Fantastic Journey
- Peter Hartlaub
Monday, April 24, 2006
San Francisco Chronicle
What do critics know? The people have spoken, and the verdict is the same as it was 25 years ago: Journey so rocks! A quarter-century after ??ESC4P3? ?? ??Escape? to the straights ?? took over the airwaves, it??s high time to reconsider just who made the best music ever to come out of the Bay Area.
There have been hundreds of albums over the past few decades that were hated on by critics, only to sell millions of copies. That sentence pretty much describes the entire careers of Meat Loaf, Kansas and Jimmy Buffett.
And yet, what if there was a band, or even a single album, that was falsely persecuted -- the musical version of a Death Row inmate who didn't commit the crime? What if every 1980s critic was completely wrong about that album's alleged failings, a fact that becomes instantly apparent just by playing it again?
It's time to re-evaluate Journey's "Escape," or "ESC4P3" for those who prefer the prog-rock spelling of the era. Released 25 years ago, it's one of the most popular records produced by a Bay Area band and a first ballot inductee into the Make-Out Music Hall of Fame. But even as the album has been rediscovered in recent years by a younger generation -- many of whom, ironically, were conceived to the gentle strains of "Who's Crying Now" -- its legacy is still being denied by a relative handful of haters. If ever a rock 'n' roll album was in need of a presidential pardon, this is the one.
It's the rare album that is devoid of filler, sequenced so perfectly that pinpointing a weakness becomes impossible. To listen to "Escape" is to imagine a world without need for a fast-forward button.
The album begins with "Don't Stop Believin,' " a song that just may have magical properties within its opening piano signature. Seriously, lock yourself in a room right now and listen to that keyboard part 35 times in a row. Sick of it yet? If you said yes, then you're a filthy liar.
Now here's the mind-blowing part. As any serious "Escape" fan will tell you, that's only the third- or maybe fourth-best track on the album. The next song, "Stone in Love," is even better -- and part of Journey's master plan to tease you with a fast song, then a slow song ("Who's Crying Now"), another fast one ("Keep on Runnin' ") and another slow one ("Still They Ride").
After that, you've reached "Escape," a five-minute, 16-second track with only four intelligible phrases. (They are: "They won't take me, they won't break me," "He's on the streets breakin' all the rules," "I've got dreams I'm livin' for" and "This is my escape, yes I'm on my way.") And yet it still prevails as the best song on the album -- maybe on any album.
Listening to the song "Escape" is the equivalent of getting a personal two-hour life-coaching session by Tony Robbins and then smoking PCP. Each time "Escape" finishes, I am completely convinced that I can dunk a basketball, break a 2-by-4 in half with my bare hands and eat 25 hot dogs in a minute.
If the album ended there, it might be hazardous to the population at large. People would be jumping off bridges convinced they could fly. But singer Steve Perry, guitarist Neal Schon and company let us come down slowly, with each subsequent song rocking just a little less until the musical methadone of "Open Arms" closes the album.
There are only a handful of albums -- the Violent Femmes' first record comes to mind -- that stand out so much compared with the rest of their work, that there must have been something truly mystical going on behind the scenes.
That theory is confirmed by a recent conversation with Journey keyboard player Jonathan Cain, perhaps the most underrated member of the band who joined just before the "Escape" sessions. Cain, who co-wrote every track on the album, had just come from a frustrating run with the group the Babys. He describes the lightning-fast six-week "Escape" recording sessions in the East Bay as nothing less than life changing.
"I saw some of the most amazing things I've ever seen in a studio on that album," Cain said last week, speaking by phone from his Novato home. "Steve probably sang the 'Mother, Father' vocal in two takes. Done. It seemed like the whole band could just get up and fly away."
Along with adding the album's memorable keyboards, Cain saw himself as someone who could get the most out of his bandmates, who seemed to be heading in different directions. Cain said Schon had more than a dozen great cassette tapes filled with unused guitar parts and Perry was interested in singing more romantic songs. Both artists ended up getting their way.
"Steve said to me, 'I want to sing some ballads,' " Cain recalled. "There was this song I had written while I was in the Babys called 'Open Arms.' I had a Wurlitzer piano, 60 pounds, which I dragged into his house in Larkspur. I played it, and he loved it, and we immediately started writing the lyrics. I think we wrote that song in one afternoon."
While Journey had a reputation for manufactured hits, Cain said the band members, producers and technical crew were sincere about the songs, and manager Herbie Herbert gave them complete artistic freedom. They just happened to enjoy writing mainstream music and were willing to endure the ire of 50 critics if it meant 9.9 million fans bought and loved the album.
"When I came in I told them, 'You have no idea how lucky you are. These are gold-plated fans,' " said Cain, who had opened on tour for Journey with the Babys. "My message to Journey was: 'You need to write songs about your fans, to your fans, and it has to be from the heart.' "
"Escape" was scorched by critics, who saw surefire hits such as "Who's Crying Now" as inferior to music from some of the newer alternative groups such as R.E.M. The most recent Rolling Stone Album Guide still pans "Escape" -- and doesn't give any noncompilation Journey album better than a 2 1/2-star rating on its five-star scale.
But the fans loved the music then, and still love it today. With a recent spike in sales of the album -- last year, an "Escape" tour DVD was released and the World Series champion Chicago White Sox made "Don't Stop Believin' " its official song -- Journey is expecting it to reach the 10 million sales mark in the near future.
Cain said the follow-up to "Escape," "Frontiers," might have been an even better album, but it was dismantled at the last minute; the superb "Only the Young" and "Ask the Lonely" were removed so they could appear on the "Visionquest" and "Two of a Kind" soundtracks. Journey has considered re-releasing the album in its original state, but Cain says no one can remember the sequencing.
Journey, which tours with a different lead singer now, will co-headline with Def Leppard this summer, playing at the Chronicle Pavilion on Aug. 25 and the Shoreline Amphitheatre on Aug. 26. Cain said the crowds have been getting younger in recent years -- with teenagers rushing to the front when the first notes of "Don't Stop Believin' " plays.
And what better place to send your teenager than to a concert by Journey? Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" reaches its optimum sound after you've smoked marijuana. AC/DC's "Back in Black" is best consumed after a few shots of Wild Turkey. Journey's "Escape," however, is the rare album that is better consumed straight. In effect, the album is its own drug. By the time "Mother, Father" comes on, you'll feel like you drank three Red Bulls.
It should be no surprise that making the album felt exactly the same.
"A lot of times when I was playing with them, it was like we were somewhere else above Berkeley, flying around," Cain said of the "Escape" sessions. "I felt like I was in a glider. It was the perfect time and the perfect place with the right bunch of guys."
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/04/24/DDGVRID9BV1.DTL
