Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
(Wearing Down) Like a Wheel (1985)
Every rock band has its unsung members, the ones who are essential to the group's sound but don't get much of the limelight. In the case of the Cars, Ric Ocasek and Ben Orr got most of the attention because they sang the songs, but a guy who was a huge part of that band was guitarist Elliot Easton, who played perfectly concise and ripping solos.
The Cars had just come off their biggest album, 1984's Heartbeat City; in fact, singles were still being released from it in 1985 when Easton's first solo album Change No Change came out on Elektra. I can't find the exact release date, but I remember seeing the video for "(Wearing Down) Like a Wheel" on V66, the Boston music video channel, and hearing it on local radio during my senior year of high school in the first half of 1985.
Easton wasn't the first Car to go solo. Ocasek and keyboardist Greg Hawkes both released solo albums earlier in the '80s and Orr and Ocasek both released albums in 1986 that Easton played on. Easton provided lead guitar and backing vocals on every Cars album, but he had zero writing credits with the group. For Change No Change, he worked with songwriter Jules Shear and co-wrote all 10 songs. The album starts out strong with quality power pop, but has a few missteps, including "I Want You," which features Easton half-rapping over a funky beat. No bueno.
But the lead single, "(Wearing Down) Like a Wheel" is the real prize here. The song chugs out of the gate with a pissed-off Easton singing about a relationship going bad.
"Oh what can be done about you?/You look so at home in blue/It's easy to see what we're coming through/Now you say you want to be alone/And you talk in a funny tone/But the humor escapes/Oh I see us wearing down like a wheel/Do you think it's time to stop?/And I can promise your friends don't know how this feels/I don't care the way they talk."
I didn't realize it at the time, but the song reuses a riff from the deep cut "Getting Through" off the Cars' Panorama album. Hey, if you're gonna steal something, might as well as steal from yourself. And it's much fully realized on the solo Easton song.
Easton's vocals were surprisingly decent, especially on the more rocking songs.
"So believe the life that you hated/With your wheel alleviated/Resigned that your life was so faded/How could you hold back from me?/And how could you act to me?/And how many times/Oh I see us wearing down like a wheel/Do you think it's time to stop?/And I can promise your friends don't know how this feels/I don't care, the way they talk."
As you would expect, Easton delivers a brilliant guitar solo that fits the psychedelic power pop feel of the song. It's a punchy slice of excellence. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to maintain that level throughout the album, but I think it still has some gems, including "Tools of Your Labor," "Change" and "Shayla."
The album didn't chart, but it did get some love in New England, where the Cars hailed from. Easton played a short tour for the album and then returned to the Cars, who released their sixth album Door to Door in 1987. Surprisingly, the album was a dud and the group split up in 1988. Easton produced and played on the first two albums by Amy Rigby in the mid-'90s. In 1995, Easton teamed up with bassist Stu Cook and drummer Doug "Cosmo" Clifford of Creedence Clearwater Revival to form the CCR covers band Creedence Clearwater Revisited. They played nearly 200 shows in their first year before CCR frontman John Fogerty sued them, claiming the name was confusing to fans who might think Fogerty was involved. A court agreed and issued an injunction preventing the use of the Creedence Clearwater Revisited name, so the band changed their name to Cosmo's Factory. But after an appeal, the U.S. Ninth Court of Appeals overturned the injunction and the band immediately changed its name back to Creedence Clearwater Revisited. Easton played with the group until 2004.
In 2005, Easton and Hawkes formed the New Cars along with Todd Rundgren, bassist Kasim Sulton and drummer Prairie Prince. By this point, Ben Orr had passed away in 2000 after a battle with cancer and Cars drummer David Robinson declined to participate; Ocasek gave his blessing to the endeavor. The group played Cars songs and selections from Rundgren's career and released a new single along with a live album in 2006. In 2010, the four surviving original Cars reunited for a new album and tour.
Since then, Easton released an album as Elliot Easton's Tiki Gods in 2013 and has played with the Empty Hearts since that year, releasing two albums. The group includes Clem Burke of Blondie, Wally Palmar of the Romantics and Ian McLagan of the Faces (until his death in 2014).
The Cars were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018, playing a short set with Weezer's Scott Shriner on bass. Ocasek died in September 2019.
