Three Things: Humble Pie - 30 Days in the Hole
It Can Sure Smack You Down
To and for Matt, for reasons only he and I understand.
There is nothing redemptive here. There is no divine revelation about our society or how to fix the troubles that ail the human spirit. If it’s profundity you’re looking for, feel free to revisit Marvin Gaye’s Inner City Blues. This is big, dumb, greasy Rock and Roll by four British fuck ups about fucking up. This is road music for the “Make Everything Louder than Everything Else” crowd, of which I have been a card-carrying member since I first heard Deep Purple’s blistering Made in Japan live album when I was 14. This is about hashish, dirty rooms, and silver coke spoons. This is the type of thing I reach for when The Blues has a stranglehold on me and I need to find the escape hatch. I turn here and play it until my inner-ear function is compromised, I’m air drumming like I’m snake bit with four minutes left to live, and my record room is a swirling vortex of vinyl. 30 Days in the Hole is the sixth track on Smokin’, which is exactly what my headphones are doing when the song is over.
What exactly were the instructions to drummer Jerry Shirley? In my cartoon cannon of a mind, the conversation went like this: band leader Steve Marriott shows up half-loaded, cigarette dangling precariously out of the corner of his mouth. He looks like the James Dean car crash site. “Look mate, we need you to give your kit an exorcism. Yeah… an exorcism. I believe your drums are possessed, mate. So you have three and a half minutes to kick all the Hell out of it. Look at me, Jerry. Beat all the Hell out of your drums. BEAT ALL THE HELL OUT! And then cut directly to the in-studio moment (I told you I love those) that begins the song. “Roll my tape…” Then Jerry nods subtlely, “Righto,” he mutters, and then BEATS THE HELL OUT OF HIS DRUMS FOR THE NEXT THREE AND A HALF MINUTES.
“Alright, alright, alright, alright…” 21 years before Matthew McConaughey and Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused. I am utterly convinced McConaughey absolutely loves him some Humble Pie. Just after Marriott invokes that dirty room and silver coke spoon, he urges bassist Greg Ridley to “come on.” Ridley does and in fine style. His Bill Wyman-esque bassline bounces in with gleeful determination and adds the roll to this rock. Marriott then serves up a honking harmonica solo, and I’m gone. Whatever happens next is fine. Nothing matters at this point. We’re in 2-80 Mode here - two windows down at 80 miles per hour with a grin best described as ‘shit-eating’ plastered on my face.