$2.99 Wax Necessities
A Column By Tim Midgett

BACHMAN - TURNER OVERDRIVE
NOT FRAGILE
MERCURY 1974

I come to celebrate sludge, not to bury it.

The first words we hear:

Comin' to you cross-country
Hopin' BOOGIE'S STILL ALLOWED!
You ask do we play heavy music?

I can't quite make out the answer. Some kind of rhetorical question, i.e. "Does a bear shit in the woods?" The real answer is given before the question is even asked, by a riff only a bass player could write. Clodlike and (yes) heavee, it gets one going in spite of itself.

Randy Bachman was B.T.O.'s leader. His finely drawn compositions delimit the territory the band explores. Is it territory we should explore with them? I think so. I ain't seen nothing like "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" in the Top 40 for quite a while. And if our alternate definition for "sludge" ever worms its way into the dictionary, there had better be a RealAudio link to "Sledgehammer." Bachman tries his level best to reach nebulously defined vocal heights, over what is perhaps his greatest riff, as bonecrushing as his stewards are capable of producing.

What is "sludge"? This lyric comes from "Rock is My Life, and This is My Song":

When the music's over
You wonder where we are
I'm standing in the silence
With my old guitar

At which point Bachman interjects: "MY ONLY FRIEND!" And I believe it, more than a previous line:

I'm not trying to come on like Hollywood but Hollywood is what I am

No, Randy, you're CANADIAN, and your GUITAR is your only friend, and you were right when you said "SOMEDAY WE'LL BE GONE!"

Aspirations to magnificence, cut with the inevitable truth. It's all relayed by journeymen operating at their absolute limits. And the rock is laden with riffs. That is the essence of sludge. And that is worth three dollars.

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