Customer Reviews

Rehearsals for Retirement / Gunfight Carnegie Hall

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Rehearsals for Retirement" is probably Och's most personal album. Considering his demons, then, this may be somewhat harrowing an experience for some listeners. Owing to later events, one senses the "retirement" he's singing about wasn't only referring to a possible career change. The music, however, is the best of his career--ranging from beautiful to rocking. As for the lyrics, ROR captures his typical sarcasm, this time around dealing with the underwhelming results of the 1968 Democratic convention protests. Evidently, though, the event was life-changing for socially-conscious Ochs, and, thus, accounts for much of the disillusionment he also sings about here. Overall, I doubt fewer more significant "primal screams" have ever been recorded.

As for the gold-suited wearing Ochs' of "Gunfight," it's an entertaining as well as interesting concert to hear. In my opinion, it contains the best version of "Tape From California"--it rocks! Those who didn't like Ochs' wardrobe at the time, nor his choice of covers, were just short-sighted in my opinion, and missed the humor. In short, a good album and not quite the "beginning of the end" a lot of people read it as. How I understand it, Ochs' vocal chords were damaged shortly before he died and, thus, doomed his career more than any lack of interest on the public's part (though there was plenty of that, too, in 1976).

Too bad the movie was never made that was intended to star Sean Penn. Och's career deserves to be better known--"Rehearsals for Retirement" ESPECIALLY deserves a listen. Ochs, perhaps to his misfortune, was a performer who believed in the causes he sang about. And, of course, much of what he sang about is still relevant today. However, unlike Ochs, I still have hope (partially thanks to people like Ochs, ironically--not for his death [Gandhi and MLK serve as better martyrs for those who need one], but for his ability to capture a shared sentiment in song).

In short: Buy this. I don't like the double package either--each album is strong enough to carry its own. However, from my own experience, I was grateful for the opportunity of hearing Gunfight for the first time, which was initially released only in Canada and was long out-of-print.

Why these albums are sold together I'll never know. Perhaps it's to punish those of us who managed to buy the edition of Gunfight at Carnegie Hall formerly sold by Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab. This seems to be a trend with Phil Ochs' music- those of us who bought Live at Newport were similarly taken when Vanguard decided to issue another CD (The Early Years) of some new material and all of the Newport recordings. I hope that Michael Ochs (or someone) can get the record companies to stop ripping off Phil Ochs fans- it doesn't help build fan loyalty.

Gunfight at Carnegie Hall is one of the best live albums of all time. While there may be problems with Phil's playing and his voice, the passion in his performance is clear. The gunfight title is apt, as there is clear tension between the audience and Phil at the beginning, but then his energy wins them over. Why there hasn't been a release of the entire concert is beyond me. (Although one can catch "School Days" on the American Troubadour CD.) Also, the sound quality on this CD is noticably inferior to that of the MFSL disc.

Rehearsals for Retirement is also very good. "Pretty Smart on My Part" is a real highlight. Since this is the first time the album has been available on CD, it's worth it to buy the set for this recording, even if you already have Gunfight. I just wish it hadn't been necessary to buy both albums!

I stumbled onto Phil Ochs about thirty years too late, buying a discounted version of "American Troubadour", and have been hooked ever since. His later work, especially, touches and captivates me --- Leonard Cohen as sung by Buddy Holly. It was actually on the US election day that I walked into a shop in Soho, London, and found this cd release, and was thrilled beyond belief. It is, as far as I'm concerned, one of the great, underrated albums of the 60's, a bitter and reflective twist on the flower-power era. Still retaining something of his sense of humour, it's an elegiac epitaph for Phil and for his generation.

"Gunfight at the Carnegie Hall" is interesting, if only for its history, but it only reflects a fraction of the actual length, and fairly straightforward covers of rock n'roll standards are as ordinary now as they were baffling then. It still has a stunning live version of "Pleasures of the Harbour", but this can be found on "American Troubadour", anyway. I've tried listening to the comments shouted up from the audience, but they're very hard to hear, so you don't even get the combative atmosphere that you get from Dylan's "1966 Live" cd -- it just sounds like a show that didn't go down too well.

Still, this is well worth buying for "Pleasure of the Harbour" alone. SO BUY IT!

First of all, I'll say that I think that the pairing of these two albums is kind of strange. The only thing they really have in common is that they're both among Phil's last albums. Stylistically, they're hardly similar. Gunfight At Carnegie hall would have been better paired with Greatest Hits, both having their share of Ochsian country and classic R&R. Maybe Collector's Choice thought that Greatest Hits was actually a greatest hits album and skipped over it--I don't know. But I digress.
Rehearsals For Retirement is possibly Phil Ochs' best album, certainly his most accessible ("My Life" should have been a hit), and most certainly his most emotional. After the 1968 Democratic National Convention, Phil's psyche was in turmoil. Frustrated with politics, he channeled his pain and anger and turned it into something beautiful: this album. You can hear his anger in the rockier tracks ("Another Age," "Pretty Smart On My Part," and especially "I Kill Therefore I Am"), his sadness and desolation in piano-laden songs such as "The Doll House" and the title track, and his trademark humanity in "William Butler Yeats..." and "The Scorpion Departs But Never Returns." There's also a glimpse of the Ochs brand of humor in a short piece at the end of the fourth track called "Where Were You In Chicago?" In short, Rehearsals For Retirement is a culmination of all the best elements from Phil's previous albums.
Gunfight At Carnegie Hall is an odd album in and of itself. Most people know the basic story behind Phil's ill-fated "gold suit" tour, especially this infamous concert at New York's Carnegie Hall, so I won't get too much into that. Unfortunately, this album amounts to just a few audio snapshots of that event. A&M, I believe, were going for a "NEW" Phil Ochs album, rather than a traditional live album, much of the included songs being Ochs material that was new to the public. Phil and his band perform a rocking (albeit shortened) version of "Tape From California" and a stunning, stripped-down version of "Pleasures Of The Harbor." Phil goes solo & acoustic for "I Ain't Marchin' Anymore," which gets the best response from the audience. (Reportedly, throughout the show, the audience would loudly cheer the vintage Ochs material and boo whenever the band walked onto the stage.) The Elvis and Buddy Holly covers may be a little too faithful to the originals, but I think Phil was more concerned with paying tribute to his idols rather than playing "his versions" of their material. Say what you will about the medleys, but where else are you going to hear Phil Ochs sing a song like "Are You Lonesome Tonight?!" However, it's Phil's (drunken) humor and his conviction to the material that really makes this set interesting. His between-song banter gives the listener a slight idea of what the show was like, from getting a hearty reception from the crowd when talking about revolution to responding humorously to the boos after announcing that he's going to play a song from the `50s. At the end of the show, the audience, finally won over by Phil's heartfelt stubbornness, doesn't want him to leave. "With a gun in one hand...with a guitar in the other," he at least tamed Carnegie Hall.

I don't know why people think the concert at Carnegie Hall was a failure of some sort. It wasn't. I was present at the late show which began at midnight. After the earlier show, Phil broke through one of the windows at the entrance when they woulnd't let him back in. I think he had stitches and he was pretty drunk but he played the second show anyway. And what a show it was! I can only tell you that after some resistance the crowd did get what he was doing and the show went on for hours. In fact everyone was dancing by the end, including the ushers. Even after management attempted to turn off the power the concert continued! (Phil said "Turn the power on-pass it back!" and within minutes the entire place was demanding more power and they did turn it back on.) I have been to a couple of hundred concerts over the years and this one ranks as one of the best, if not the best! It was an utterly legendary night! I miss Phil Ochs.

...and "Gunfight" is not the disaster that everyone makes it out to be--not by a long shot! Ochs sounded great in a live setting, and he had a nice, tight little band behind him. 'I Ain't Marchin' Anymore' is flawless, while 'A Fool Such As I' is one of the most faithful and affectionate cover versions I've ever heard. It's too bad that Ochs's audience couldn't relate to his love for those great old Elvis and Buddy Holly songs.
The studio disc is, of course, the greatest Phil Ochs album. From the lean acoustic chords of 'Pretty Smart On My Part', to the eerie piano intro on 'The Doll House', to the heartbreaking title track and 'Doesn't Lenny Live Here Anymore', Ochs proved on "Rehearsals for Retirement" that he could go toe-to-toe with Dylan, Paul Simon, or any of the other great songwriters of the sixties. What a shame that his life ended the way it did.
Yes, this *is* an odd pairing of albums, but you certainly can't complain about them in terms of pure quality. There's not a bad track on either one of these discs. Find a copy of Marc Eliot's Phil Ochs bio "Death of a Rebel", if you can, and read while you listen.

You can't imagine how long I've waited for "Rehearsals for Retirement" to become available again -- even his sister didn't know when it would once more see the light of day. This is probably Ochs' strongest album -- not a bad song on it and you get a fairly devastating parody of Bob Dylan's singing style on "The Doll House." Recorded shortly after the 1968 Democratic National Convention at which Ochs lost so much of his faith in humanity, it features "My Life," one of Ochs' finest songs and a plethora of intelligent, very moving, tuneful, ironic, and iconic songs that even someone new to Ochs can enjoy. I had the good fortune of seeing him perform most of this album at the University of Chicago in early 1969 -- you will enjoy it. Prepare to be very emotionally moved by the lyrics no matter what your politics may be.

On the other hand, "Gunfight at Carnegie Hall" features Ochs' painfully awful renditions of Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly songs as well as some fine readings of "Pleasures of the Harbour," "Tape from California," and "I Ain't Marching Anymore." The liner notes are more interesting than most of the music. This album helped overcome the television industry's blacklisting of Phil and got him on TV again -- but pretty much for all the wrong reasons.

So, at this price you get the fabulous "Rehearsals for Retirement" and a handful of tunes on "Gunfight" that you may wish to hear more than once. It's still a good deal, if only for "Rehearsals."

I downgrade this CD not so much for its content as for the fact that it so eloquently illustrates how the music industry is ripping us off. "Rehearsals for Retirement" is the better half of the album. It was originally issued in 1969, and rather than reissue that alone, we are forced to buy it with "Gunfight at Carnegie Hall", which is mostly old material.... The cop-bashing in "I Kill Therefore I Am" is a bit dated but otherwise "Rehearsals" features some savage social commentary. Some of this was misinterpreted by the FBI, and earned Phil surveillance, most notably the piece "Pretty Smart On My Part" in which he makes fun of RIGHT wing extremists who would "assassinate the president and take over the government". The government in its stupidity interprets this as a desire for the LEFT to take over the government! Does the government not undertand the meaning of parody? (Actually Phil did stray pretty close to communism in his "Phil Ochs in Concert" album, but this was not noticed).
Those familiar with Phil Ochs' life know that he ended it in a suicide. Knowing how his life ended gives a whole new meaning to the songs "Rehearsals for Retirement" and "My Life" ("My life has been a death to me"), for it shows that the period of despair that ultimately led to his death began with "Rehearsals for Retirement".
Perhaps part of the reason for the despair is that in the 1970s and 1980s it appeared that the political left was vanquished and that the ideals for which Phil sang were not to be. But with the collapse of the stock market reminiscent of 1929 we are reminded of who we are and where we came from.
I recommend this album only for hard-core Phil Ochs fans. If the record companies would either reduce the price of this set or re-release Rehearsals for Retirement (without Gunfight) as a low-price CD like some of the early Dylan records, I would give it at least another star.
Some of the songs from "Rehearsals for Retirement" may be found on "American Troubador", which the casual collector may prefer.

This CD package has two albums by Phil. One of them, Rehearsals for Retirement, is a masterpiece and the most depressing, sad album Phil ever recorded. The other is Gunfight at Carnegie Hall, which is one of the oddest albums he's ever done. Pairing them is quite strange to say the least.

The first, Rehearsals for Retirement, almost holds up to its title. It was the penultimate studio album that Phil did (he did one more after this, the ironically titled Greatest Hits). At this time in his career and life, Phil was immensely depressed about everything from the endless Vietnam war to civil strife at home and for being involved and witnessing the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago (the picture on the tombstone on the cover says Phil died in Chicago in 1968, a symbolic death, but a death nonetheless). His depression is echoed in this album, from the opener Pretty Smart on My Part, which is a Buddy Holly like music track with dark, paranoid lyrics. The Doll House is a beautiful song, but Phil indulges in a Dylan parody in the middle, which lessens the impact of it. I Kill Therefore I Am is another song with creepy, cynical lyrics (the chorus is "I am the masculine American man/I kill therefore I am"). The title track is very, very sad, but Phil's vocal on this one (and the other songs) lift the song up anyway. Rehearsals is very much like Phil's other studios albums, in that it's brilliantly written, produced, and performed. Phil never made a bad studio album, and Rehearsals is excellent.

Gunfight at Carnegie Hall is another matter. After Rehearsals, Phil decided against doing political material and made an attempt, at least in his eyes, to reach the middle class of America. He started dressing in flashier clothes and started incorporating Buddy Holly and Elvis songs into his sets. This album, recorded in 1970 but not released until the mid 70's (and only in Canada), was the result of the "flashy clothes" tour. Gunfight is an incomplete document of the concert, as there was a lot more original material than what is included here. No one really knows who compiled Gunfight, but most of it ended up being covers of Elvis, Buddy Holly, and Merle Haggard. Speaking of Haggard, this was the first time I heard the song Okie from Muskogee, and it was the first time I heard a Merle song EVER. Phil talks a LOT between songs here (which is at times funny and enlightening, and other times very, very preachy with Phil lecturing the audience), but he talks about Merle being a "right wing songwriter". This isn't true. Merle has never been identified as a "right wing songwriter", or a left wing one for that matter. The right wing appropriated both the song and Merle himself. Merle, who is a great musician/artist who is much more complex than politicians can imagine, ended up being used by politicians simply for political use. Phil should have known this. The Gunfight album/CD is fascinating at times, because Phil's career and life were falling apart at this time, and this CD/album captures that chaos. Gunfight is not a particularly good album, and its inclusion here isn't much of a revelation. There's no song on the album that really sticks out.

So, overall, pick this one up for Rehearsals, and if you have to, listen to Gunfight.