October 16-22, 2003

musicpicks

Love

by Sam Adams

Rock/pop

The fact that Love's Arthur Lee served six years in prison for firearms offenses might make some of the hippy-dippy sentiments in his songs tough to swallow nowadays, but it's clear that he's emerged from stir with a renewed lease on his life and art, or at least the kind of fire in the belly that only unpaid legal bills can provide. True, he's reformed his long-defunct band with himself as the only original member, but any scent of cash-in evaporates instantly in the heat of his recent performance. Backed by Los Angeles acolytes Baby Lemonade, Lee -- or, rather, Love featuring Arthur Lee -- tore through a two-hour set at The North Star earlier this year, the absence of new songs made up for by the fact that the old ones never got a fair airing in the first place. Now, Lee and co. have returned to mark the 35th anniversary of their classic Forever Changes album augmented by a mini-orchestra of string and horn players. (A live version of the show, recorded in January in London, is available on CD as well.) To call the album psychedelic or to link it to the San Francisco scene of the time is to downplay the extent to which Lee was as much apart from the scene as of it; on the frontier allegory Live and Let Live, Lee casts himself as cowboy and Indian, without smugly distancing himself from either perspective. (Or maybe it's just that nowadays, when he sings, I think I'll take my pistol, you're inclined to believe him.) By Lee's account, a number of the Forever Changes songs have never been performed live before this tour, and it's doubtful they will be again. Thirty-six years after the Summer of Love, they've finally got their fall.

Sun., Oct. 19, 7 p.m., $23, The Trocadero, 1003 Arch St., 215-922-LIVE