CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Dave Marsh on “Speaking Freely,” at the Newseum, July 2002. (Screen capture.)

They were titans to us, Midwestern kids enthralled by rock music, mythic Greek figures who communicated truths about, directly to the rock stars we loved. Unlike the self-congratulatory DJs, the rock critics told us who they were, who the bands were, what they meant, why the songs and albums mattered.

Growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, a city that declared bankruptcy, saw its lake die and river catch on fire as the ‘70s reduced by hometown to toxic rubble, rock & roll was the only thing that seemed to matter. Our football team sucked. The baseball team was no better. Don’t even consider the hockey or basketball organizations. It was bad. But, there was always the furious spirit of rock music, tilting against the norms and exploding with a rage – or euphoria – that captured you.

No brothers or sisters, only babysitters and reprobate golf pros, I got sucked into music young. But where that often felt like personal taste (and some was really good personal taste), Jane Scott at the Plain Dealer offered authority without being condescending. Looking like somebody’s spinster aunt, the musicians loved her wide-open approach and love for what they were doing. Reading her made me curious.

CREEM, a snarky magazine from Detroit that felt like it was typed with dirty fingernails, had a real thrust that matched the music. Snide, passionate, at times unhinged, writers’ names like Lester Bangs, Jaan Uhelszki (who turned out to be a girl) and Dave Marsh jumped off the page; all were visceral writers who threw down with a sense of urgency that matched the music.

Rolling Stone, which the reprobate golf pro who lived with us the summer before 7th or 8th grade, was very smart, very “in the moment.” But CREEM, which I found on the magazine rack in the back of a bookstore a block from where Mom got her hair done, was funny, wrote about bands that were more than merely pristine or selling hard.

One day, I saw Dave Marsh’s name in Rolling Stone. Hmmmm, writers can move? And from Detroit (Rock City!) and snotty bludgeoning to something more measured. Pay attention, I thought, and read on.

I never thought I’d be a music critic, just a kid who loved music, who wanted to understand where Jackson Browne found that bruised introspection, Rod Stewart and the Stones that bottomless sex, Lou Reed the darkness and Bruce Springsteen that blue-collar need to outrun the fates that yoke you. It was fascinating seeing Marsh hold “homeboy” Bob Seger to a standard that slagged Against The Wind as basically feckless, betraying his Motor City bona fides…

College came, freelancing followed. It beat answering phones all night in a hotel that paid well because drug deals were done there on the regular, and not local commerce, but the big deals between America and Colombia, Peru and places below the border.

Once publishing, I wanted more. In Record Timez, Black Miami Weekly, Grapevine in the Grove and concert business trade Performance led to the Miami Herald, Trouser Press, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Rock & Soul, Country Song Round-Up. The bigger the publication, I came to learn, the better the access.

Watching fellow Herald freelancer  (and touring sax player)Tom Moon crack Musician – with Joni Mitchell, no less – my lust for bigger publications blazed. Letters were sent to Tower Pulse, Rockbill, and two start-ups: SPIN and a Rolling Stone spin-off called The Record. If SPIN was the spawn of Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione, The Record had Dave Marsh on its masthead.

Letters and physical clips were sent – back when that was how it was done. Pulse and Rockbill responded with assignments; SPIN was back-and-forth conversations that delivered – eventually – assignments ranging from Merle Haggard to Lita Ford.

But the one I wanted was Dave Marsh. I said as much in my letters, pitching away and flattering enough to suggest I knew the vigor in his words – typed, it seemed, with a slashing sense of swagger that meant he meant it. Every manilla envelope soared into a staggering void, a silence that never echoed.

My father used to tell me “No, NO!” meant “Not now.” He’d laugh, say, “Add a couple consonants and get over it…”

Still the lack of response, the indifference.

One day, the phone rang – back when you’d also put your number several times in your queries – and a man’s voice I didn’t know asked for me. The vowels were a little flat. The cadence tilted forward, suggesting they meant business more than the cocaine-fueled urgency of Miami in the ‘80s.

“Huh…” said the man on the other end of the line.

“Can I help you?” I said, wondering if it was a creep from the Hotel Mutiny, who’d found my number.

“I didn’t think you’d sound so young,” came the honest response.

“I’m 21,” I said. “That’s not young.”

“Depends on how you look at it…”

“May I ask who’s calling?”

Holy crap! Dave Marsh. THE Dave Marsh, who’d written about the Messiah of the Midwest long before he became a genuine superstar – and delivered a sense of Bruce Springsteen’s ability to hold the hunger of blue-collar factory people in a way that fired not just dignity, but a sense of power.

“Wow…” Not my most compelling response. Regaining composure, I swung big – and hopeful. “Do you have an assignment?”

Laughter. “No. No, I don’t.”

“Huh,” I grunted, disoriented by the surreality of it all. If there wasn’t work, why would he bother.

“Yeah, no assignment,” he reaffirmed. But before I needed to say anything, he threw me a line. “I figured you were the person in Florida who’d been sending the packages, and I wanted to tell you…” My jaw was slack. He had seen them, connected them and remembered. My clips weren’t lost in the void.

“Oh, sorry, uh, you wanted to tell me…” I’d zoned out in panic and awe. I needed him to repeat.

“I saw your Steve Earle story in Tower Records magazine. It was good.”

“Yeah, it piqued my interest. They sent me the album. It’s good.”

“I think Guitar Town is great,” I blurted, maybe a little too young and enthused.

“Really?” His tone was amused.

“Yeah, I kind of do,” I tried not being so rah rah.

“No, Holly, either it is great, or it isn’t.”

He was going to make me own my real estate.

“It is,” I said, brow furrowed as I cowboy’ed up and owned my position. “I don’t know how much time you spend in the South or Southwest. But I think not only did Steve capture how the blue-collar working people who’re as redneck as they are Rust Belt live in a world that doesn’t see them, but he also brought that same rush of the music that Bruce has with the way he leans into rock. You know, the rock that’s the heartland.”

“Is that so?” he asked.

“Well, yeah,” I responded, a little uncertain, but thinking it was important to hold my line.

“And you’re from Cleveland…”

“Well, then your opinion holds.”

I broke out in a cold sweat. Also, being brash and young, I wanted to crack the Rolling Stone perimeter. “And really… no assignment?”

He laughed, an oak laugh that was solid, firm. “No, no assignment. But you’ve sent me so many packages, when I saw your name, I thought I’d give you a call. You’re a good writer. Keep writing.”

“I will,” I said. “I don’t really have any choice.”

“Sometimes that’s the best way,” he said. “Write. It’s important. Especially if you care.”

And then he was gone. There wasn’t anything else to say, but it was a moment. Worst part was I didn’t know who to tell. Most people in my world didn’t read the rock press, wouldn’t know, wouldn’t care. But that was okay. I knew.

Being real life, we didn’t become besties. I kept sending pitches, not hearing back. Most of the stuff you do at a daily paper is tour-related, or special interest-driven. Country music wasn’t The Record’s thing, and they had better, more local people to do Black music.

There was one more call. Towards the end of my senior year, Neil Young released Old Ways, a porous hippie-country record. He only wanted to talk to “real country writers.” I, along with the Chicago Tribune’s Jack Hurst and the Houston Post’s Bob Claypool, were among the four, five, six journalists chosen. Between Tower Pulse, MIX and Country Song Round-Up, even without the cover,  plus the Miami Herald and Jacksonville’s Times Union for tour press, I made the cut – and flew to Cleveland to experience a band that included blind Country Music Hall of Famer Hargus “Pig” Robbins on piano, wunderkind multi-instrumentalist Anthony Crawford, Louisiana fiddler Rufus Thibodeaux,  and steel player Ben Keith.

“How’d you do it?” came the voice down the line. No hello, no identification. Matter of fact, to the point and filled with respect.

“I’m sorry…” I said, laughing.

“Neil Young. How’d you make that happen?”

“Do I know you?” I asked. There’d been some petty back-stabbing, even from friends. I just wanted to establish what this conversation was.

“Holly, it’s Dave Marsh,” laughing now as well. “I read your Pulse piece. It was good. I really enjoyed it. And I was impressed you got that interview, knowing how many people wanted to talk to him.” “Oh,” I said, getting the lay of the land. “Yeah, Neil wanted to talk to ‘real country writers,’ or so they said. It was crazy. One of the Herald writers tried to pull it out from under me.”

“They didn’t, though. Did they?”

“Are you kidding? I wasn’t giving that interview up. I have to talk to Mickey Gilley and Lee Greenwood, that guy didn’t… So who’s the ‘country writer’?”

He laughed harder. “Guess it’s a bad idea to pick a fight with you…”

“Come on. If he wants a country writer, the person slogging through TG Sheppard and Sylvia’s the one.”

“Yeah, but it’s funny. And you know what?” “What?”

“You nailed it. You got the authenticity he obviously wanted, but you also leaned into that part of him that comes from rock. You brought them together without making anything feel forced. That’s a good thing.”

I let the words settle. Praise. From someone I read, no, revered.

“Thank you.” My Dad said it makes the embarrassment stop. Acknowledged the compliment, the other person moves on.

“And that’s not an easy thing to do, either.”

“You don’t think so?” I knew he knew much more than I did. I knew how hard I worked on my stories. But I was still a kid, never mind one with a God-given gift that was far larger than actual experience.

“No, to make it seamless like you did, that’s a big deal. It never felt like you were propping one thing or the other up. And you really do know the country stuff, that was clear.”

“Damn,” It escaped before I realized.

“Do you have good editors?” he asked.

“What does that mean?”

“Some think I’m a kid, or a girl…”

“You are a girl,” he echoed, not sure what I was trying to say.

“Yeah, but like a girl who’s not as good as a boy would be.”

“Does that make sense?” I asked. Sexism was so baked in, people didn’t always notice.

“Look, you’re a rock writer. Period. Your gender isn’t part of it, your heart is. That’s what matters. Just don’t sell your heart out. Don’t fall for garbage. Don’t write someone else’s agenda.”

“Got it.” I said, sensing the spot for........

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