Jethro Tull “J-Tull Dot Com”
Tull tapes in the shop!
It’s 1999. The very dawn of the internet as we know it. I myself am a fledgling dotcom entrepreneur, having spent most of the previous year readying a startup. Tired but personally unencumbered, I get an invitation from a friend to go to a Renaissance Faire that weekend. A few of his buddies are into this sort of thing, but he is going primarily as a lark. As larks go, I can think of others that sound more enjoyable, but it’s one of those weekends. It’s nice out. I have no other plans. No girlfriend. And, how bad could it be?
When I get there, I try not to tense up. The crowds. The spectacle. It’s a bit overwhelming. But I inhale, then exhale, and order a giant turkey leg and a pewter mug of Coke. We enter the outdoor theater and find seats as we watch a joust and a brief performance by a court jester. At the hour mark, I am about ready to leave. But my friends are by this point inebriated and the theater has gotten crowded. Next up is a play. I presume it will be bawdy and mercifully short. I am wrong. It’s one unintelligible, unbearable hour of amateurish soap opera and frollicking with royal maidens, gypsy peasants and pirate rogues. Worse, it’s a musical. And I cannot leave. It’s miles to mass transit. Most everyone else seems to be having a grand ole time. And this feeling -- of being overwhelmed, restless and confused at a Ren Faire during the early days of the Internet -- brings to mind one album above all others in the history of music: Jethro Tull’s “J-Tull Dot Com.”
Though I only ever owned one of their albums, Jethro Tull was always somehow in my line of sight. Mind you, they were on the very periphery of that line, but I never lost track of them. And they never went away. Forever an enigma to me, I associated them with something in between Medieval and Renaissance. Something free spirited like a hobo. Something at the center of the Venn diagram of Traffic, early Genesis, Cream, early Floyd and Cat Stevens. It’s a weird set of influences, to be sure. But when it worked, it really worked. So why question it? But when it did not work, the music could get lost in its own musical diaspora. Somewhere along their journey, they seemed to have become disoriented. And by the twenty-first century, they lost me altogether. It was not indifference. I was curious about Tull and Tullheads. But I quite literally could not follow them.
As confounding as they were, there is the singularly obvious featrure of Jethro Tull that bears mention. Ian Anderson is more closely associated with his instrument -- the flute -- than any other rock musician is associated with an instrument. Ian Anderson owns the Rock flute. Neither Bonham, Pert nor Moon own drums, and neither Clapton or Hendrix owns the guitar like Ian Anderson owns the flute. Peter Gabriel flirted with it. Traffic, too. The Moody Blues and Heart all used it. But the heavy crush of guitar and the snarl of Anderson’s voice against the nimble sweetness of the woodwind proved to be the most iconic and unexpected of pairings. Add to that sound the image of the man, beckoning us with his tunes while standing on one leg, and you have something almost mythical.
Iconic and enduring but also ever changing, Anderson himself was not a flutist by trade. He picked it up after being humbled on guitar by Eric Clapton. And he played it in a very intuitive manner -- employing it both for melody and for bluesy solos played with the dexterity of a Jazz man. And his rotating band was always filled with the expert musicianship and appropriate sensitivity, whether they were playing Blues, English Folk, Hard Rock, Prog Rock or any of the spaces in between. Throughout most of the 1970s, the formula mostly consisted of Hard Rock and English Folk -- and it mostly worked. Tull could succeed with heavy Rock bangers like “Aqualung” and “Cross-Eyed Mary,” as well as willowy, Baroque Folk and Pop like “Skating Away,” and “Thick as a Brick.” Save for Anderson’s flute and the theater of his voice, you could never be sure what you were getting from Tull.
Throughout the 70s, Jethro Tull got “earthier,” eschewing the volume for music that befitted Anderson’s interest in centuries old farm life. Endlessly curious and highly intellectual, though, there’s a whole other strain of Ian Anderson that we eventually get on “Too Young to Rock n Roll, Too Old to Die,” — witty and contemporary Tull. There’s something very present, urban and clever in that version of Anderson that is — dare I say — reminiscent of the Kinks. That flavor would emerge only occasionally for the rest of his career. And that may have been a shame. While Anderson did not like writing about himself or even identifiable characters, he was unusually capable of filling those characters with life. 1976’s “Too Young to Rock n Roll, Too Old to Die” represents an interesting “what if” for those (like me) who are fond of Anderson’s modern wit but not especially fond of Tull’s Prog Rock turn. Plus, the world could always use more Ray Davies energy.
When Tull didn’t work, which was increasingly the case as the 70s became the 80s, the line between imitation and satire became less obvious. While they were never afraid of the bombast or the Baroque, their 1980s albums began to sound like a score for an unmade movie written by Rick Wakeman, Christopher Squire and Steve Howe about court life in the 1600s. Ian Anderson famously was not a fan of showy virtuosity without humor. But, a decade removed from “Aqualung,” it was increasingly hard to see the lines of gradation between Jethro Tull and Emerson Lake and Palmer -- a band that Ian Anderson did not like. There was something plebeian in Tull but it was a short and slippery slope to the synthesized indulgence of those bands Anderson appreciated technically but eye-rolled aesthetically. When Jethro Tull was more economical and Folky in the later 70s, as on “Songs from the Wood,” the indulgences are digestible. “Thick as a Brick” and “Passion Play” managed to barely balance the earnest with the comedy. By 1982’s “The Broadsword and the Beast” and 1984’s “Under Wraps,” however, the balance was lost.
Famously, in 1987, Jethro Tull won a Grammy for best Hard Rock/Metal performance for their album “Crest of a Knave,” beating heavy favorites, Metallica. And while that later career recognition has been the subject of many jokes and raised eyebrows, the album is very competent, 80s progressive Hard Rock. It is both more likable than the music Yes was making at the time and harder than what Genesis became. “Crest of a Knave” was not an album deserving of that award, but it is a testament to and reminder to how resilient the band was, how competent they were and how sprawling their career would be. By this point, Tull was fully embracing their Renaissance vibes but compensating for the aging of Anderson’s melodic snarl, which propelled their 70s hits. They were a different band. Technically more adventurous and surprising but also much less sonically gratifying and Pop.
As Ian Anderson’s voice and body continued to suffer, one could sense the band slowing down. Not that the albums were perfunctory. “Catfish Rising” has some oomph and most of the 90s albums were warmly received in Prog circles. But, the records came less frequently and seemed more interested in the ideas and the playing than in the songs. Anderson’s more mellow voice no longer growled but rather lightly filled in the spaces of his gymnastic tunes. Throughout the late 80s, Tull endured thanks to Renaissance Faires, Heavy Metal and Prog Rock. However, in the 90s, those cultural forces had become the targets of satire. In their places, we got Lollapalooza, Alt Rock and Hip Hop. And by 1999, Jethro Tull was at some risk of blurring the lines between drama and satire themselves. Fifty year old men in vests, playing the shit out of their instruments while sweating to a flute solo begs for the punchline. Jethro Tull beat us to the punch, though, by releasing a nominally conceptual album slash advertisement for their website, entitled, “J-Tull Dot Com.” Although the band has toured regularly since and released a Chirstmas album, “J Tull Dot Com” was effectively the end of the road for Tull in the studio. It was an ignominious swan song for a band that started somewhere between Cream and early Pink Floyd but then got lost on a detour and found themselves in somewhere between Spinal Tap, Tenacious D and Steely Dan.
“J-Tull Dot Com” is not the debacle nor the anachronism that its title portends. At fourteen songs and nearly an hour, though, it could be fairly described as both sprawling and exhausting. The band added Andrew Giddings on keyboards and Jonathan Noyce on bass for the record and they would remain with the group for nearly a decade -- an eternity by Tull standards. Both instruments -- keyboards and bass -- are featured prominently throughout. However, alongside Anderson’s famous flute, it is Martin Barre’s guitar that continued to be the driver of most songs. Barre alternates between heavy but open tones that evoke Mark Knopfler, searching and shifting Prog runs, and moody Middle Eastern influences.
As with almost all Jethro Tull records, the playing is expert and inventive. However, the harder edges have been noticeably sanded off by this point. Nobody would reasonably confuse tracks like “Spiral,” “Black Mamba” and “Hunt by Numbers” -- three of the heaviest songs on the albums -- for Heavy Metal. And while all of the songs have a scent of Prog, the more gymnastic tracks, like “AWOL” and “Far Alaska” sound repressed and thin. On “J-Tull Dot Com,” Anderson and Co. frequently sound like they are taking aim at a less pretentious version of Prog, but falling short. Some of this failure might be the production, which has the sound of an album made on a pirate ship model inside a glass bottle, or in the small tent at the Renaissance Faire.
Perhaps the most notable limitation of the album, however, is Ian Anderson’s voice, which, by 1999, was supple but not powerful. There was no bite left in it. As a result, the singer uses his voice the way some bands use woodwinds -- to fill gaps rather than to carry the melody. On the early Jethro Tull albums, Anderson’s voice could hold force and anger. Simultaneously, he could nurse a Folk song with a full-throatedness that resembled Cat Stevens. Over time, all voices decline. But, on “J-Tull Dot Com,” the contrast between the flute, the shape-shifting tunes and the singer’s muster is mostly absent. It was that contrast and tension that had defined Jethro Tull for decades. But, as the twentieth century came to an end, Ian Anderson was much more a narrator or raconteur than a singer.
Although its title might suggest some sort of unfortunate, cyber-concept album, the record is more varied than its name implies. Anderson has always had a sense of humor. It may not be one that I always understand or find funny, but he has always written with irony and satire. Without question, he is in on the silliness of his album’s title. That being said, it is not entirely a joke. Several songs (“Dot Com,” “AWOL” and “The Dog-Ear Years”) capture an ennui caused, in part, by modern technology. Others, like “El Nino” and “Far Alaska,” meditate on climate change. For all of his whimsy, Ian Anderson was always an unusually gifted writer. His lyrics, when they are not trying to be funny, can be quite poetic. And when they are trying to be funny, they are, at the very least, charming. The words are definitely not the problem on “J-Tull Dot Com.” Anderson is insightful and curious in his middle age, like a Scottish Donald Fagen. The problems are the singing and -- yes -- the songs. There is nothing approximating a hit on the album. In fact, there is nothing approximating a memorable melody.
Meanwhile, the most progressive work outs sound measured and professional. The band is always dexterous and the singer frequently lyrical. But there is not a whole lot of fun or amazement or terror, for that matter, on “J-Tull Dot Com.” It’s just a middling Prog album from an unusually talented writer and performer and his exceedingly competent band. What is exceptional about Jethro Tull is how deeply they explored the corners of sub-popular genres, while still maintaining relevance. Along the way, they considered, chewed on and digested supergroups like Cream, Traffic, Yes and countless others. But they outlasted and outsold all of those bands. And they did it with a lead singer who played flute while standing on one leg.
Ian Anderson is seventy three years old. His body has broken down from decades of touring. Tragically, he also suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, suggesting that his days as a singer and live performer are both likely numbered. And that number may, in fact, be zero. One day, hopefully many years from now, bachelors and maidens will gather in song to celebrate the music of Ian Anderson and Jethro Tull. “J-Tull Dot Com,” mercifully, was not the end. Anderson released a series of similarly progressive, though thematically divergent, solo albums throughout the 2000s. And while he may have lost his voice and his creative compass, he has never lost his wit or his musicality. Every now and again I will randomly hear “Locomotive Breath” or “Bungle in the Jungle” on the radio. Last summer, while playing a “deep cuts” station on satellite, I even heard “My God,” from “Aqualung.” Most any time I hear early Tull, I sit up, listen and smile. I’ve never considered myself a fan. And I don’t know that I will again revisit their material from the eighties or nineties. But on behalf of every serious Ren Faire frolicker, Harry Potter fan, Spinal Tap fan, and flutist/poet, I am most grateful for Ian Anderson, the twenty-four studio band members of Jethro Tull, and the millions of Tullheads who figured out something that I did not.