The “four lads of I’m okay, I’m okay” (as Robert Christgau once dubbed them) released their eponymous debut in 1972, added guitarist Don Felder to beef up their sound when Henley and Frey decided to move away from country rock to go “hard rock” following the disappointing sales of 1973’s spaghetti Western concept album Desperado, lost Leadon who wanted nothing to do with this change in musical direction and replaced him with Joe “I want to do drugs even when I’m sleeping” Walsh, then replaced Meisner with Poco’s Timothy B. The Eagles formed in 1971 in Los Angeles as a country rock quartet consisting of Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Bernie Leadon, and Randy Meisner. and they don’t have cow-shit on their boots-just dog shit from Laurel Canyon”) and their music is pure product, like hair spray or shaving cream.īut haven’t you ever loved a product so much you’d travel to the furthest WalMart in the tri-state area to find it? True, I have a hard time thinking of a less authentic band-from their early country-schlock hits such as “Take It Easy,” “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” and “Easy Livin’” (which is actually by Uriah Heep, but who’s keeping score?) to their peripherally harder but equally soulless fare such as “Already Gone” and “Victim of Love”-but I too am a victim of love, the kind of love you might have for a vacuum cleaner or an air conditioner or even a sex toy, except there is absolutely nothing sexy about the Eagles, that is unless you fell into a coma in 1972 and suddenly awoke hot for a mustache ride from a guy dressed from neck to ankles in denim.
So why am I writing about the Eagles? Because much to my shame I’ve been lying through my teeth and sorta actually like the band, despite the fact that they’re poseurs (as Tom Waits once famously said, “Those guys grew up in L.A. Even the Eagles can’t stand the sight of each other, and as for real eagles, of the sort that soar majestically above the desert arroyos in the hopes of espying Don Henley and carrying him off to devour him and then pick the tequila-flavored gristle from their beaks at their leisure, they hate the Eagles too.
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