sort of degraded a little bit. So it's like you took that top level of hirsuteness and then just applied it to, you know, some. Some bone structure that was a little further down the genealogical ladder.
- [08:41]
B
Let's see. I'm just looking at what people say about it on Reddit here. This is soulless music and not particularly interesting. Like, bands like the Seeds were considered bad or something more recently, like the Vipers. I don't know who that is, but the Seeds is a good point of comparison in some way. Like, I think that is. It is an outgrowth of, like, that type of thing.
- [09:05]
A
Well, what he said himself. What Billy has said himself, and I think he mentioned this in the documentary also, is that, like, he was enamored with, like, Zeppelin and these kind of hard rock English acts that were coming, you know, end of the 60s into the early 1970s and that are going to go on to sort of, you know, chart a new direction for rock music away from the founding acts that you and I are maybe a little bit more interested in. And so this was his attempt to kind of jump on that wave ahead of time. He was moving out of the Hassles, which was sort of a sound that had been and was already popular, you know, moving in the direction of something that's harder, louder, more aggressive, and potentially more popular on into the future. And I think he was right about that, you know, because obviously Zeppelin and, you know, these hard rock acts end up kind of defining a lot of rock culture for the next, you know, five, 10 years. But he's just kind of bad at doing that music and that. But, I mean, that's something that we see with him all throughout the rest of his career, right? Is like, the interest in, like, kind of catching the wave of whatever's popular in the Zeitgeist. When he does Glass Houses, then he goes new wave. Or when he does Nylon Curtain, and he's going to do the kind of big concept, important album. He's always kind of trying to respond to what's happening or what's about to happen in popular culture.
- [10:34]
B
Trying to conform to. In some way, trying to fit in.
- [10:38]
A
Yeah, basically. And some of those styles end up working out for him, obviously, like Innocent Man, I think, is maybe the cleanest example of that. Others, maybe less so. Attila is probably the worst possible musical setting for him to try to devote his talents to.