Guess I'd better give you the breaking news before I go into my rave about this fave. The last deal was a disaster and a week ago tonight I went so off the rails as a result that I'm still in a state of shock over how out of control I became. Records are great, but when they lead to things like constant friction in the family and uncertainty about my future then it's time for some things to go. I'm not saying I'm giving up- that will never happen. I'm merely saying that I plan on doing everything even inhumanly (for me!) possible and making a big effort to go from addiction back to obsession.
I've always had a passion for one subject at one time and oftentimes not two. It began with video games which isn't surprising as I was the perfect young age little boy to get big into them when they first came out. That was my major interest for a long period of time. I went from that to botany and from botany to the occult and from the occult to my admittedly it-always-was-there passion for music. I've been a music buff since I was 12. I started out in the 99 cent and metal sections which again was typical as "metal" was just beginning to go wrong in 1988 and there were loads of great bands to listen to who nowadays would never get called metal. It was fun.
Throughout my school and post school years it's been all about music, hockey players, and soldiers. I admit to having a penchant for uniformed men and it's not just the uniform. When you put on a uniform that's as blatant as when I put on my ruffled shirt and floral apparel in high school, had long hair, and went "Go Fuck Yourself Go To Hell" to the 90s generation. The truth about soldiers and hockey players is I feel some kind of warmth being generated by men and boys who risk their lives or risk serious injury. War is a tragedy. It never can be anything else, but fighting is another matter. I like a good argument. I don't support the kind of fights that lead to death and injury, but aggression never hurt a man to have on his side. Unfortunately, I seem to have for the last 4 or so years been ignoring the disciplined aspect of my heroes and following in the wake of my long since or recently dead musician heroes who died of overdoses/overindulgence. The frightening similarity has dawned on me now. Records won't kill me, but to keep on going with the kind of suicidal destructive behavior I've been exhibiting could well kill me if I don't stop it at once. I'm getting 13 or something like that monster great records from Europe, England, and one from New Zealand and I will not only show a whole lot more patience than before I am in true Robert Graves WW1 fashion after this is done giving a "GOODBYE TO ALL THAT." I shall go away from the bad part of my record addiction and get back into listening and soaking up the good vibrations that come from a saner lifestyle. You'll be hearing a lot from me, but the blatantly poor excuses and off-the-rails addictive tendencies have to be stopped at once.
Music was at a real high in the 60s and early 70s as The Beatles had made anything possible. I'm not big on early beat music before psychedelia came into play around 1966 and I really start in 1967. Beat is OK, but like garage rock the sleeve wearing of influences and numerous cover versions are a real turn off for me. In the psychedelic era cover versions had more punch, more energy, more go-for-the-throat interesting arrangements than the standard beat group who would just run through the latest top 40 hits.
There was something known as Freakbeat and also Mod Soul and that's where things get tasty and the transition from beat into Freakbeat and Mod soul is where The Fourmyula began. The name may be unfamiliar to you if you aren't a serious collector or from New Zealand where they came from, but these boys had a whole lot more to offer than almost any bands from Australia and make American psych sound like complete rubbish. I will have their first album which is the self titled one in a while- it will take some time to come from New Zealand, but I know the music well enough to say that the combination of perfect toytown psychedelic pop at its finest and crunching soulful Freakbeat make for a brilliant debut.
The Fourmyula got almost instantly huge in NZ, but it wasn't too surprising that they didn't get far elsewhere. It was enough to raise a grin, but having played their second album Green B. Holiday enough times to get blown away by it every time I can firmly say that they should have had a worldwide record deal and been huge everywhere. My opinion of The Zombies' masterwork Oddesey and Oracle has soured a bit because they unwisely included on it Chris White's gruesome tale of the carnage and horrors suffered in World War 1 "Butcher's Tale" whose title tells you everything you need to cringe about whenever this track comes on. It doesn't belong on such a beautiful record and really kind of does in Side Two making for a rather lopsided affair. Green B. Holiday not only matches the best material on Oddesey And Oracle it way surpasses it.
Looking for an album of perfection from outside the UK that equals the best of the best such as Kaleidoscope's Faintly Blowing and The Koobas one off work of genius? Look no further than The Fourmyula. What this quintet achieved on their second album, which by the way is a concept album/song cycle of sorts, is absolutely staggering in its power and majesty. From the opening title track through to the melancholy World Of Oz/Bee Gees alike masterpiece "Home" that closes the album the way Queen closed their albums with amazing tracks like "Bohemian Rhapsody" this is the best poppsych record ever recorded from anywhere. Strong words I know, but this may be EVEN BETTER THAN THE KOOBAS!!!! I don't know if that's possible, but I think it certainly equals them.
You can begin with the vocals. The lead voice is always sympathetic and deliciously uses oh-so-English phrasing that recalls Angel Pavement, Octopus. and the kind of instantaneous rush you'd get from McCartney and Ray Davis when you hear them. He sings with a lot of feeling and sounds completely into the songs and their changeable subject matter which creates a parallel between this album and The Kinks at their very best. Like Ray and brother Dave he's never overbearing and is more into the story telling aspect of the songs than in the "Let Me See How Much I Can Throw My Weight Around" kind of nonsense so prevalent in most American psych.
There are references throughout Green B. Holiday to old fashioned Victorian 19th century values/lifestyles and to the kind of people who have a tendency to get knocked down because they are a bit eccentric. It's an album of people you never forget, adventures you don't expect to happen, and daily life for people of both the working class and better side of the upper class. There's joy and unrestrained sadness too. I think of the early Bee Gees, but this is even better. The music is very focused and perfectly augments the lead voice and stunning harmonies with both power and restraint when need be. Musically The Fourmyula can more than back up their vocal abilities. You get everything from baroque Left Banke/Zombies/Bee Gees alike meticulous arranging to rockers like "My Mamma George" and "Fun" where the band blast you right clear out of your mind. Every song could be mentioned as a perfect masterpiece, but since Green B. Holiday is conceived as a kind of conceptual thing I can think of no better way to write about it than as a whole. Some of the album is so ambitious you can hear Klaatu and The Moody Blues in it and some is much more straight rocking. They would later try to become an American influenced hard rock band and that was a fatal error. Their later releases are still acceptable albums, but the first two are the two to get as there is none of the nonsense that came into play which always happens when a band loses sight of their identity and tries too hard to accommodate changing times.
A good comparison would be how Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera went from absolute perfection with their first album to the huge upheaval in line up and sound when they lost Elmer and became Velvet Opera. The folksier/rootsier music on Ride A Hustler's Dream doesn't match the excitement of their debut. Unfortunately for The Fourmyula they can't blame their less impressive third album Creation on a line up change they can blame it on the sad fact that they had gone off to England in search of international success and come back dazed by how much things were changing with the advent of harder heavier rock. That's not to say that they didn't rock before. They could knock you out like the best of them on their debut and Green B. Holiday and it would really have to be the American bug that bit them that you can blame. A lot of bands from other countries have gone wrong imitating American bands, but an American influence not an imitation can in the case of bands like Dog That Bit People and quite a few others be brilliant.
The Fourmyula as you hear them on Green B. Holiday sound so English that they manage to knock out of the running quite a few British poppsych "classics" and some that I would call classics for sure. Forget Apple's mediocre An Apple A Day which will set you back 3000 to 4000 pounds Green B. Holiday blows the lid off them, blows the lid off the horrendous Fire's Magic Shoemaker, and yet they are still fairly obscure to British, European, and American audiences as they didn't make any impression outside of New Zealand. In fact, they fared much worse than the Australian band Masters Apprentices who went to England frustrated by the lack of exposure outside Down Under. Masters Apprentices made two albums in England, but unfortunately for The Fourmyula they unwisely abandoned the excitement of their first two releases when sticking with what they had they surely might have almost counted on a completely different outcome in England. I had never heard of The Fourmyula when I was first collecting right up through finding a trashed copy of their first album 8 years ago. I think that makes it obvious what a well-kept secret they are. I'm not like some people who like to keep something this good a secret- I wish I had a reissue label because an exact analogue mastered duplicate of Green B. Holiday would be my first release. I love this album as you are by now more than well aware. I will always love England to the point where I love anything that remotely captures the same magic vibes that came out of that very special country. I've been down on it before, but I keep going back to it and now have decided to stay. I'm thinking of taking my own little holiday and that is part of the whole Goodbye To All That train of thought I'm on. I need a rest. I need to be where The Fourmyula are on this album and it's a really nice place to be. I suggest you join them as soon as you can. This is the kind of magical album that can't be matched by many others.
Goodbye to sickness and I'm ready for the hard work that goes into getting healthier. Till next time, Ben says goodnight and loves you all.
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Thursday, September 5, 2013
Tasavallan Presidentti's First Album From 1969- Finland's Best And Most Innovative Meisterwork!
I always knew the best album in the world would be from somewhere in Europe with my inclination leaning heavily towards Northern Europe. I've heard many masterpiece albums from all over the world and certainly some, like Tasavallan Presidentti's 1969 debut, are very expensive whilst some are still affordable. If I had to add it all up and had the time to come up with which country produced the most great music it would probably be either a country like Germany, England, or all the Scandinavian countries with also quite a few from America and Canada. As you can tell from that there is no one country that has a monopoly on the best albums ever recorded, but there definitely was a peak period and that was between 1967 and 1977- a full decade's worth of exciting, invigorating music.
-Europe, Reality, And Fantasy The Prelude To The Album Of My Dreams-
I've not designed an album cover for almost a year now. I haven't been having any great ideas come to my head, but there have been times when albums I wish were real I've churned out week after week. I have other interests. I love hockey and hockey players and in general I'm a pretty friendly and giving person with a really rough and dark streak in there too. I guess hockey and music are like that. I, for a long time, would be creating albums that reflected this and although none of them are real I have heard music that comes close to that kind of perfection that in the actual world couldn't exist because stylistically it just is too diverse. Tasavallan come closest on their first album. You have your Holy Grails- most of which are albums I can't afford and if I do have them it was pure luck or a reissue. With that comes the question of "How Much Would You Pay For One Album?" I've gone way down. I'm sick of $700 albums that have one or two odd moments that are disjointed. Hell, you can spend over $1,000 and get something as amazing as The Koobas or Elonkorjuu's HARVEST TIME or you can get something as musically unmusical and worthless as America's Lazy Smoke.
In the 1960s music was growing as rapidly as the counterculture that sponsored it. There would be as many new bands with albums out as there would be boys setting fire to draft cards and heading up North to get away from the horror of Vietnam or newly turned on hippies with flowers and kaftans preaching the message of love. It was a remarkable time I wish I could have been a part of. I certainly did my best to recreate it when everybody hated me for it in high school, but one very intelligent kid can't make a whole revolution happen. I got a lot of attention both really negative and also sometimes very good for my beliefs, but I was just beginning my journey.
Later on in life my mind darkened. It had been there a few times before, but I just at a certain point had had enough of trying to convince wholly wrong people that they were wholly wrong. You can't really get into the mind of a madman and make him into somebody who can see rationality and common sense. I was young enough in my teens to believe I could, but that died a long time ago although I'll still try and fail miserably at it. Sometimes a good kick in the head or a lamented death I laugh at is euthanasia when nothing else will successfully end somebody or a group of people who are violent, hate loving, and destructive. I'm not saying I became at odds with "Flowers and Love" I never did and I never will. I just have realized that at a certain point in your life you may harden and mature. For a long time I was uncomfortable with that. I was coming up with really dark musical and social ideas to express my frustration, but at least the frustration led to something artistically creative.
Tasavallan Presidentti's eponymous debut album from 1969 is miles ahead of and miles away from their primitive pseudo avant garde fusion screaming and moaning that would follow the departure of British born vocalist/writer Frank Robson and it was Robson who was pushing the band to be a melodic sort of Finnish Procol Harum or a precursor to what it would take most bands everywhere a full two further years or so to reach. This album, though from all the way back in 1969, has dispensed with the flowery vibe that had been so prevalent in that era and is much more of an intellectual progressive sound with a more resigned, disillusioned, and melancholic vibe to it. After rambling much about personal dreams and travails I'll let my pen speak and it will speak of what may be the best progressive album ever made.
-Tasavallan Presidentti From 1969 And Still Sounding Ahead Of Anything Else Then Or Now-
It just doesn't get any closer to what I've heard in the best musical dreams and came up with as a dream record than this. Everything is sparkling great here. With Frank Robson responsible for nearly all the material on the album you'd think this album would have a very British sound to it, but you would be mistaken. Comprised not just of Robson of course, but also of virtuoso guitarist Jukka Tolonen, brothers Junnu and Vesa Aaltonen on flute/sax and drums, and bass guitarist/keyboard player Mans Groundstroem this is Finnish as can be or as Northern Europe as can be depending on how much you know about Finnish bands. Also, the early recording and release date of 1969 is really hard to believe. This album would later find soul mates in the music of Denmark's Old Man & The Sea, Norway's Popol Vuh (later Popol Ace), Culpeper's Orchard's best work (also a Danish band and also a band with an accent-less British vocalist), Belgium's Waterloo (who came out in 1970), Elonkorjuu, and a plethora of other bands of which the furthest from Northern Europe you'd hear music by would be from Germany, but these other bands all came out for the most part over a year later! Even Procol Harum and Traffic who had a huge impact on this album had more period flavor than Tasavallan Presidentti's first!
The album begins with "Introduction" and already after the first 30 seconds this is not 1969 music. When Robson's magic real opening track "You'll Be Back For More" comes in the power of his voice which is devoid of an English accent and the attack of the band sound much more like the early 1970s underground progressive bands with the key word here "Heavy" progressive. Robson sings in a soul and blues derived strong voice that is quite a bit like Gary Brooker's in Procol Harum, but he isn't ripping Brooker or any other singer off. The vocals are soulful, plaintive, expressive, and melodic. The same words could be used to describe the music which is full of subtle yearning and hard hitting underground rock. "Obsolete Machine" is a group composition and features more of the later early 70s vibe and darkness of the first track. Robson's vocals are superbly rich and melodic as is the music whose warmth matches the polar opposite eerie "world gone up in smoke" lyrical theme of the song. There are some pretty violent lines here, but like Elonkorjuu you'll barely notice them as the music is so uplifting to listen to.
When I first heard Tasavallan's work with Frank Robson it was on the 1971 album which repackaged at least two of the songs on here and I thought the song "I Love You Teddy Bear" was from 1971! The track before it "Who's Free" like the first two songs is fantastic continuing the brilliance of this album and the spirit of progressive underground revolution herein, but "I Love You Teddy Bear" is something different altogether. You'd expect a children's song or a throwback to the toytown popsike vibe of 1967 from the title of the song and you get a hauntingly beautiful love song with no references at all to what the title suggests. The organ and flute swirl around Frank Robson's beautiful voice and Jukka Tolonen steps out of the spotlight for the song on the album that reminds me the most of Procol Harum and Aphrodite's Child. It's hard to think of a more perfect album than this and one of the things to add to the perfection of the vocals and music is the complete lack of one mistake for the whole album lyrically! "Crazy Thing" is split into two segments and is an interesting jazzy instrumental that doesn't last very long at all, in fact both here and on Side Two it lasts for under a minute. "Drinking" closes Side One with a hard rocking track with some real anger at society. Robson is going to live the way he wants, give the finger to social respectability, and rock out with a passionate hatred for any kind of conformity.
It's no surprise that this album is rare and expensive. This as unlike 1969 as you can get, coming out of Finland which is a small country, and for a major label deal outside of that little wonderful country these guys had no chance of it. It wouldn't be any different in the 70s and that is a real shame. There are a lot of bands that could have turned American and British audiences on if they were given a chance, but for European bands it just rarely ever happened. You'd think some band would have made it big, but I'm not surprised at the same time that we were living in a boring and horrible world when it came to "Popular Music."
Everybody wanted to see the sunshine or else they wanted blood, guts, violence, and pain. As you can tell from what I'm saying there was no room for really exciting music when there was a small niche for progressive underground bands amidst the dreck of James Taylor and worthlessness of early heavy metal that wasn't the good early heavy metal like Black Sabbath it was rubbish. Black Sabbath managed to break through in a big way, but it was good luck. Even though Sabbath did well in America the place where the most was going on that was successful in America was still only England and that is a bit boring when the language sung for all lyrics is a first language. However, Jon Anderson, Peter Gabriel, and Greg Lake were the good news that England had great vocalists and Yes were undoubtedly with Genesis the most exciting band who were a huge hit.
Frank Robson, though, is something different. The only tracks contained on this album where you hear an accent are the spoken experimental poem "The Ancient Mariner" and the no frills rock of "Roll Over Yourself" where Robson pretends to be a cowboy! Everything else is arch European and judging from his lyrics Frank Robson was sick and tired of English poncy stuck up stupidity and I'm not at all surprised that he didn't stay in England long when he wanted to find some sanity. We could have helped this band out earlier, but we gave them a contract for their last album MILKY WAY MOSES which was like their other Eero Raatinen fronted album LAMBERT LAND musically worthless. If you have the opinion that Tasavallan Presidentti are a boring jazz fusion nightmare then you really should spend as long as it takes to you to locate this wonderful album. The sound quality is great and the performances of all 5 of the band meld together into a cohesive whole that represents the best underground melodic heavy progressive album ever recorded. This is progressive rock minus the pomposity and boring lyrics of many bands that are in that category of music.
Tasavallan Presidentti's first from 1969 is a landmark, a meisterwork, and is essential to your collection. Few other albums come close to this and I would actually go so far as to say that in a world of everything but perfection this is perfection. If you have an open mind it will be blown when you listen to this and also I would say that listening to Tasavallan's 1969 debut is a very nice, warm, and rejuvenating experience that is way above the stagnant nothing music of prissy British folk , James Taylor, and most of the other crap that was selling like hot cakes at the time. I'll go so far as to say that I like Sandy Denny's vocals in Fairport Convention and place them higher than many other British bands who eventually have become too commonplace for me, but their trad stance and her too feminine folk not enough anything remotely rock stance are made even more boring when I hear Frank Robson. There is no folk here. Instead, we get something a lot more interesting. The jazz influences are kept melodic and the whole album is just beautiful. If you love music you'll love this especially if you want something new, different, and unlike anything else. I give this the highest rating that I can give- a real dream come true.
-Europe, Reality, And Fantasy The Prelude To The Album Of My Dreams-
I've not designed an album cover for almost a year now. I haven't been having any great ideas come to my head, but there have been times when albums I wish were real I've churned out week after week. I have other interests. I love hockey and hockey players and in general I'm a pretty friendly and giving person with a really rough and dark streak in there too. I guess hockey and music are like that. I, for a long time, would be creating albums that reflected this and although none of them are real I have heard music that comes close to that kind of perfection that in the actual world couldn't exist because stylistically it just is too diverse. Tasavallan come closest on their first album. You have your Holy Grails- most of which are albums I can't afford and if I do have them it was pure luck or a reissue. With that comes the question of "How Much Would You Pay For One Album?" I've gone way down. I'm sick of $700 albums that have one or two odd moments that are disjointed. Hell, you can spend over $1,000 and get something as amazing as The Koobas or Elonkorjuu's HARVEST TIME or you can get something as musically unmusical and worthless as America's Lazy Smoke.
In the 1960s music was growing as rapidly as the counterculture that sponsored it. There would be as many new bands with albums out as there would be boys setting fire to draft cards and heading up North to get away from the horror of Vietnam or newly turned on hippies with flowers and kaftans preaching the message of love. It was a remarkable time I wish I could have been a part of. I certainly did my best to recreate it when everybody hated me for it in high school, but one very intelligent kid can't make a whole revolution happen. I got a lot of attention both really negative and also sometimes very good for my beliefs, but I was just beginning my journey.
Later on in life my mind darkened. It had been there a few times before, but I just at a certain point had had enough of trying to convince wholly wrong people that they were wholly wrong. You can't really get into the mind of a madman and make him into somebody who can see rationality and common sense. I was young enough in my teens to believe I could, but that died a long time ago although I'll still try and fail miserably at it. Sometimes a good kick in the head or a lamented death I laugh at is euthanasia when nothing else will successfully end somebody or a group of people who are violent, hate loving, and destructive. I'm not saying I became at odds with "Flowers and Love" I never did and I never will. I just have realized that at a certain point in your life you may harden and mature. For a long time I was uncomfortable with that. I was coming up with really dark musical and social ideas to express my frustration, but at least the frustration led to something artistically creative.
Tasavallan Presidentti's eponymous debut album from 1969 is miles ahead of and miles away from their primitive pseudo avant garde fusion screaming and moaning that would follow the departure of British born vocalist/writer Frank Robson and it was Robson who was pushing the band to be a melodic sort of Finnish Procol Harum or a precursor to what it would take most bands everywhere a full two further years or so to reach. This album, though from all the way back in 1969, has dispensed with the flowery vibe that had been so prevalent in that era and is much more of an intellectual progressive sound with a more resigned, disillusioned, and melancholic vibe to it. After rambling much about personal dreams and travails I'll let my pen speak and it will speak of what may be the best progressive album ever made.
-Tasavallan Presidentti From 1969 And Still Sounding Ahead Of Anything Else Then Or Now-
It just doesn't get any closer to what I've heard in the best musical dreams and came up with as a dream record than this. Everything is sparkling great here. With Frank Robson responsible for nearly all the material on the album you'd think this album would have a very British sound to it, but you would be mistaken. Comprised not just of Robson of course, but also of virtuoso guitarist Jukka Tolonen, brothers Junnu and Vesa Aaltonen on flute/sax and drums, and bass guitarist/keyboard player Mans Groundstroem this is Finnish as can be or as Northern Europe as can be depending on how much you know about Finnish bands. Also, the early recording and release date of 1969 is really hard to believe. This album would later find soul mates in the music of Denmark's Old Man & The Sea, Norway's Popol Vuh (later Popol Ace), Culpeper's Orchard's best work (also a Danish band and also a band with an accent-less British vocalist), Belgium's Waterloo (who came out in 1970), Elonkorjuu, and a plethora of other bands of which the furthest from Northern Europe you'd hear music by would be from Germany, but these other bands all came out for the most part over a year later! Even Procol Harum and Traffic who had a huge impact on this album had more period flavor than Tasavallan Presidentti's first!
The album begins with "Introduction" and already after the first 30 seconds this is not 1969 music. When Robson's magic real opening track "You'll Be Back For More" comes in the power of his voice which is devoid of an English accent and the attack of the band sound much more like the early 1970s underground progressive bands with the key word here "Heavy" progressive. Robson sings in a soul and blues derived strong voice that is quite a bit like Gary Brooker's in Procol Harum, but he isn't ripping Brooker or any other singer off. The vocals are soulful, plaintive, expressive, and melodic. The same words could be used to describe the music which is full of subtle yearning and hard hitting underground rock. "Obsolete Machine" is a group composition and features more of the later early 70s vibe and darkness of the first track. Robson's vocals are superbly rich and melodic as is the music whose warmth matches the polar opposite eerie "world gone up in smoke" lyrical theme of the song. There are some pretty violent lines here, but like Elonkorjuu you'll barely notice them as the music is so uplifting to listen to.
When I first heard Tasavallan's work with Frank Robson it was on the 1971 album which repackaged at least two of the songs on here and I thought the song "I Love You Teddy Bear" was from 1971! The track before it "Who's Free" like the first two songs is fantastic continuing the brilliance of this album and the spirit of progressive underground revolution herein, but "I Love You Teddy Bear" is something different altogether. You'd expect a children's song or a throwback to the toytown popsike vibe of 1967 from the title of the song and you get a hauntingly beautiful love song with no references at all to what the title suggests. The organ and flute swirl around Frank Robson's beautiful voice and Jukka Tolonen steps out of the spotlight for the song on the album that reminds me the most of Procol Harum and Aphrodite's Child. It's hard to think of a more perfect album than this and one of the things to add to the perfection of the vocals and music is the complete lack of one mistake for the whole album lyrically! "Crazy Thing" is split into two segments and is an interesting jazzy instrumental that doesn't last very long at all, in fact both here and on Side Two it lasts for under a minute. "Drinking" closes Side One with a hard rocking track with some real anger at society. Robson is going to live the way he wants, give the finger to social respectability, and rock out with a passionate hatred for any kind of conformity.
It's no surprise that this album is rare and expensive. This as unlike 1969 as you can get, coming out of Finland which is a small country, and for a major label deal outside of that little wonderful country these guys had no chance of it. It wouldn't be any different in the 70s and that is a real shame. There are a lot of bands that could have turned American and British audiences on if they were given a chance, but for European bands it just rarely ever happened. You'd think some band would have made it big, but I'm not surprised at the same time that we were living in a boring and horrible world when it came to "Popular Music."
Everybody wanted to see the sunshine or else they wanted blood, guts, violence, and pain. As you can tell from what I'm saying there was no room for really exciting music when there was a small niche for progressive underground bands amidst the dreck of James Taylor and worthlessness of early heavy metal that wasn't the good early heavy metal like Black Sabbath it was rubbish. Black Sabbath managed to break through in a big way, but it was good luck. Even though Sabbath did well in America the place where the most was going on that was successful in America was still only England and that is a bit boring when the language sung for all lyrics is a first language. However, Jon Anderson, Peter Gabriel, and Greg Lake were the good news that England had great vocalists and Yes were undoubtedly with Genesis the most exciting band who were a huge hit.
Frank Robson, though, is something different. The only tracks contained on this album where you hear an accent are the spoken experimental poem "The Ancient Mariner" and the no frills rock of "Roll Over Yourself" where Robson pretends to be a cowboy! Everything else is arch European and judging from his lyrics Frank Robson was sick and tired of English poncy stuck up stupidity and I'm not at all surprised that he didn't stay in England long when he wanted to find some sanity. We could have helped this band out earlier, but we gave them a contract for their last album MILKY WAY MOSES which was like their other Eero Raatinen fronted album LAMBERT LAND musically worthless. If you have the opinion that Tasavallan Presidentti are a boring jazz fusion nightmare then you really should spend as long as it takes to you to locate this wonderful album. The sound quality is great and the performances of all 5 of the band meld together into a cohesive whole that represents the best underground melodic heavy progressive album ever recorded. This is progressive rock minus the pomposity and boring lyrics of many bands that are in that category of music.
Tasavallan Presidentti's first from 1969 is a landmark, a meisterwork, and is essential to your collection. Few other albums come close to this and I would actually go so far as to say that in a world of everything but perfection this is perfection. If you have an open mind it will be blown when you listen to this and also I would say that listening to Tasavallan's 1969 debut is a very nice, warm, and rejuvenating experience that is way above the stagnant nothing music of prissy British folk , James Taylor, and most of the other crap that was selling like hot cakes at the time. I'll go so far as to say that I like Sandy Denny's vocals in Fairport Convention and place them higher than many other British bands who eventually have become too commonplace for me, but their trad stance and her too feminine folk not enough anything remotely rock stance are made even more boring when I hear Frank Robson. There is no folk here. Instead, we get something a lot more interesting. The jazz influences are kept melodic and the whole album is just beautiful. If you love music you'll love this especially if you want something new, different, and unlike anything else. I give this the highest rating that I can give- a real dream come true.
Monday, September 2, 2013
The Beatles In Full Regalia And A Little Entry This Time With A Lot To Say
It's been a rough period again. Bogged down in miserable circumstances, horrible weather, an endless record deal, and some really bad behavior on my part. I've decided that after this deal unless I owe for two other records in October and buy them then that it's all done with records for me. Right now as I write I'm nervous about getting an email from the guy I'm dealing with and who has had to put up with endless changes and some real stupidity from me. I'm looking back at when I was a happier person and music was more part of my life than records. I'm seeing the present and none too pleased and the future needs to be a whole lot better because there isn't a whole lot of time left if politicians keep fucking up our world with war and destruction and we continue to abuse the environment. Good people are angry and Mother Nature is even angrier.
-The Beatles: The Band That Did The Impossible And Began Everything-
This is a cool down thing I'm doing now. Opening some doors, moving ahead, writing about positive subject matter not negativity. I begin where all music and good revolution begins- classical music was the start, jazz followed, so did Music Hall, blues, real rhythm and blues, and rock and roll came along, but to throw it all together and blow culture and also music into fragmentations it was The Beatles. They were the band I was brought up on. I was only derailed away from them when out of shock and trauma at John Lennon's getting killed by the despicable Mark David Chapman I couldn't listen to them for a whole decade. I took in a lot of other music during that long 1980 to 1990 period when I wasn't listening to them, but even Journey and Black Sabbath couldn't have happened without The Beatles. Nothing could have. As of now I'm not really too big into Sabbath anymore although they made some great records, but I love Journey and more melodic stuff as well as heavier bands that are less overtly depressing as Black Sabbath.
If it hadn't been for Ozzy Osbourne the funny thing is I may have taken even longer to get back into The Beatles. Ozzy also sustained a horrible tragedy with the death of Randy Rhoades at only 23 years of age and Ozzy is really somebody I don't laugh at. I won't laugh at somebody that sad. I sympathize with him. Ozzy Osbourne was ousted from the already Too-Good-For-Metal-Yet-Metal Pioneers- Black Sabbath when his behavior got out of control, but unlike what could have happened to their lyrical melodic voiced Ozzy he has kept making music and now Sabbath are back. Ozzy brought heavy Beatles influences even into a few Black Sabbath songs especially the surprise romantic ballad "Changes," but on his first two solo records (BLIZZARD OF OZ AND DIARY OF A MADMAN) and the tear jerking surprise romanticism of "So Tired" the Lennon and McCartney influences became a huge part of his music. I always have believed "So Tired" to be written as an elegy to Lennon and if you think I'm crazy think about the song title. Sounds familiar now doesn't it!? I knew eventually I would be listening to The Fab Four again when I was big into Ozzy Osbourne. Of course his career would fall apart, but he has survived. Somehow he's managed that.
The most amazing thing about The Beatles is how they were able to top themselves after hitting an absolute huge peak throughout their career. Their early records were joyous rock and roll with harmony vocals and hooks aplenty paving the way for Pilot and other melodic rock bands, but they would go on from there to create psychedelic music and evolve into the most sophisticated rock band of the Proto Progressive era. I don't have a clue as to how they happened- they just happened. Then after happening they helped with happenings and the whole counterculture they were the leaders of. They brought life and sparkling wit to the British side of the counterculture and inspired the most amazing bands of that era.
When people think they are being "cool" by putting down The Beatles I'm always tempted to beat the living shit out of them. Of course you can't do that, but I think I've summed up how seriously I take their music and what they stand for. In the 90s everybody was so big on hate and bitching and complaining that popular music turned into bullshit. How did that happen? Everybody was acting like The Beatles and the 60s never happened. That was the stupid attitude then, but back to The Beatles.
They began life as the first self-contained rock band ever- the first band to play their own instruments and write their own songs. Somehow they went from "Love Me Do" and "8 Days A Week" to "I'm Only Sleeping," "I'll Follow The Sun," and songs as out there as "A Day In The Life." When other great British Invasion bands were still covering outside material The Beatles had long since thrown that out of the window. My favorite Beatles albums are the ones that are the heaviest on the lavish progressive/psychedelic side and the most flung into experimentation, but you'd be surprised that SGT PEPPER is something I consider more an "event" than an album and that I think has some of the highest highs, but I never was too big a fan of McCartney's sappy "She's Leaving Home." You essentially had four very different personalities that complimented each other and that was what led to the brilliant music they came up with. Paul McCartney had the most melodic and romantic personality, John Lennon was the abrasive revolutionary and genius, George Harrison was the most deep thinking and musically gifted of the four, and loveable Ringo Starr gave them a rocking beat with his solid drums. I would say I think when you can think the highest of what The Beatles achieved it would be from BEATLES FOR SALE on and I don't mean the cheapskate American versions of their albums. REVOLVER and RUBBER SOUL are my two faves. Right up there is ABBEY ROAD. I don't know how they came up with such amazing music. I just know that it heavily influenced the music of the most exciting eras for rock music to come. ABBEY ROAD was going to be thrown away, abandoned. McCartney and Lennon could barely be in the same room together and John Lennon was ready to pack it all in at that point. Paul knew that the album could be salvaged and melodic progressive pop/rock was born with that amazing record. The best bands of the 1970s era like Canada's Steel River (complete with McCartney obsessed lead singer/writer John Dudgeon) and Popol Vuh/Popol Ace along with the famous Yes and King Crimson all owed a huge debt to ABBEY ROAD and what had come just a little time before it. I can't figure out The Beatles. For not just me they are music's ultimate enigma. I don't know how George Harrison created so much that nobody had ever played before, but he most certainly accomplished that. I think that REVOLVER may be my most beloved record, but ABBEY ROAD is damned close. The Beatles stood for revolution- they also stood for love and harmony. We should get back to what they brought us. We can never overlook The Beatles. In fact, if we went back to thinking along their lines we'd be a lot better off than we are now. Go pull out the albums and/or CDS of their entire body of work and blow your mind.
-The Beatles: The Band That Did The Impossible And Began Everything-
This is a cool down thing I'm doing now. Opening some doors, moving ahead, writing about positive subject matter not negativity. I begin where all music and good revolution begins- classical music was the start, jazz followed, so did Music Hall, blues, real rhythm and blues, and rock and roll came along, but to throw it all together and blow culture and also music into fragmentations it was The Beatles. They were the band I was brought up on. I was only derailed away from them when out of shock and trauma at John Lennon's getting killed by the despicable Mark David Chapman I couldn't listen to them for a whole decade. I took in a lot of other music during that long 1980 to 1990 period when I wasn't listening to them, but even Journey and Black Sabbath couldn't have happened without The Beatles. Nothing could have. As of now I'm not really too big into Sabbath anymore although they made some great records, but I love Journey and more melodic stuff as well as heavier bands that are less overtly depressing as Black Sabbath.
If it hadn't been for Ozzy Osbourne the funny thing is I may have taken even longer to get back into The Beatles. Ozzy also sustained a horrible tragedy with the death of Randy Rhoades at only 23 years of age and Ozzy is really somebody I don't laugh at. I won't laugh at somebody that sad. I sympathize with him. Ozzy Osbourne was ousted from the already Too-Good-For-Metal-Yet-Metal Pioneers- Black Sabbath when his behavior got out of control, but unlike what could have happened to their lyrical melodic voiced Ozzy he has kept making music and now Sabbath are back. Ozzy brought heavy Beatles influences even into a few Black Sabbath songs especially the surprise romantic ballad "Changes," but on his first two solo records (BLIZZARD OF OZ AND DIARY OF A MADMAN) and the tear jerking surprise romanticism of "So Tired" the Lennon and McCartney influences became a huge part of his music. I always have believed "So Tired" to be written as an elegy to Lennon and if you think I'm crazy think about the song title. Sounds familiar now doesn't it!? I knew eventually I would be listening to The Fab Four again when I was big into Ozzy Osbourne. Of course his career would fall apart, but he has survived. Somehow he's managed that.
The most amazing thing about The Beatles is how they were able to top themselves after hitting an absolute huge peak throughout their career. Their early records were joyous rock and roll with harmony vocals and hooks aplenty paving the way for Pilot and other melodic rock bands, but they would go on from there to create psychedelic music and evolve into the most sophisticated rock band of the Proto Progressive era. I don't have a clue as to how they happened- they just happened. Then after happening they helped with happenings and the whole counterculture they were the leaders of. They brought life and sparkling wit to the British side of the counterculture and inspired the most amazing bands of that era.
When people think they are being "cool" by putting down The Beatles I'm always tempted to beat the living shit out of them. Of course you can't do that, but I think I've summed up how seriously I take their music and what they stand for. In the 90s everybody was so big on hate and bitching and complaining that popular music turned into bullshit. How did that happen? Everybody was acting like The Beatles and the 60s never happened. That was the stupid attitude then, but back to The Beatles.
They began life as the first self-contained rock band ever- the first band to play their own instruments and write their own songs. Somehow they went from "Love Me Do" and "8 Days A Week" to "I'm Only Sleeping," "I'll Follow The Sun," and songs as out there as "A Day In The Life." When other great British Invasion bands were still covering outside material The Beatles had long since thrown that out of the window. My favorite Beatles albums are the ones that are the heaviest on the lavish progressive/psychedelic side and the most flung into experimentation, but you'd be surprised that SGT PEPPER is something I consider more an "event" than an album and that I think has some of the highest highs, but I never was too big a fan of McCartney's sappy "She's Leaving Home." You essentially had four very different personalities that complimented each other and that was what led to the brilliant music they came up with. Paul McCartney had the most melodic and romantic personality, John Lennon was the abrasive revolutionary and genius, George Harrison was the most deep thinking and musically gifted of the four, and loveable Ringo Starr gave them a rocking beat with his solid drums. I would say I think when you can think the highest of what The Beatles achieved it would be from BEATLES FOR SALE on and I don't mean the cheapskate American versions of their albums. REVOLVER and RUBBER SOUL are my two faves. Right up there is ABBEY ROAD. I don't know how they came up with such amazing music. I just know that it heavily influenced the music of the most exciting eras for rock music to come. ABBEY ROAD was going to be thrown away, abandoned. McCartney and Lennon could barely be in the same room together and John Lennon was ready to pack it all in at that point. Paul knew that the album could be salvaged and melodic progressive pop/rock was born with that amazing record. The best bands of the 1970s era like Canada's Steel River (complete with McCartney obsessed lead singer/writer John Dudgeon) and Popol Vuh/Popol Ace along with the famous Yes and King Crimson all owed a huge debt to ABBEY ROAD and what had come just a little time before it. I can't figure out The Beatles. For not just me they are music's ultimate enigma. I don't know how George Harrison created so much that nobody had ever played before, but he most certainly accomplished that. I think that REVOLVER may be my most beloved record, but ABBEY ROAD is damned close. The Beatles stood for revolution- they also stood for love and harmony. We should get back to what they brought us. We can never overlook The Beatles. In fact, if we went back to thinking along their lines we'd be a lot better off than we are now. Go pull out the albums and/or CDS of their entire body of work and blow your mind.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Great Music And For An Unbeatable Price Friends (MGM 1973 Aussie/US) and Caboose (1971 Memphis) People And Things To Seek Or To Avoid Like The Plague
The last big record deal was the last big nightmare with the ungrateful, malicious, and maniacally deformed madman whose name I shall not mention and whose business should be avoided like the plague. It was probably the worst experience I've had with a record dealer in recent memory.
I had some thinking to do. I came to the conclusion that I was a big part of the problem. For the last year and a half there were too many multi thousand buck "suicide deals" where I went completely crazy and blew everything towards too many big high priced and not worthwhile records and too many binge not thinking records. I'm not the easiest person to deal with and Fucking Hell I'll admit I change my mind a million times and it can take weeks before a settlement is reached in a deal, but nobody deserves to be treated like a worthless piece of dirt when they are forking over thousands, hundreds, or even if you were to only spend say $80 and have trouble coming to a decision.
Enough raving now, though, I've got to apologize to my good old friend S.B for blaming him for one of the most painful suicide deals and the amount of physical pain I was in at the time which was caused not by my pal, but by a serious medical problem that can be life threatening and even kill you because of lack of sodium. He's a great guy and we are doing something really good together again now. So, my apologies to him, and I also have come to know something else- some records that don't go for insane money at all are some of the best masterpieces ever made.
-The Early 70s A Time Of Musical Overload And Record Company Rashness-
The two bands I am discussing here and with a mention to a third one, Mailer MacKenzie Band who hard to believe with a name like that are a 1970 Dutch hard rock/rough rural psych band who somehow came out here, are from the period when for sheer volume more bands were signed and more records put out than any other time in history. This was the early 70s. As if the 60s weren't enough of a music driven time the post 60s bands that were both trying to move ahead and clutch avidly onto the dreams of a decade before met with instant record company interest that would often only result in one album, not more. This unfortunate circumstance came about because with record company greed to sign came the inevitable trouble of the fact that with the ongoing search for "The New Beatles, CSNY, Or The Band" came the inevitable falling out if the band or artist didn't take off in two seconds. In America it was a time of change and upheaval. The same is true pretty much all over the music producing world, but in America some of the most cutthroat deals were made to send bands who had been playing to huge audiences regionally to an undeserved end nationally when the label signed them and ditched them within a year, sometimes within months.
-Friends Will Soon Be Your Friend Too In A Big Way With Their Power Pop Dynamite-
There were too many labels. The big ones took chances, but with big ones came a growth in smaller ones and some of these labels recruited primarily from wherever they were based in the U.S with an occasional nod to overseas. Friends contained two Australian expatriates who had much success in their previous bands Steve Kipner (who had previously been with the UK based Aussie wonderful duo Tin Tin) and Daryl Cotton (from The Zoot- best known for their hard rock period with a young and morbid Rick Springfield later on of 80s international stardom). Joining them was American singer/musician/producer of amazing abilities Michael Lloyd who went way back to the mid 60s as did the other two. Michael Lloyd was already working with the large label MGM and together with Cotton and Kipner signed their new project to the rapidly splintering MGM. The label had never been good at promotional techniques and had created quite a mess with the catastrophic "Boss Town Sound" Boston bottom of them all bands hype in the 60s. Friends weren't given that kind of promotion. They should have stormed the charts and had a number one hit with their album, but they were gone as soon as they came. This record cost me only $6 + postage and blows the lid off most high priced American big ones of the time that aren't big at all.
Friends had quite an impressive past, but even more impressive is what they created together. With most of the 11 tracks written jointly by Kipner, Cotton, and Lloyd their later pop psych/power pop is the perfect cross between Tin Tin, The Beatles, Pilot, and The Raspberries. Songs like the raw rocking Easybeats cover "Gonna Have A Good Time," "Glamour Girl," and "She Knows" are perfect post Mod Power Pop right up there with quite a few bands that Friends predate (I'm thinking of Pilot a lot when I play this album). Beautiful and lush ballads such as "Would You Laugh," the more upbeat "Won't You Reach Out," and "Moonshine" sound exactly like a dream come true for me- Tin Tin if they continued on after their two essential brilliant albums meets the massively great Honeybus or Scotland's Blue. Steve Kipner's vocals are instantly recognizable from his Tin Tin days and he would later score massive success as an AOR super-writer whose hits include the worldwide smash for also Aussie Olivia Newton-John "Physical." Kipner stayed active for the whole of the 70s and 80s, but in the 80s just as in the 70s his own bands just didn't get the respect they deserved to have.
Friends is one of the most thoroughly enjoyable and perfect records I have ever come across and with MGM's lack of promotion it is quite rare too. Why this album hasn't flown up in value and gained a reissue is incomprehensible to me, but then so is the fact that it took bloody eons for Tin Tin to get any kind of respect from listeners. You can't say Friends had timing problems- they couldn't have arrived at a more perfect time for their music and the lack of success can probably rest firmly in the hands of MGM which hadn't a clue what they had. I've heard stories over the years about Michael Lloyd that suggest he is very hard to work with, but I don't judge till I know the man himself. I say the same for Mike Brown of the Left Banke fame. Brown (real last name Lookofsky) does not have a great reputation and I actually feel more sympathetic to him the more I hear stories about the poor guy. Until both Michael Lloyd and Michael Brown and I meet I'm not making any comments. Both certainly gave a lot to music. Friends could be your new favourite if you wish Honeybus had continued or if you are looking out for a perfect hybrid of Tin Tin, the best of The Hollles, The Raspberries (especially songs like "Go All The Way" and "Overnight Sensation"), and Pilot. "Would You Laugh" is the perfect love song, a song that absolutely sparkles with beauty and the sentiments young lovers feel. I've asked the same question. If you love somebody and want to win them over hold him or her in your arms, open the chocolate box, and put this and "Do I Love You" by German/Scottish power pop/AOR/Pomp masters Lake on your turntable and take it from there.
Daryl Cotton was always in the shadow of Rick Springfield's depressed writing and guitar pyrotechnics in The Zoot and I really prefer the band before Springfield's hold became so much that he destroyed them with rubbish like "The Freak" and "Evil Child" which ended the band on a very sour note. The morbidity as I have mentioned of Rick's writing spilled over into his early solo albums and just what made the guy so angry I don't think I even want to know about. Sure, he's a great guitar player, but wait till "Jessie's Girl," "Affair Of The Heart" and his other AOR classics where he not only found himself as a writer, but turned out to have a great voice. Daryl Cotton, however, was the unsung talent in The Zoot who fronted the band and sang great, but the material was pretty sporadic. I think that band will always be exclusively remembered for their exhilarating version of "Eleanor Rigby" where they absolutely rock out with real power and energy. The rocker in Friends, Daryl Cotton gets to sing with power and melodic prowess both and he also turns out to be a great writer. This record doesn't have one unworthy track on it. Every song shines like a pop psych/power pop masterwork and the cover is a nice band logo and stylized picture of the trio. I put this up there with Tin Tin, with Honeybus, and with Pilot who are 3 of my most loved bands. I'd also include The Hollies in there. That's how great Friends are. This is a hard album to track down, but find it and if you love the above mentioned groups you're in for a classic.
-Caboose Come A Rolling Down The Track With Speed, Power, And Soul-
Caboose is a soul influenced psychedelic/progressive/pop rock/hard rock crossover band whose roots go back to their native Memphis in the 60s when they were known under the ludicrous monicker Butterscotch Caboose (no! I'm not joking!). They made singles under this stupid name that supposedly are really good and either right before or right after the name change they scored a regional smash with the anti-racist anti Southern Rock bullshit "Black Hands White Cotton," a fantastic song with over the top scathing vocals from Gary Johns and a really energetic exciting sound (this classic song is included on the Caboose album). Like all other Southern bands in the early 70s who weren't the shitheaded gobbledegook of Lynard Skynard, Bloodrock, Black Oak Arkansaw, and their ilk Caboose met with national apathy. A seriously talented hard rockin' yet very melodic and soulful band from Memphis typically got signed to a local Memphis label- Enterprise. Enterprise put a lot of rare records out and most of their acts didn't do too well in nationwide terms. Unfortunately, Caboose were no exception to the rule.
If you are a fan of melodic early 70s heavy nightclub psych with 60s pop leanings like I am then this album is meant just for you to grab it. A powerful band they comprised amazing lead vocalist Gary Johns, primary writer Walter Ramsey Jr who plays keyboards, bass player/backing singer Tommy Cathey, guitarist Jackie Cook, percussionist Joe Williams, and female singer Pat Karr who helps out in the harmonies. Housed in a great psychedelic cover this album is a real killer song wise from start to finish. The band open with a hard rocking total derailment of "Great Balls Of Fire" and alternate dreamy tracks such as "You Are Still My Only Lover" and "A Winter Song" with the hard hitting material that takes up most of the album. With scathing guitar leads, fuzzed out riffs, and blasting keyboards this is a really enjoyable album and Gary Johns can really sing the rocking stuff with so much soul that you may, like me, be fooled into thinking he's black on first listening. Caboose were commercial enough to make it really big, but something much more than what stood in the way of Friends made their long playing career a brief one- times were changing and they didn't take heed. Most of the songs on this album sound a year or so earlier (most were in fact written a year or two or 3 earlier) and while I applaud them for ignoring Southern Rock they also weren't going to be as big as Led Zeppelin because their wild hard rock always had strong Nightclub/pop inclinations. While I love that sound and it really brings me a lot of pleasure unfortunately Caboose just didn't get a chance. Perfect songs for angry lovers "You Are Buying All My Trouble" and "Day After Day" (not a Badfinger cover, but a group original) feature positively shockingly roaring vocals from Gary Johns who sounds genuinely pissed off except for when his voice delves into melodic pop passages. He's equally at home on rockers and ballads with Caboose equally at home with melodic rock, pop psych, hard rock, and funk/gospel rock. I wouldn't call them a white R&B band because that would be an enormous disservice to such an exciting and great band, but the soul/R&B influences are handled for a rare time in the right way- they are original, new, and not just poor imitations of other more famous music. Caboose I can see appealing to a lot of people who like the good early 70s bands and wish there hadn't been so much crap in the charts, but as I said before they may have either been too diverse or just too good to make it when the public seemed to be wanting throwaway garbage in their ears. Caboose are a band who are picking up with collectors and I would grab this while I can if I were you. It won't be easy to track down nor will Friends, but don't waste your time with wasteful big money items that are priced way too high such as the garbage of Khazad Doom and other private press shite records from the same time, buy the real music!
Two more bands of much interest- Mailer MacKenzie Band who are a great Dutch group and Locomotive who made one blazing heavy psych album for MGM in 1969 with many great moments before group leader John Ussery went totally Hendrix on an also really good solo album.
There is a lot of great music out there, just buy wisely and take chances on some things that aren't just the huge big ticket items that the two bands I've raved about are equally as rare as. Dig for the good stuff and find a lot of the great ones still out there and still obscure. Good luck with your vinyl mania! Cheers. Ben
I had some thinking to do. I came to the conclusion that I was a big part of the problem. For the last year and a half there were too many multi thousand buck "suicide deals" where I went completely crazy and blew everything towards too many big high priced and not worthwhile records and too many binge not thinking records. I'm not the easiest person to deal with and Fucking Hell I'll admit I change my mind a million times and it can take weeks before a settlement is reached in a deal, but nobody deserves to be treated like a worthless piece of dirt when they are forking over thousands, hundreds, or even if you were to only spend say $80 and have trouble coming to a decision.
Enough raving now, though, I've got to apologize to my good old friend S.B for blaming him for one of the most painful suicide deals and the amount of physical pain I was in at the time which was caused not by my pal, but by a serious medical problem that can be life threatening and even kill you because of lack of sodium. He's a great guy and we are doing something really good together again now. So, my apologies to him, and I also have come to know something else- some records that don't go for insane money at all are some of the best masterpieces ever made.
-The Early 70s A Time Of Musical Overload And Record Company Rashness-
The two bands I am discussing here and with a mention to a third one, Mailer MacKenzie Band who hard to believe with a name like that are a 1970 Dutch hard rock/rough rural psych band who somehow came out here, are from the period when for sheer volume more bands were signed and more records put out than any other time in history. This was the early 70s. As if the 60s weren't enough of a music driven time the post 60s bands that were both trying to move ahead and clutch avidly onto the dreams of a decade before met with instant record company interest that would often only result in one album, not more. This unfortunate circumstance came about because with record company greed to sign came the inevitable trouble of the fact that with the ongoing search for "The New Beatles, CSNY, Or The Band" came the inevitable falling out if the band or artist didn't take off in two seconds. In America it was a time of change and upheaval. The same is true pretty much all over the music producing world, but in America some of the most cutthroat deals were made to send bands who had been playing to huge audiences regionally to an undeserved end nationally when the label signed them and ditched them within a year, sometimes within months.
-Friends Will Soon Be Your Friend Too In A Big Way With Their Power Pop Dynamite-
There were too many labels. The big ones took chances, but with big ones came a growth in smaller ones and some of these labels recruited primarily from wherever they were based in the U.S with an occasional nod to overseas. Friends contained two Australian expatriates who had much success in their previous bands Steve Kipner (who had previously been with the UK based Aussie wonderful duo Tin Tin) and Daryl Cotton (from The Zoot- best known for their hard rock period with a young and morbid Rick Springfield later on of 80s international stardom). Joining them was American singer/musician/producer of amazing abilities Michael Lloyd who went way back to the mid 60s as did the other two. Michael Lloyd was already working with the large label MGM and together with Cotton and Kipner signed their new project to the rapidly splintering MGM. The label had never been good at promotional techniques and had created quite a mess with the catastrophic "Boss Town Sound" Boston bottom of them all bands hype in the 60s. Friends weren't given that kind of promotion. They should have stormed the charts and had a number one hit with their album, but they were gone as soon as they came. This record cost me only $6 + postage and blows the lid off most high priced American big ones of the time that aren't big at all.
Friends had quite an impressive past, but even more impressive is what they created together. With most of the 11 tracks written jointly by Kipner, Cotton, and Lloyd their later pop psych/power pop is the perfect cross between Tin Tin, The Beatles, Pilot, and The Raspberries. Songs like the raw rocking Easybeats cover "Gonna Have A Good Time," "Glamour Girl," and "She Knows" are perfect post Mod Power Pop right up there with quite a few bands that Friends predate (I'm thinking of Pilot a lot when I play this album). Beautiful and lush ballads such as "Would You Laugh," the more upbeat "Won't You Reach Out," and "Moonshine" sound exactly like a dream come true for me- Tin Tin if they continued on after their two essential brilliant albums meets the massively great Honeybus or Scotland's Blue. Steve Kipner's vocals are instantly recognizable from his Tin Tin days and he would later score massive success as an AOR super-writer whose hits include the worldwide smash for also Aussie Olivia Newton-John "Physical." Kipner stayed active for the whole of the 70s and 80s, but in the 80s just as in the 70s his own bands just didn't get the respect they deserved to have.
Friends is one of the most thoroughly enjoyable and perfect records I have ever come across and with MGM's lack of promotion it is quite rare too. Why this album hasn't flown up in value and gained a reissue is incomprehensible to me, but then so is the fact that it took bloody eons for Tin Tin to get any kind of respect from listeners. You can't say Friends had timing problems- they couldn't have arrived at a more perfect time for their music and the lack of success can probably rest firmly in the hands of MGM which hadn't a clue what they had. I've heard stories over the years about Michael Lloyd that suggest he is very hard to work with, but I don't judge till I know the man himself. I say the same for Mike Brown of the Left Banke fame. Brown (real last name Lookofsky) does not have a great reputation and I actually feel more sympathetic to him the more I hear stories about the poor guy. Until both Michael Lloyd and Michael Brown and I meet I'm not making any comments. Both certainly gave a lot to music. Friends could be your new favourite if you wish Honeybus had continued or if you are looking out for a perfect hybrid of Tin Tin, the best of The Hollles, The Raspberries (especially songs like "Go All The Way" and "Overnight Sensation"), and Pilot. "Would You Laugh" is the perfect love song, a song that absolutely sparkles with beauty and the sentiments young lovers feel. I've asked the same question. If you love somebody and want to win them over hold him or her in your arms, open the chocolate box, and put this and "Do I Love You" by German/Scottish power pop/AOR/Pomp masters Lake on your turntable and take it from there.
Daryl Cotton was always in the shadow of Rick Springfield's depressed writing and guitar pyrotechnics in The Zoot and I really prefer the band before Springfield's hold became so much that he destroyed them with rubbish like "The Freak" and "Evil Child" which ended the band on a very sour note. The morbidity as I have mentioned of Rick's writing spilled over into his early solo albums and just what made the guy so angry I don't think I even want to know about. Sure, he's a great guitar player, but wait till "Jessie's Girl," "Affair Of The Heart" and his other AOR classics where he not only found himself as a writer, but turned out to have a great voice. Daryl Cotton, however, was the unsung talent in The Zoot who fronted the band and sang great, but the material was pretty sporadic. I think that band will always be exclusively remembered for their exhilarating version of "Eleanor Rigby" where they absolutely rock out with real power and energy. The rocker in Friends, Daryl Cotton gets to sing with power and melodic prowess both and he also turns out to be a great writer. This record doesn't have one unworthy track on it. Every song shines like a pop psych/power pop masterwork and the cover is a nice band logo and stylized picture of the trio. I put this up there with Tin Tin, with Honeybus, and with Pilot who are 3 of my most loved bands. I'd also include The Hollies in there. That's how great Friends are. This is a hard album to track down, but find it and if you love the above mentioned groups you're in for a classic.
-Caboose Come A Rolling Down The Track With Speed, Power, And Soul-
Caboose is a soul influenced psychedelic/progressive/pop rock/hard rock crossover band whose roots go back to their native Memphis in the 60s when they were known under the ludicrous monicker Butterscotch Caboose (no! I'm not joking!). They made singles under this stupid name that supposedly are really good and either right before or right after the name change they scored a regional smash with the anti-racist anti Southern Rock bullshit "Black Hands White Cotton," a fantastic song with over the top scathing vocals from Gary Johns and a really energetic exciting sound (this classic song is included on the Caboose album). Like all other Southern bands in the early 70s who weren't the shitheaded gobbledegook of Lynard Skynard, Bloodrock, Black Oak Arkansaw, and their ilk Caboose met with national apathy. A seriously talented hard rockin' yet very melodic and soulful band from Memphis typically got signed to a local Memphis label- Enterprise. Enterprise put a lot of rare records out and most of their acts didn't do too well in nationwide terms. Unfortunately, Caboose were no exception to the rule.
If you are a fan of melodic early 70s heavy nightclub psych with 60s pop leanings like I am then this album is meant just for you to grab it. A powerful band they comprised amazing lead vocalist Gary Johns, primary writer Walter Ramsey Jr who plays keyboards, bass player/backing singer Tommy Cathey, guitarist Jackie Cook, percussionist Joe Williams, and female singer Pat Karr who helps out in the harmonies. Housed in a great psychedelic cover this album is a real killer song wise from start to finish. The band open with a hard rocking total derailment of "Great Balls Of Fire" and alternate dreamy tracks such as "You Are Still My Only Lover" and "A Winter Song" with the hard hitting material that takes up most of the album. With scathing guitar leads, fuzzed out riffs, and blasting keyboards this is a really enjoyable album and Gary Johns can really sing the rocking stuff with so much soul that you may, like me, be fooled into thinking he's black on first listening. Caboose were commercial enough to make it really big, but something much more than what stood in the way of Friends made their long playing career a brief one- times were changing and they didn't take heed. Most of the songs on this album sound a year or so earlier (most were in fact written a year or two or 3 earlier) and while I applaud them for ignoring Southern Rock they also weren't going to be as big as Led Zeppelin because their wild hard rock always had strong Nightclub/pop inclinations. While I love that sound and it really brings me a lot of pleasure unfortunately Caboose just didn't get a chance. Perfect songs for angry lovers "You Are Buying All My Trouble" and "Day After Day" (not a Badfinger cover, but a group original) feature positively shockingly roaring vocals from Gary Johns who sounds genuinely pissed off except for when his voice delves into melodic pop passages. He's equally at home on rockers and ballads with Caboose equally at home with melodic rock, pop psych, hard rock, and funk/gospel rock. I wouldn't call them a white R&B band because that would be an enormous disservice to such an exciting and great band, but the soul/R&B influences are handled for a rare time in the right way- they are original, new, and not just poor imitations of other more famous music. Caboose I can see appealing to a lot of people who like the good early 70s bands and wish there hadn't been so much crap in the charts, but as I said before they may have either been too diverse or just too good to make it when the public seemed to be wanting throwaway garbage in their ears. Caboose are a band who are picking up with collectors and I would grab this while I can if I were you. It won't be easy to track down nor will Friends, but don't waste your time with wasteful big money items that are priced way too high such as the garbage of Khazad Doom and other private press shite records from the same time, buy the real music!
Two more bands of much interest- Mailer MacKenzie Band who are a great Dutch group and Locomotive who made one blazing heavy psych album for MGM in 1969 with many great moments before group leader John Ussery went totally Hendrix on an also really good solo album.
There is a lot of great music out there, just buy wisely and take chances on some things that aren't just the huge big ticket items that the two bands I've raved about are equally as rare as. Dig for the good stuff and find a lot of the great ones still out there and still obscure. Good luck with your vinyl mania! Cheers. Ben
Monday, August 5, 2013
Genesis Thrusts In The Knife SRC Praise The Black Sheep Ethan Hawke As Will Knott and Richard Thomas As Paul Baumer- Early Trespassers On A Curious Heart, MInd, And Soul
Is it really 18 years ago? 1995? Is it really again a month since I've been doing the proper right things and writing a blog instead of wasting my time with record traumas? Well, face up Ben it has been that long since you wrote a blog. More painfully, it's been that long since I was a knock-out handsome long haired 19 year old who was going through more changes than he could cope with and having to confront some rather painful yet rewarding in later times realities.
-Basic Information On A Wild Hearted Warrior As I Always Am And Will Be-
So let's go back then. Let's go back even before then. Let's go forward to now. Life is war. It always will be for me and I'm afraid I've resigned myself that it's always an uphill battle that I'm only satisfied with once I've trampled over all the obstacles be they friend or foe and I have fought hard for what I need to get exactly what I need. Life has always had me polarized between two sides of my personality- the commander and the preyed upon. When I am preyed upon by demons I try to fight them different ways often depending on different times of the year. Summer I get out all my aggressions and spend most of my energy swimming or just soaking up the sun. Autumn comes I become more placid, I get more lazy and go more for meditating and living in the past although I always live in the past because (to put it bluntly)- the present sucks! There are good things now. There are bad things I'd say more than good. It really is miserable when you have to come to some sort of acknowledgement that you've lost a lot of the major battles in your life and you can't get over the fact that things really aren't going to get better- they are going to continue endlessly it seems to be horrible. I don't feel too happy about my life. No, I'm not gonna be daft and say I wish it would end or that I've ever seriously contemplated suicide because I haven't. I've always been strong willed whether I know it or not. The thing is that we all get older and I haven't matured as much as I would like to and that seems to be the war I'll keep fighting till Judgement Day- getting further ahead instead of in the back row seat of the big movie theater known as LIFE THE UNENDING DRAMA OF THE CONQUEST FOR LOVE.
Opening Of The Secret Book Of Dreams And Desire Ethan Hawke As Will Knott Leads The Charge-
What is love? I used to wonder that. To my surprise and much to my shock and disbelief after too many long lonely years of being victimized for my small height and my bigger than average intelligence and sensitivity love came to me always as a soldier- an armed guard for my hidden dreams, goals, romantic beliefs, and desires. I would not ever admit to even really close friends till later on in life that I was mesmerized by soldiers, but they began to take a hold on me when I was 16 years old and changing- changing rapidly. I was afraid then. What if I was found out? My true identity was torn between the constant fight and struggle and the need for some kind of loving protection. I can't think of a more heartless, homophobic, and everything-that-is-good-and-goodhearted phobic time than the 1990s when I was growing up and growing fast. High school was a place where drug abuse, violence, and physical/psychological intimidation ran wild. I was both a hippie and a warrior. The two sides to the coin led to me coming up with the joke nickname "Zeus" as I was anything but Zeus-like when it came to having power of my situation in school. The joke stuck and I still hate it.
I never intended to be thought of as arrogant. Zeus, as I was then, was having some problems. I was very emotional and I still am very emotional, but young boys and young girls are especially fragile when they are going through their teenaged years from boyhood or girlhood to adult. I kept turning to soldiers secretly and it was scary for me to keep that secret. Come 1995 that secret got out in the open and A MIDNIGHT CLEAR staring Ethan Hawke (a fantastic actor) as the loveable main character SGT Will Knott and ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT in full technicolor unintentional hallucinogenic nightmare staring the innocent and sympathetic Richard Thomas as the doomed tragic hero Paul Baumer opened the whole secret up once and for all.
I had been going through Hell in 1995 and the ending of my high school experience was a near death experience when I was poisoned by a medication I was on and violently sick. As if that wasn't enough, right before that a best friend since kindergarten had killed himself. When I was recovering and if memory suits me correctly even before I recovered I had come out with the truth about my hidden obsession- soldiers. It was taken different ways and has been taken oftentimes the wrong way over the years. A MIDNIGHT CLEAR capped my feelings- it captured them. As much as I loved and love soldiers I will never believe in war and Ethan Hawke at only around 20 as a young, frightened intellectual who is fed up with the nonsense of World War 2 is particularly damning on the subject of warfare. Watching the film for the first time all my beliefs about soldiers frighteningly roared into real life passion and tragedy. There are scenes in that movie I still can't watch- I can't stand graphic carnage and bloodshed and there are some horrific moments in A MIDNIGHT CLEAR that would I am sure scare actual veterans into a majorly traumatic state. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT the colour version is brutal without the image of any blood or grotesqueness and it basically is just a very tragic yet also very gripping anti war statement.
A MIDNIGHT CLEAR has lasted over half my life as a kind of parallel that I have between how I was caught in the middle of violence and scornful of it mainly figuratively and Will Knott's literal disillusionment. I had been fighting for a long time and I don't like losing any battle. I never could handle it. I'm always determined to get to the other side of a bad predicament however I have to.
By the time I was out of school for good I realized that as hard as I had tried to bring the 60s and those dreams of the counterculture to life I couldn't succeed. It was a bitter pill to swallow. You can't bring peace to a world that only knows war. You can't have hippie friends who aren't really hippies they are sycophants who know you have something good and drug abusing idiots. Several years down the road I was pissed with all my fake friends because I hated and continue to hate drugs. I also hate hangers on. I have no place for them. The two or three things that have stayed alive have been me, my passion for music, and especially my love of soldiers. When I talk to British and German soldiers on the phone they are the friends I never really had in my life. We're so far from each other yet the things we have in common bind us together. No soldier who really is good has any interest in jingoism and there is a song of that title by a Danish band called Old Man & The Sea that nails how we all feel about war:
"Young Boys Are Sent To Hell/Those Who Want To Live Are Slammed In Jail/And Fat Man Controls It All/Killing People I Have To Cry God No- War Is Bringing Down My Mind War! War! War!"
That sums it up well about any war. They meant Vietnam, but it could be anything from the dawn of history up to the current pointless pseudo crusades. I had my music as my weapon and if life was going to dish out a war to me I was going to keep on fighting for all I believed in and one of the main clashes with the bullshit 90s generation was and is my strong hatred of violence and macho stupidity.
-At The End Of The Day Music And Resilience Are All I Have In A Hate-Ridden World-
All the kids I was up against drove me berserk at school and my first battle cry was SRC's "Black Sheep" and "No Secret Destination." SRC is short for Scott Richardson's Case and Scott Richardson was very much a revolutionary writer, singer, and performer who had a storm for the music thanks to the superb sizzling acid guitar work of Gary Quackenbush and Steve Lyman. I would play their music and envision myself as the ruthless conquering hero. Then I got into King Crimson and their quiet moments were together with The Moody Blues and Klaatu (all these bands I still love) the music that pacified me. My other war song is the best and also the most diabolically arranged anti war song of all time "The Knife" by Genesis. This was Genesis when they had a young Peter Gabriel as their go to guy. He had studied Gandhi and at the age of something like 18 he'd come up with "The Knife" as a statement about how "Violent revolutions always just end with a dictator/despot in power."
I couldn't agree more, but the passion and the raw brutality of the music and Peter's menacing vocals made this song the track that saved me countless times from completely blowing everything I had. TRESPASS will probably always be my second favourite Genesis album. It may even be a tie with NURSERY CRYME, but since I have TRESPASS now in original 1st UK press as my one Genesis album from the Gabriel era it really triggers those memories of long ago just beginning to find some truths out about myself and the world. TRESPASS was the closest Genesis came to making a hard rock record, but there are plenty of soft/tranquil/melodic moments although on that particular album everything is dark and creepy. I was and will always be big into much more obscure music and the music that soothed me back then still does that trick too. I'd go with Forever Amber, New England (actually, they are from New England- Boston and they aren't exactly obscure- they had a major hit with the classic "Don't Ever Wanna Lose Ya") and Canada's Klaatu. I am rediscovering Klaatu's music now and I love it as much or more than I did then. Their vision is also a powerful one, and I won't use the word "Twee" here because I'll argue hard that Klaatu are no lightweight imitation of The Beatles or any other band and that's a whole lot of narrow minded people and critical rubbish.
The music was the good part and still is. Real friends I made were the good part and still are. However, for soldiers to become something I was comfortable about would be a long and painful journey through many experiences that would lead to some cold truths about the world coming to face me dead on. I actually a few years ago was on friendly terms with a soldier over the phone who got killed in Afghanistan. I'm sure he's in Heaven now and looking down on the world thinking we're all fools if we believe that war will solve anything. When I'm talking to soldiers they are almost always parents or just children themselves. The way they are treated by society is disgusting and unforgivable. They always can count on me to take their side, but where is that spirit of unity towards good causes there was in the 60s!? Have we lost out? Is the fight going over to the wrong side winning everything? These are tough to face questions. The more the world grows old the more infantile it becomes. We go backwards instead of advancing and my own growth and development always comes up against the happier times I had in the long distant past. It's really not a nice thing to have to look in the face.
-Disillusioned, Worn Out, And Sad But Not Giving Up Any Time Soon-
I never watch the news. I regret that I ever did. A lot of the time I spend looking back not forward because the future looks pretty bad. This entry is pretty depressing, but that's how life can be. One of the most brilliant scenes in A MIDNIGHT CLEAR is at the very end. The long focus pulling back from Ethan Hawke as Will Knott after the horrific killings of innocent German soldiers who tried to make peace with the Americans is probably the most telling portrait you'll ever see of the pointlessness and brutality of war and a life that's been bled dry. That expression says it. I don't feel like I've lost just yet though and there always will be some kind of hope and a whole lot of fight in me. Sometimes I only remember the joy and forget all the misery I went through when I was 18 years younger and even more fragile than today. I'm always glad to let the music trespass back into my life just like that album title, but now that the trespasser is a mate there are other obstacles. Getting on top of bad addictions and ordering the last records for the summer and making it a scant few- that's now. Records have become too much of my life and with that there is the tragedy of living in the past. Were the past not so potent records would be long brought down to a minimum and the simple fact of the matter of my life today is that loneliness and memories are turning me into somebody I can hardly even recognize sometimes. I'm still fighting for what I believe in though and I'll be doing that for the rest of my life until I finally find the land of peace, tranquility, and true happiness. I'm not one to be counted out.
-Basic Information On A Wild Hearted Warrior As I Always Am And Will Be-
So let's go back then. Let's go back even before then. Let's go forward to now. Life is war. It always will be for me and I'm afraid I've resigned myself that it's always an uphill battle that I'm only satisfied with once I've trampled over all the obstacles be they friend or foe and I have fought hard for what I need to get exactly what I need. Life has always had me polarized between two sides of my personality- the commander and the preyed upon. When I am preyed upon by demons I try to fight them different ways often depending on different times of the year. Summer I get out all my aggressions and spend most of my energy swimming or just soaking up the sun. Autumn comes I become more placid, I get more lazy and go more for meditating and living in the past although I always live in the past because (to put it bluntly)- the present sucks! There are good things now. There are bad things I'd say more than good. It really is miserable when you have to come to some sort of acknowledgement that you've lost a lot of the major battles in your life and you can't get over the fact that things really aren't going to get better- they are going to continue endlessly it seems to be horrible. I don't feel too happy about my life. No, I'm not gonna be daft and say I wish it would end or that I've ever seriously contemplated suicide because I haven't. I've always been strong willed whether I know it or not. The thing is that we all get older and I haven't matured as much as I would like to and that seems to be the war I'll keep fighting till Judgement Day- getting further ahead instead of in the back row seat of the big movie theater known as LIFE THE UNENDING DRAMA OF THE CONQUEST FOR LOVE.
Opening Of The Secret Book Of Dreams And Desire Ethan Hawke As Will Knott Leads The Charge-
What is love? I used to wonder that. To my surprise and much to my shock and disbelief after too many long lonely years of being victimized for my small height and my bigger than average intelligence and sensitivity love came to me always as a soldier- an armed guard for my hidden dreams, goals, romantic beliefs, and desires. I would not ever admit to even really close friends till later on in life that I was mesmerized by soldiers, but they began to take a hold on me when I was 16 years old and changing- changing rapidly. I was afraid then. What if I was found out? My true identity was torn between the constant fight and struggle and the need for some kind of loving protection. I can't think of a more heartless, homophobic, and everything-that-is-good-and-goodhearted phobic time than the 1990s when I was growing up and growing fast. High school was a place where drug abuse, violence, and physical/psychological intimidation ran wild. I was both a hippie and a warrior. The two sides to the coin led to me coming up with the joke nickname "Zeus" as I was anything but Zeus-like when it came to having power of my situation in school. The joke stuck and I still hate it.
I never intended to be thought of as arrogant. Zeus, as I was then, was having some problems. I was very emotional and I still am very emotional, but young boys and young girls are especially fragile when they are going through their teenaged years from boyhood or girlhood to adult. I kept turning to soldiers secretly and it was scary for me to keep that secret. Come 1995 that secret got out in the open and A MIDNIGHT CLEAR staring Ethan Hawke (a fantastic actor) as the loveable main character SGT Will Knott and ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT in full technicolor unintentional hallucinogenic nightmare staring the innocent and sympathetic Richard Thomas as the doomed tragic hero Paul Baumer opened the whole secret up once and for all.
I had been going through Hell in 1995 and the ending of my high school experience was a near death experience when I was poisoned by a medication I was on and violently sick. As if that wasn't enough, right before that a best friend since kindergarten had killed himself. When I was recovering and if memory suits me correctly even before I recovered I had come out with the truth about my hidden obsession- soldiers. It was taken different ways and has been taken oftentimes the wrong way over the years. A MIDNIGHT CLEAR capped my feelings- it captured them. As much as I loved and love soldiers I will never believe in war and Ethan Hawke at only around 20 as a young, frightened intellectual who is fed up with the nonsense of World War 2 is particularly damning on the subject of warfare. Watching the film for the first time all my beliefs about soldiers frighteningly roared into real life passion and tragedy. There are scenes in that movie I still can't watch- I can't stand graphic carnage and bloodshed and there are some horrific moments in A MIDNIGHT CLEAR that would I am sure scare actual veterans into a majorly traumatic state. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT the colour version is brutal without the image of any blood or grotesqueness and it basically is just a very tragic yet also very gripping anti war statement.
A MIDNIGHT CLEAR has lasted over half my life as a kind of parallel that I have between how I was caught in the middle of violence and scornful of it mainly figuratively and Will Knott's literal disillusionment. I had been fighting for a long time and I don't like losing any battle. I never could handle it. I'm always determined to get to the other side of a bad predicament however I have to.
By the time I was out of school for good I realized that as hard as I had tried to bring the 60s and those dreams of the counterculture to life I couldn't succeed. It was a bitter pill to swallow. You can't bring peace to a world that only knows war. You can't have hippie friends who aren't really hippies they are sycophants who know you have something good and drug abusing idiots. Several years down the road I was pissed with all my fake friends because I hated and continue to hate drugs. I also hate hangers on. I have no place for them. The two or three things that have stayed alive have been me, my passion for music, and especially my love of soldiers. When I talk to British and German soldiers on the phone they are the friends I never really had in my life. We're so far from each other yet the things we have in common bind us together. No soldier who really is good has any interest in jingoism and there is a song of that title by a Danish band called Old Man & The Sea that nails how we all feel about war:
"Young Boys Are Sent To Hell/Those Who Want To Live Are Slammed In Jail/And Fat Man Controls It All/Killing People I Have To Cry God No- War Is Bringing Down My Mind War! War! War!"
That sums it up well about any war. They meant Vietnam, but it could be anything from the dawn of history up to the current pointless pseudo crusades. I had my music as my weapon and if life was going to dish out a war to me I was going to keep on fighting for all I believed in and one of the main clashes with the bullshit 90s generation was and is my strong hatred of violence and macho stupidity.
-At The End Of The Day Music And Resilience Are All I Have In A Hate-Ridden World-
All the kids I was up against drove me berserk at school and my first battle cry was SRC's "Black Sheep" and "No Secret Destination." SRC is short for Scott Richardson's Case and Scott Richardson was very much a revolutionary writer, singer, and performer who had a storm for the music thanks to the superb sizzling acid guitar work of Gary Quackenbush and Steve Lyman. I would play their music and envision myself as the ruthless conquering hero. Then I got into King Crimson and their quiet moments were together with The Moody Blues and Klaatu (all these bands I still love) the music that pacified me. My other war song is the best and also the most diabolically arranged anti war song of all time "The Knife" by Genesis. This was Genesis when they had a young Peter Gabriel as their go to guy. He had studied Gandhi and at the age of something like 18 he'd come up with "The Knife" as a statement about how "Violent revolutions always just end with a dictator/despot in power."
I couldn't agree more, but the passion and the raw brutality of the music and Peter's menacing vocals made this song the track that saved me countless times from completely blowing everything I had. TRESPASS will probably always be my second favourite Genesis album. It may even be a tie with NURSERY CRYME, but since I have TRESPASS now in original 1st UK press as my one Genesis album from the Gabriel era it really triggers those memories of long ago just beginning to find some truths out about myself and the world. TRESPASS was the closest Genesis came to making a hard rock record, but there are plenty of soft/tranquil/melodic moments although on that particular album everything is dark and creepy. I was and will always be big into much more obscure music and the music that soothed me back then still does that trick too. I'd go with Forever Amber, New England (actually, they are from New England- Boston and they aren't exactly obscure- they had a major hit with the classic "Don't Ever Wanna Lose Ya") and Canada's Klaatu. I am rediscovering Klaatu's music now and I love it as much or more than I did then. Their vision is also a powerful one, and I won't use the word "Twee" here because I'll argue hard that Klaatu are no lightweight imitation of The Beatles or any other band and that's a whole lot of narrow minded people and critical rubbish.
The music was the good part and still is. Real friends I made were the good part and still are. However, for soldiers to become something I was comfortable about would be a long and painful journey through many experiences that would lead to some cold truths about the world coming to face me dead on. I actually a few years ago was on friendly terms with a soldier over the phone who got killed in Afghanistan. I'm sure he's in Heaven now and looking down on the world thinking we're all fools if we believe that war will solve anything. When I'm talking to soldiers they are almost always parents or just children themselves. The way they are treated by society is disgusting and unforgivable. They always can count on me to take their side, but where is that spirit of unity towards good causes there was in the 60s!? Have we lost out? Is the fight going over to the wrong side winning everything? These are tough to face questions. The more the world grows old the more infantile it becomes. We go backwards instead of advancing and my own growth and development always comes up against the happier times I had in the long distant past. It's really not a nice thing to have to look in the face.
-Disillusioned, Worn Out, And Sad But Not Giving Up Any Time Soon-
I never watch the news. I regret that I ever did. A lot of the time I spend looking back not forward because the future looks pretty bad. This entry is pretty depressing, but that's how life can be. One of the most brilliant scenes in A MIDNIGHT CLEAR is at the very end. The long focus pulling back from Ethan Hawke as Will Knott after the horrific killings of innocent German soldiers who tried to make peace with the Americans is probably the most telling portrait you'll ever see of the pointlessness and brutality of war and a life that's been bled dry. That expression says it. I don't feel like I've lost just yet though and there always will be some kind of hope and a whole lot of fight in me. Sometimes I only remember the joy and forget all the misery I went through when I was 18 years younger and even more fragile than today. I'm always glad to let the music trespass back into my life just like that album title, but now that the trespasser is a mate there are other obstacles. Getting on top of bad addictions and ordering the last records for the summer and making it a scant few- that's now. Records have become too much of my life and with that there is the tragedy of living in the past. Were the past not so potent records would be long brought down to a minimum and the simple fact of the matter of my life today is that loneliness and memories are turning me into somebody I can hardly even recognize sometimes. I'm still fighting for what I believe in though and I'll be doing that for the rest of my life until I finally find the land of peace, tranquility, and true happiness. I'm not one to be counted out.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
GLORIA MAY THEY FADE INTO A GUTTER + SPY- POMP ROCK/POWER POP AT ITS BEST FROM THE GARDEN STATE 1980: THE BEST AND THE WORST BANDS
What!? No blog entries for over a month!? And it isn't because I've been too busy I've just been too miserable to do much of anything. I can, after what I have to live with every day, say that I pretty much give up on life as much as I give up on any and all hope for the political situation in this country. Let me rephrase that. I would give up on life if I was really stupid and since one of these albums is basically telling you to kill yourself and the other says "Push On And Follow Through" I agree with Spy in their brilliant "The Best That We Can Do."
I have a lot of respect for Dutch 60s bands of all kinds, but mainly the pop psych/full on psychedelic ones and I wish I had a better Dutch collection because there are many great ones that have gone from my collection that I should have kept. Of course, things would change with time. My favorite Dutch band is Machine who only made one album in 1970 which sounds like the Hell and mayhem of Arnhem 1944 brought to life in seriously heavy psych/hard prog. Also, if I were pressed I'd probably say that Kayak are the most underrated band of them all and they made some of the best melodic progressive music ever. Machine never took off. In fact, they were gone before they really had a chance to make it. Kayak had some huge success in Holland and even got a hit here with the remixed version of "I Want You To Be Mine." It would be Kayak who I'd say had the best understanding of English and Gloria who were the worst not just at that, but the worst of them all.
-Gloria: Holland's Worst and How Did They Get A Hit!?-
Gloria, or as they are sometimes referred to Robert Long and Unit Gloria, are the most obnoxious band I've ever heard from anywhere bar the horrible equally sick Norwegian metal band Return. In fact, Gloria predated the worst excesses of right wing Christian metal/rock lyrics in their sickeningly pious hits which were a big deal in The Netherlands at the time. I know what I say is going to offend some people, but facts are facts. Reality is reality. Gloria were a band without any real imagination they just had bombast.
In fact, during their successful period they hardly wrote any songs. It was Englishman Bobby Graham who wrote for them their huge hit "The Last Seven Days-" a song as horrific and disturbing as Bloodrock or a nightmare of a talentless pop version of Black Sabbath if they weren't Black Sabbath and were fanatical about spreading the Christian word. What the song deals with is environmental holocaust and the end of the world brought on by (you guessed it) God's wrath for the people of the earth living in sin and not by his word. The 80 piece choir certainly doesn't help and this kind of shlock pop with sick lyrics is the kind of thing I've heard in really horrible nightmares and would not like to ever have anything to do with. Gloria would follow this non-song up with more pretentious Christian based and conservative garbage and for a brief period they were hugely successful which is shocking.
Of course the tide would turn- Robert Long which is obviously a pseudonym for some unpronounceable Dutch name would leave the band and they would go progressive. I haven't heard the good stuff by Unit Gloria with horrible Robert Long out of the band, but even the band's successful album MEA SEMPER GLORIA VIVET ("MAY MY FAME LAST FOREVER") isn't easy to track down. It really should be avoided at all costs I just wish that somebody would put the radically different first track "Brink Of Disaster" on a compilation. You think you're in for a masterpiece and that cover looks pretty classy too- you'd better beware! I got burned on this one twice.
After "Brink Of Disaster" this goes way over the brink and makes you wish someone had done away with this band before they could get into a studio. Maybe a tree could have fallen down on their car in a storm and that would have been the end of them, but that is even for this way too extreme. It just doesn't make any sense to me that bands like this had hits at such a creative high point especially in a great music country like Holland. Around the same time there were such great bands as Sandy Coast, Zen, Earth and Fire, Shocking Blue, and many more where those came from. If you want grim that's more than listenable go for Sandy Coast and their amazing Dutch hit "Capital Punishment (Death By Hanging)" which is a lot more musical than the title of the song implies.
In fact, Sandy Coast and most of the best bands weren't exactly upbeat and we must remember that just like the Germans the Dutch kids then were growing up in the aftermath of WWII. Some of the bloodiest battles were fought in Holland some of the worst carnage ensued, but that doesn't excuse Gloria. The songs seem to delight in death and disaster and the Holier Than Thou stance is particularly nauseating. Is this the work of a Dutch George W. Bush on depressants!? I think I've nailed it. Let me also warn you that Robert Long has an appalling voice that destroys everything and his tendency towards histrionic bellowing in a low moan is really something you don't want to hear. No more time to waste on this one. It gets the condemnation I only thrash out to the worst of them all and this is the worst garbage ever to have come out of not just Holland, but all of Europe. I'll take Italian progressive mania over this and that's harsher than harsh!
-SPY- THE BEST POMP ROCK/PROGRESSIVE/POWER POP BAND OF THEM ALL? I MAY JUST SAY YES! (NO PUN INTENDED)-
My tune has changed a lot about New Jersey. When I was in high school it was a pretty backwards state although it was beautiful, but I overlooked the beauty and the good things and just looked at how rotten most of the other kids were I had to deal with (and they really were awful). Now, in Princeton alone things are very different, but back when Spy were around free range, organic, and tasty could only be found in music like theirs and not in the food we could get. I would have to put in for New Jersey it is called the Garden State for a reason- it surely is one of the most beautiful states you can live in, but let's get right to the music here- New Jersey has produced some of the best bands to come out of America and the World and Spy may have been an absolute peak.
I read about Spy back when I was 14 years old. They were written up in a rave review in a magazine I read at the time which gave a pretty good introduction to the best AOR/Pomp Rock bands of them all and I'd put nearly all of the ones the guy (can't remember the name of the journalist) raved about up there. He was so enthralled with Spy that I bought the album and I was head over heels in love with that amazing first track "Crimson Queen." Since then and over a long period without hearing this band except on YouTube I listened to the whole album last night and this just takes me straight into some kind of better world where people share and care about other people and things that matter.
How New Jersey's Spy came together was as a supergroup of sorts. Guitarist/lead vocalist David Nelson went way back and had just before Spy been Roy Albrighton's replacement in Nektar when that band moved to New Brunswick NJ. Unfortunately, Nektar wasn't the right band for David's songs and I think he saved his best ones up for Spy. He has a very different approach to singing and writing and playing than Nektar knew how to integrate and had their attempt at a "pop period" worked it probably wouldn't have changed their cult status into huge sales which is what David Nelson and the rest of Spy so much deserved. The band's main lead vocalist John Vislocky had been in ultra collectable progressive band Mirthandir who only managed one tiny private pressing called FOR YOU THE OLD WOMEN, but some progressive fans rate this album which I haven't heard really high. The rest of the band had just as many chops and just as many great ideas and ability. Dave Lebolt is a great writer and keyboard player, Danny Seidenberg plays incredible violin and viola, Michael Visceglia is a great bass player, and finally Bob Goldman is a fantastic drummer able to handle the complexities of many of these songs like an old hand.
So what stopped this band from hitting #1? I think it was being signed to the wrong label- Kirshner. The only other act on Kirshner was fake progressive wank-off Kansas and their big successes were past them in 1980. There could be a good reason why Visceglia trashes the music industry on "Easy Street" as Kirshner could have been pulling the carpet out from under Spy as they were making their album. The record business was particularly savage when AOR/Pomp Rock bands were making classic albums and quite a few great bands suffered from what had been brewing since way back in the 1960s- the "We Had A Hit With That One Now Let's Sign This One" leading into "Not Commercial Enough Fuck Off." The reason for high priced collector's items is often worldwide just rarity, but in also a lot of cases you have to hear how good the music is. Spy don't go for much money, but their album doesn't often turn up.
What Spy do on their album is create a mood for each song and write very pleasant melodies with vocals somewhere between Kayak's Edward Reekers and Uriah Heep great David Byron in the case of John Vislocky. He tends to sing very high, but very soothing. Definitely not an idiotic Steve Walsh tantrum thrower or anything approaching the pseudo prog hard rock of Kansas. David Nelson also sings lead with a really down to earth and gentle approach that is so tasteful it's hard to put into words what he does on the heartbreaking yet great message song "The Best That We Can Do" about the tragic suicide of a best friend and how we need to live life while it's there and not destroy it.
Spy are a band with a great heart. I feel the same way about New England and having many years ago been in touch with their amazing John Fannon I can say my faith in him/New England was more than justified by a great person. John Fannon's melancholic songs have a less Beatles influenced counterpart in Spy and while New England made it with a huge hit then had very bad luck despite even better material Spy never had even one hit. You won't believe that when you hear songs such as "Crimson Queen," "Ruby Twilight," and the breathtaking "Anytime Anyplace" which features the most progressive and complex structure I've heard yet in a pomp rock track by an American band. Spy are amazing and the fact that six guys made a great team is really impressive. Sometimes a band with only 3 guys like Triumph only have one person who has a real vision (Rik Emmett), but in Spy a democratic writing approach pays off. David Nelson and Dave Lebolt get most of the songs, but Danny Seidenberg and John Vislocky get things cooking on "Anytime Anyplace" and Michael Visceglia tears out the music industry on the heartfelt "Easy Street."
If Spy had been on a real label then the pick hit is obviously "Crimson Queen," but I can't believe that even Kirshner couldn't make the song a huge hit. It has a complex structure that is very progressive, but it also is pop at heart and full of brilliant vocals and catchy melodies. Spy are for music lovers who think. They aren't some stupid band with blind flash and pretentious noodling and squirming like Kansas and it probably was their death knell to be signed to Kirshner. Let me also say I don't think this album got pressed in huge quantities and every copy I've had has been a demonstration copy. It looks like sometimes the good guys don't win! Oftentimes the good guys lose. That's what "The Best That We Can Do" is about and having had a best friend back in high school who killed himself I can really sympathize with David Nelson's very sad and very beautiful song. The violin is a nice touch and Nelson comes up with some great riffs and brilliant vocals. You can't find one track on here that isn't outstanding. For power pop/pomp up there with "Crimson Queen" listen to "Love's There" and the album's great closer "When I find Love." For progressive influences done perfectly there's "Can't Complain" and the lovely ballad "Feeling Shining Through." It's really criminal that Spy didn't succeed commercially, but we have an album here that is the best ever made for the kind of music they play and it belongs in your collection along with all your multi hundred $$$$ hugely expensive ones. Find this album at once- you need it.
If anyone from Spy would like to contact me my new email is benjamin.mitchner@yahoo.com. Yeah, I lost all my friends and all my contacts when I was hacked and things have not been good. However, listening to Spy last night my life was saved by "The Best That We Can Do" and the whole album. I would never have attempted suicide anyway, but that song really speaks volumes against it and the whole record restored my faith in myself during what is a horrible period for me. Thank you isn't the words. Brilliant!
I have a lot of respect for Dutch 60s bands of all kinds, but mainly the pop psych/full on psychedelic ones and I wish I had a better Dutch collection because there are many great ones that have gone from my collection that I should have kept. Of course, things would change with time. My favorite Dutch band is Machine who only made one album in 1970 which sounds like the Hell and mayhem of Arnhem 1944 brought to life in seriously heavy psych/hard prog. Also, if I were pressed I'd probably say that Kayak are the most underrated band of them all and they made some of the best melodic progressive music ever. Machine never took off. In fact, they were gone before they really had a chance to make it. Kayak had some huge success in Holland and even got a hit here with the remixed version of "I Want You To Be Mine." It would be Kayak who I'd say had the best understanding of English and Gloria who were the worst not just at that, but the worst of them all.
-Gloria: Holland's Worst and How Did They Get A Hit!?-
Gloria, or as they are sometimes referred to Robert Long and Unit Gloria, are the most obnoxious band I've ever heard from anywhere bar the horrible equally sick Norwegian metal band Return. In fact, Gloria predated the worst excesses of right wing Christian metal/rock lyrics in their sickeningly pious hits which were a big deal in The Netherlands at the time. I know what I say is going to offend some people, but facts are facts. Reality is reality. Gloria were a band without any real imagination they just had bombast.
In fact, during their successful period they hardly wrote any songs. It was Englishman Bobby Graham who wrote for them their huge hit "The Last Seven Days-" a song as horrific and disturbing as Bloodrock or a nightmare of a talentless pop version of Black Sabbath if they weren't Black Sabbath and were fanatical about spreading the Christian word. What the song deals with is environmental holocaust and the end of the world brought on by (you guessed it) God's wrath for the people of the earth living in sin and not by his word. The 80 piece choir certainly doesn't help and this kind of shlock pop with sick lyrics is the kind of thing I've heard in really horrible nightmares and would not like to ever have anything to do with. Gloria would follow this non-song up with more pretentious Christian based and conservative garbage and for a brief period they were hugely successful which is shocking.
Of course the tide would turn- Robert Long which is obviously a pseudonym for some unpronounceable Dutch name would leave the band and they would go progressive. I haven't heard the good stuff by Unit Gloria with horrible Robert Long out of the band, but even the band's successful album MEA SEMPER GLORIA VIVET ("MAY MY FAME LAST FOREVER") isn't easy to track down. It really should be avoided at all costs I just wish that somebody would put the radically different first track "Brink Of Disaster" on a compilation. You think you're in for a masterpiece and that cover looks pretty classy too- you'd better beware! I got burned on this one twice.
After "Brink Of Disaster" this goes way over the brink and makes you wish someone had done away with this band before they could get into a studio. Maybe a tree could have fallen down on their car in a storm and that would have been the end of them, but that is even for this way too extreme. It just doesn't make any sense to me that bands like this had hits at such a creative high point especially in a great music country like Holland. Around the same time there were such great bands as Sandy Coast, Zen, Earth and Fire, Shocking Blue, and many more where those came from. If you want grim that's more than listenable go for Sandy Coast and their amazing Dutch hit "Capital Punishment (Death By Hanging)" which is a lot more musical than the title of the song implies.
In fact, Sandy Coast and most of the best bands weren't exactly upbeat and we must remember that just like the Germans the Dutch kids then were growing up in the aftermath of WWII. Some of the bloodiest battles were fought in Holland some of the worst carnage ensued, but that doesn't excuse Gloria. The songs seem to delight in death and disaster and the Holier Than Thou stance is particularly nauseating. Is this the work of a Dutch George W. Bush on depressants!? I think I've nailed it. Let me also warn you that Robert Long has an appalling voice that destroys everything and his tendency towards histrionic bellowing in a low moan is really something you don't want to hear. No more time to waste on this one. It gets the condemnation I only thrash out to the worst of them all and this is the worst garbage ever to have come out of not just Holland, but all of Europe. I'll take Italian progressive mania over this and that's harsher than harsh!
-SPY- THE BEST POMP ROCK/PROGRESSIVE/POWER POP BAND OF THEM ALL? I MAY JUST SAY YES! (NO PUN INTENDED)-
My tune has changed a lot about New Jersey. When I was in high school it was a pretty backwards state although it was beautiful, but I overlooked the beauty and the good things and just looked at how rotten most of the other kids were I had to deal with (and they really were awful). Now, in Princeton alone things are very different, but back when Spy were around free range, organic, and tasty could only be found in music like theirs and not in the food we could get. I would have to put in for New Jersey it is called the Garden State for a reason- it surely is one of the most beautiful states you can live in, but let's get right to the music here- New Jersey has produced some of the best bands to come out of America and the World and Spy may have been an absolute peak.
I read about Spy back when I was 14 years old. They were written up in a rave review in a magazine I read at the time which gave a pretty good introduction to the best AOR/Pomp Rock bands of them all and I'd put nearly all of the ones the guy (can't remember the name of the journalist) raved about up there. He was so enthralled with Spy that I bought the album and I was head over heels in love with that amazing first track "Crimson Queen." Since then and over a long period without hearing this band except on YouTube I listened to the whole album last night and this just takes me straight into some kind of better world where people share and care about other people and things that matter.
How New Jersey's Spy came together was as a supergroup of sorts. Guitarist/lead vocalist David Nelson went way back and had just before Spy been Roy Albrighton's replacement in Nektar when that band moved to New Brunswick NJ. Unfortunately, Nektar wasn't the right band for David's songs and I think he saved his best ones up for Spy. He has a very different approach to singing and writing and playing than Nektar knew how to integrate and had their attempt at a "pop period" worked it probably wouldn't have changed their cult status into huge sales which is what David Nelson and the rest of Spy so much deserved. The band's main lead vocalist John Vislocky had been in ultra collectable progressive band Mirthandir who only managed one tiny private pressing called FOR YOU THE OLD WOMEN, but some progressive fans rate this album which I haven't heard really high. The rest of the band had just as many chops and just as many great ideas and ability. Dave Lebolt is a great writer and keyboard player, Danny Seidenberg plays incredible violin and viola, Michael Visceglia is a great bass player, and finally Bob Goldman is a fantastic drummer able to handle the complexities of many of these songs like an old hand.
So what stopped this band from hitting #1? I think it was being signed to the wrong label- Kirshner. The only other act on Kirshner was fake progressive wank-off Kansas and their big successes were past them in 1980. There could be a good reason why Visceglia trashes the music industry on "Easy Street" as Kirshner could have been pulling the carpet out from under Spy as they were making their album. The record business was particularly savage when AOR/Pomp Rock bands were making classic albums and quite a few great bands suffered from what had been brewing since way back in the 1960s- the "We Had A Hit With That One Now Let's Sign This One" leading into "Not Commercial Enough Fuck Off." The reason for high priced collector's items is often worldwide just rarity, but in also a lot of cases you have to hear how good the music is. Spy don't go for much money, but their album doesn't often turn up.
What Spy do on their album is create a mood for each song and write very pleasant melodies with vocals somewhere between Kayak's Edward Reekers and Uriah Heep great David Byron in the case of John Vislocky. He tends to sing very high, but very soothing. Definitely not an idiotic Steve Walsh tantrum thrower or anything approaching the pseudo prog hard rock of Kansas. David Nelson also sings lead with a really down to earth and gentle approach that is so tasteful it's hard to put into words what he does on the heartbreaking yet great message song "The Best That We Can Do" about the tragic suicide of a best friend and how we need to live life while it's there and not destroy it.
Spy are a band with a great heart. I feel the same way about New England and having many years ago been in touch with their amazing John Fannon I can say my faith in him/New England was more than justified by a great person. John Fannon's melancholic songs have a less Beatles influenced counterpart in Spy and while New England made it with a huge hit then had very bad luck despite even better material Spy never had even one hit. You won't believe that when you hear songs such as "Crimson Queen," "Ruby Twilight," and the breathtaking "Anytime Anyplace" which features the most progressive and complex structure I've heard yet in a pomp rock track by an American band. Spy are amazing and the fact that six guys made a great team is really impressive. Sometimes a band with only 3 guys like Triumph only have one person who has a real vision (Rik Emmett), but in Spy a democratic writing approach pays off. David Nelson and Dave Lebolt get most of the songs, but Danny Seidenberg and John Vislocky get things cooking on "Anytime Anyplace" and Michael Visceglia tears out the music industry on the heartfelt "Easy Street."
If Spy had been on a real label then the pick hit is obviously "Crimson Queen," but I can't believe that even Kirshner couldn't make the song a huge hit. It has a complex structure that is very progressive, but it also is pop at heart and full of brilliant vocals and catchy melodies. Spy are for music lovers who think. They aren't some stupid band with blind flash and pretentious noodling and squirming like Kansas and it probably was their death knell to be signed to Kirshner. Let me also say I don't think this album got pressed in huge quantities and every copy I've had has been a demonstration copy. It looks like sometimes the good guys don't win! Oftentimes the good guys lose. That's what "The Best That We Can Do" is about and having had a best friend back in high school who killed himself I can really sympathize with David Nelson's very sad and very beautiful song. The violin is a nice touch and Nelson comes up with some great riffs and brilliant vocals. You can't find one track on here that isn't outstanding. For power pop/pomp up there with "Crimson Queen" listen to "Love's There" and the album's great closer "When I find Love." For progressive influences done perfectly there's "Can't Complain" and the lovely ballad "Feeling Shining Through." It's really criminal that Spy didn't succeed commercially, but we have an album here that is the best ever made for the kind of music they play and it belongs in your collection along with all your multi hundred $$$$ hugely expensive ones. Find this album at once- you need it.
If anyone from Spy would like to contact me my new email is benjamin.mitchner@yahoo.com. Yeah, I lost all my friends and all my contacts when I was hacked and things have not been good. However, listening to Spy last night my life was saved by "The Best That We Can Do" and the whole album. I would never have attempted suicide anyway, but that song really speaks volumes against it and the whole record restored my faith in myself during what is a horrible period for me. Thank you isn't the words. Brilliant!
Monday, May 27, 2013
Not The Way Moses Would Have Intended It- Light Formation Give Us The Masterful "The Story Of Moses" Dutch Style German Only Release
Back in the early 70s concept albums were a big deal following the huge successes of "Rock Operas" like The Who's overrated beginning-of-the-end-for-their-musical-quality TOMMY and the way, way, worse JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR. TOMMY still had some great songs on it, but overall it showed The Who sounding pale in comparison to the frightening and revolutionary record that inspired it: S.F SORROW by The Pretty Things. I also don't like that one so much anymore- just too creepy as The Pretties were getting vengeful and violent lyrically and that kind of does in both S.F SORROW and its even rawer followup PARACHUTE for me. So you're probably thinking I hate concept albums... Wrong. No way. A concept album just works better if there is a loose theme that comes after the music and not before it. King Crimson mastered the art of making an album that was more like listening to instead of looking at a really good movie on IN THE COURT OF THE CRIMSON KING, The Moody Blues were nonpareil geniuses at it, Procol Harum pushed the whole thing over the cliff with their first three albums and classic singles like "A Whiter Shade Of Pale" and all 3 of those bands had an immense influence on young bands in Europe who were seeking to "Europeanize" as I call it the British progressive/psychedelic sound. Other British bands followed, but every time The Bible came up it was usually a catastrophe. Plus made it work for THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS which is still underrated and obscure, but Salamander couldn't disguise their lack of inspiration and talent on the really bad THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. There had to be an exception. That would lead me to Light Formation. There's a lot to say here and I don't know just how much time I'm gonna need to rave about this near perfect album so I'll begin with a little introduction for you.
-Light Formation: Musical Brilliance From A Town More Famous For Cheese!-
The town of Gouda in Holland is probably better known for its beloved cheese than for Light Formation which is really sad. The band are probably the only band from Gouda, but what they came up with has more in common with a feast of heavenly proportions than something that has become commonplace in every supermarket and every quality food store for more discerning types who want "Real Gouda." In Holland there had been a lot more activity in the 60s on the music scene than the million and one beat groups in Germany. Germany as I stated in my last blog really happened in 1969, but this kind of late birth of predominantly heavy psychedelic rock had a more positive effect for Germany than the End-Of-The-60s confusion that took control of The Netherlands.
Bands were heading in a lot of different directions and a high quality country for music that was always pushing everything beyond what anyone could imagine it sounding like was becoming fractured. Even some of the best Dutch bands had an off year in 1969 or 1970 with apt examples the really overblown SHIPWRECK by Sandy Coast and the hodgepodge of good and horrible ELECTRIC BABY by The Motions. In 1970 some interesting bands started to appear again such as the amazing Machine whose album is one of the best heavy hard psych rock/hard prog albums there is and sometime around the end of the 60s the mysterious Light Formation were beginning to happen.
I don't know very much about the band's history, but the bizarre outcome of their very Moody Blues/Procol Harum derived light yet intense progressive one off THE STORY OF MOSES is particularly shocking. After scoring a hit in The Netherlands with the wonderful song "The Nuisances" lifted from the album the record wasn't available to the Dutch following who would have loved it so much. Instead, THE STORY OF MOSES was only released in Germany as one of the earliest titles on the highly prized "Green" Brain label. This meant instant obscurity and a swift end to what could have easily been a long and highly lucrative career. The album has for a long time been one of the rarest and most expensive of all European progressive rock records and the craziest thing of all may be that unlike certain ones that I've heard and thought were only good this one is great!
-Moses Would Have Been Dead As If Struck By Lightning By The Story Of Moses Dutch Style-
THE STORY OF THE MOSES looks really, really beautiful from the cover and definitely has the vibe of a classy conceptual progressive album, but Moses would have been dead if he'd heard the album or else completely astounded. He wouldn't have known it was about him to start with and thanks to the whacked out lyrics that Henk Van Rookhuyzen wrote for the record this album is as far removed from The Old Testament Jewish prophet Moses as you can get. The lyrics all sound like Keith Reed who wrote great texts for Procol Harum if he'd been on acid whilst Procol were in a symphonic melancholic mood. I've played the album quite a few times and along with the plot disappearing even more each time the music gets better with every play. Light were formidable and they numbered music composer/keyboard player/vocalist Adri Vergeer, acoustic guitarist Gerard Steenbergen, bass player Joop Slootjes, sax/flute player Hans De Bruin, and drummer/vocalist Sjaco Van Der Speld. Guest musicians were the great electric guitar of Hans Hollestelle, another bass player in Guus Willems, and the brief narrations are done by Marian Shatteleyn and Robbie Dale.
-The Brilliant Album In Depth-
If the names are cumbersome then by even more of a contrast to the concept of the album the music is most certainly not. The Netherlands had only Machine's one off as a progressive masterpiece and the long-running Kayak as really top-of-the-line progressive acts along with Light Formation, but the front cover slips up and just says "Light." Clearly somebody did not want this band to make it and it may have been Moses having a heart attack in heaven. It's not that Moses is made an ass of- that doesn't happen till the clunky Brit Robbie Dale does his worst Graeme Edge impersonations at the end which only adds to the offbeat wondrous mysteriousness of the album it is more so that a strict concept is not followed. Light Formation like their name can be referred to almost as a sonic light show of changing colors and moods. A kind of "Painting By Sound" or "Movie For The Ears."
The vocals are very much more German sounding than Dutch and also with their softly sung intonations can be compared to some of the mellower tracks on Swedish and Danish ultra-rarities or even more aptly France's Jupiter Sunset. Even the Russian moods of Jupiter Sunset (the lyrics were by Aphrodite's Child text master Boris Bergman on Jupiter Sunset) come into play here as classical music and more classical music is the main influence. You'll hear Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Rachmaninoff come through Vergeer's keyboards. However, there isn't any cloning or copying just a beautiful Neo Classical meeting of Baroque and earlier styles that make for a beautiful yet also very exciting atmosphere. The vocals are excellent and sweetly sung and the strong mood that permeates through nearly all 6 tracks is like sitting by a warm fire on a cold night or walking through a forest just as the sun is rising and all the flowers are opening with all kinds of mythical characters coming out to see you.
The only thing I would change about THE STORY OF MOSES is that I would have Robbie Dale taken out as his annoyingly poncy English drivel at the end of the album is really stupid. He's great for pitching in to help out their beautiful song "The Nuisances," but really that narrative shouting sounds more like an angry cheap Biblical B Movie than the brilliant music that comes beforehand and holds up against him well enough to make this album near perfect with just one error- the narrator.
The same way you just laugh at Graeme Edge you just laugh at Robbie Dale and this is really much more Moody Blues than Moses. I don't know what Moses is supposed to be doing during the songs here, but he seems to have been cast aside as too cumbersome to deal with him directly. That is a wise move. The thickly regimented, contrived, mannered nature of most concept albums is thrown out by Light Formation and instead it is the moods, voices, instruments, and songs that are the main thing here. Even though there are only 6 tracks there is no ego-tripping or self-indulgence during any of it. The only real problem with Light Formation's album is finding a copy. This is the kind of record I searched ages and ages and ages to get my hands on a copy of and were it devoid of some of its crackle my $150 investment in it would have been an even more unbelievably good deal- a Mint one of this is easily $500! Unfortunately, all the interest in the album does little good for the band who made it. I always feel really bad about that part of collecting rare music that is also very good and very valuable. What went into this album was a whole lot of heart and a whole lot of love. There is something about THE STORY OF MOSES that I feel could bring disparate and once firmly not loving of each other people together. My vision is that of Germany and Russia solving all their differences and becoming best friends while Moses is up in the sky dancing around in a kilt! Crazy imagination, but here's a sample lyric:
"Frogs Are Jumping Up/And Are Moving Over You" (From "The Nuisances")
What the Hell!? If you think that Elonkorjuu from Finland sound weird then you must hear this. This album is so strange and freaky lyrically that I can imagine someone like myself who is a little nervous about concept albums and rock operas instantly feeling really good when playing it for the fact that despite everything working against them Light Formation are an amazing bunch of musicians who sing with very pleasant and melodic vocal harmonies that make for a wonderful spin each time! If you can't find the album then by all means try to track it down or at least find a CD of it. It will be well worth your time and money.
-Light Formation: Musical Brilliance From A Town More Famous For Cheese!-
The town of Gouda in Holland is probably better known for its beloved cheese than for Light Formation which is really sad. The band are probably the only band from Gouda, but what they came up with has more in common with a feast of heavenly proportions than something that has become commonplace in every supermarket and every quality food store for more discerning types who want "Real Gouda." In Holland there had been a lot more activity in the 60s on the music scene than the million and one beat groups in Germany. Germany as I stated in my last blog really happened in 1969, but this kind of late birth of predominantly heavy psychedelic rock had a more positive effect for Germany than the End-Of-The-60s confusion that took control of The Netherlands.
Bands were heading in a lot of different directions and a high quality country for music that was always pushing everything beyond what anyone could imagine it sounding like was becoming fractured. Even some of the best Dutch bands had an off year in 1969 or 1970 with apt examples the really overblown SHIPWRECK by Sandy Coast and the hodgepodge of good and horrible ELECTRIC BABY by The Motions. In 1970 some interesting bands started to appear again such as the amazing Machine whose album is one of the best heavy hard psych rock/hard prog albums there is and sometime around the end of the 60s the mysterious Light Formation were beginning to happen.
I don't know very much about the band's history, but the bizarre outcome of their very Moody Blues/Procol Harum derived light yet intense progressive one off THE STORY OF MOSES is particularly shocking. After scoring a hit in The Netherlands with the wonderful song "The Nuisances" lifted from the album the record wasn't available to the Dutch following who would have loved it so much. Instead, THE STORY OF MOSES was only released in Germany as one of the earliest titles on the highly prized "Green" Brain label. This meant instant obscurity and a swift end to what could have easily been a long and highly lucrative career. The album has for a long time been one of the rarest and most expensive of all European progressive rock records and the craziest thing of all may be that unlike certain ones that I've heard and thought were only good this one is great!
-Moses Would Have Been Dead As If Struck By Lightning By The Story Of Moses Dutch Style-
THE STORY OF THE MOSES looks really, really beautiful from the cover and definitely has the vibe of a classy conceptual progressive album, but Moses would have been dead if he'd heard the album or else completely astounded. He wouldn't have known it was about him to start with and thanks to the whacked out lyrics that Henk Van Rookhuyzen wrote for the record this album is as far removed from The Old Testament Jewish prophet Moses as you can get. The lyrics all sound like Keith Reed who wrote great texts for Procol Harum if he'd been on acid whilst Procol were in a symphonic melancholic mood. I've played the album quite a few times and along with the plot disappearing even more each time the music gets better with every play. Light were formidable and they numbered music composer/keyboard player/vocalist Adri Vergeer, acoustic guitarist Gerard Steenbergen, bass player Joop Slootjes, sax/flute player Hans De Bruin, and drummer/vocalist Sjaco Van Der Speld. Guest musicians were the great electric guitar of Hans Hollestelle, another bass player in Guus Willems, and the brief narrations are done by Marian Shatteleyn and Robbie Dale.
-The Brilliant Album In Depth-
If the names are cumbersome then by even more of a contrast to the concept of the album the music is most certainly not. The Netherlands had only Machine's one off as a progressive masterpiece and the long-running Kayak as really top-of-the-line progressive acts along with Light Formation, but the front cover slips up and just says "Light." Clearly somebody did not want this band to make it and it may have been Moses having a heart attack in heaven. It's not that Moses is made an ass of- that doesn't happen till the clunky Brit Robbie Dale does his worst Graeme Edge impersonations at the end which only adds to the offbeat wondrous mysteriousness of the album it is more so that a strict concept is not followed. Light Formation like their name can be referred to almost as a sonic light show of changing colors and moods. A kind of "Painting By Sound" or "Movie For The Ears."
The vocals are very much more German sounding than Dutch and also with their softly sung intonations can be compared to some of the mellower tracks on Swedish and Danish ultra-rarities or even more aptly France's Jupiter Sunset. Even the Russian moods of Jupiter Sunset (the lyrics were by Aphrodite's Child text master Boris Bergman on Jupiter Sunset) come into play here as classical music and more classical music is the main influence. You'll hear Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Rachmaninoff come through Vergeer's keyboards. However, there isn't any cloning or copying just a beautiful Neo Classical meeting of Baroque and earlier styles that make for a beautiful yet also very exciting atmosphere. The vocals are excellent and sweetly sung and the strong mood that permeates through nearly all 6 tracks is like sitting by a warm fire on a cold night or walking through a forest just as the sun is rising and all the flowers are opening with all kinds of mythical characters coming out to see you.
The only thing I would change about THE STORY OF MOSES is that I would have Robbie Dale taken out as his annoyingly poncy English drivel at the end of the album is really stupid. He's great for pitching in to help out their beautiful song "The Nuisances," but really that narrative shouting sounds more like an angry cheap Biblical B Movie than the brilliant music that comes beforehand and holds up against him well enough to make this album near perfect with just one error- the narrator.
The same way you just laugh at Graeme Edge you just laugh at Robbie Dale and this is really much more Moody Blues than Moses. I don't know what Moses is supposed to be doing during the songs here, but he seems to have been cast aside as too cumbersome to deal with him directly. That is a wise move. The thickly regimented, contrived, mannered nature of most concept albums is thrown out by Light Formation and instead it is the moods, voices, instruments, and songs that are the main thing here. Even though there are only 6 tracks there is no ego-tripping or self-indulgence during any of it. The only real problem with Light Formation's album is finding a copy. This is the kind of record I searched ages and ages and ages to get my hands on a copy of and were it devoid of some of its crackle my $150 investment in it would have been an even more unbelievably good deal- a Mint one of this is easily $500! Unfortunately, all the interest in the album does little good for the band who made it. I always feel really bad about that part of collecting rare music that is also very good and very valuable. What went into this album was a whole lot of heart and a whole lot of love. There is something about THE STORY OF MOSES that I feel could bring disparate and once firmly not loving of each other people together. My vision is that of Germany and Russia solving all their differences and becoming best friends while Moses is up in the sky dancing around in a kilt! Crazy imagination, but here's a sample lyric:
"Frogs Are Jumping Up/And Are Moving Over You" (From "The Nuisances")
What the Hell!? If you think that Elonkorjuu from Finland sound weird then you must hear this. This album is so strange and freaky lyrically that I can imagine someone like myself who is a little nervous about concept albums and rock operas instantly feeling really good when playing it for the fact that despite everything working against them Light Formation are an amazing bunch of musicians who sing with very pleasant and melodic vocal harmonies that make for a wonderful spin each time! If you can't find the album then by all means try to track it down or at least find a CD of it. It will be well worth your time and money.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)