J. Geils Band

by Tom O’Connor

J. Geils died yesterday, apparently pitching over dead in his Groton, Massachusetts home, at the age of 71. I hadn’t thought much about him or the band he named after himself in a long while, but as always with these things, the passing triggers memory even in an old punk rocker like myself who remembers figuratively (and in some cases literally,) throwing records by bands like his on the bonfire of youthful scorn, especially when someone a few decades younger, who claims to be a music expert, says, “J. Geils Band? Never heard of ‘em.”

As a kid growing up semi-feral in semi-rural Western Massachusetts in the late ’70s, what I knew about rock music could fit in a single paragraph and on a single FM radio station. Before MTV, before cable even, all kids like me had were WHCN-FM (out of Hartford CT) and my friends’ older siblings’ record collections. As far as I knew, “music” meant hard rocking old school AOR (when it stood for “Album-oriented Rock”) like the Stones, Beatles (of course), Hendrix, the Who, AC/DC, Ted Nugent, Black Sabbath, Lynyrd Skynyrd etc. all the usual suspects. Because I was growing up in Massachusetts, there were two other bands featured heavily: Aerosmith and The J. Geils Band.

Everyone knows Aerosmith but J. Geils flamed out for the usual early ‘80s reasons–an unexpected major hit exploded their popularity and pulled the band into a mainstream/crowd-pleasing sound, leaving behind their original loose-elbowed, R&B/Blues/Rock & Roll Party vibe and the fans who loved it. Of course mega-success inflamed the tensions that had built up between the “dynamic” personalities in the band over the years. Also I’m sure all the cocaine didn’t help.

Geils was the guitarist and band leader, who developed a reputation as the guy having the least fun being a Rock Star–too busy sweating over business and being a legendarily cheap bastard with anyone he did business with (including band members.) Frontman and epic party lizard, Peter Wolf, more than made up for J. Geils’ taciturn disposition. Wolf is the guy David Lee Roth wishes he was, seriously. Crucial to the band’s sound was their harmonica player who, for a time, was generally recognized as one of the best in the world (until John Popper came along.) Go ahead and Google, “Whammer Jammer,” I’ll wait…and since this was the ’70s, a decade not known for subtlety, his name was, of course, Magic Dick.

That major hit I mentioned earlier was a song called, “Centerfold” from the album Freeze Frame. Arguably their worst song, from that typical album every band puts out to “broaden their audience” while losing their long-time fans (I’m looking at you, ZZ Top.) Opinions vary on this, of course, but they’re wrong. It was all downhill after Freeze Frame. Before that album they had the makings of a perennial, long-haul, All-American band, like a dirty Boston version of Bruce & the E Street Band. Instead they cashed in, cashed out and imploded. Shit happens.

 
Want to know what The J. Geils Band was supposed to sound like? Skip Freeze Frame and pretty much everything that came afterward. Like all of the best bands, the cliché, “You have to see them live” is especially true with JGB, so start with the live albums. First, Full House from 1972. Listening, you’ll discover this wasn’t a mellow “groovy” early 70’s combo. This was a band with some swagger and some undeniable balls. Follow Full House with 1975’s Blow Your Face Out. There you’ll hear a band that knows what they’re doing and knows they’re powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline. Finally, cue up Sanctuary from 1978, one of their last studio albums before Freeze Frame, and one of my personal favorites. The 1980 album, Love Stinks, was ok, but give me Sanctuary any day. In it you’ll hear a party band starting to deal with some of the pain and weirdness of the real world. These aren’t all happy songs, but they’re honest and worth more than one listen.

As I type this, I’m listening to some J. Geils for probably the first time since 1981, and I’ll admit it feels a little odd. 1981 was the year I heard my first Ramones song, and then IMMEDIATELY abandoned “normal” music and polite society, but that is another story altogether. Now that I’m older and less exhausting for so many reasons, I’m better at being able to recall, without malice, all that “first music” that moved me before Punk Rock set my brain on fire, and J. Geils was a part of that.

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