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

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.
      

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!

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.

Sitting Bull Invite You To Trip Away Into The Best Record In The World And An Overlooked Masterpiece!

Well, I'll admit that I've been acquiring and playing a whole lot of records from Europe, America, and some from Canada a lot more than the usual British top faves now as England has been a source of much anger and misery for me the last several months. I still have my REAL FRIENDS- old standbys who never have once let me down, but from what I can see in a microcosm view of Britain is that my friends are pissed off with the way the country is going and the younger generation is producing some pretty scary results when it comes to kids in the Army who are violent, bigoted, and downright horrendously nasty. No harsh generalizations, though. I'm sure that Europe has its issues too, but it's been seeming more and more attractive to me as I go on my quest for where to find the best people and the best music. I now have 4 great friends in Germany whom I love very much and I also like Americans more than I ever think I have.
    England is huge- you can't not say that. I would always point to where an American band that some dealer hyped over on me came from when they said it was 100 percent American- not at all they were imitating or else influenced by a band from the UK or Europe and trying to turn it into something American. Don't forget that the only truly indigenous influences back in the 60s all the way light years passed then have either been blues artists, soul, R&B, early rock & roll most of that black too, or for white bands just the mightily marvelous Beach Boys/Four Seasons. American psych can be some of the best music in the world or it can be something that is a passing interest to me- I heard it and dug it ages ago and now it isn't as cool as something from England or Europe. Where there is a huge difference in technique, influence, and execution of a musical idea is between the UK and Europe. Unlike America there has always been a heavy classical and traditional folk/folkloric leaning towards a lot of European music from countries such as Germany and Holland. Many of the top German rarities may have been initially UK influenced, but they took those influences and threw it into their classical/folk traditions and so it comes out completely different sounding. The German bands who lean towards American West Coast influences always throw a whole lot of Germanic vibes into their sound and there you have some of the best music ever made- like Sitting Bull.
              -Sitting Bull: An Amazing Band With An Amazingly Rare One Off Album-
    Sitting Bull is band of which almost nothing is known about. They recorded one masterful record and a few singles and then were gone. I don't have their meager biography in front of me just their album TRIP AWAY itself and the album gives no information on who is in the band. The only information like that I can give is that they were a quartet of hippy looking guys who wrote, sung, and played all their own material on the classic one off release from 1971. With a name like Sitting Bull and a cover of four relaxed long haired guys in an idyllic setting in a field this would have to be an American band right? Wrong. Sitting Bull came from Germany and although they have heavy influences from England (Led Zeppelin. Cream, and the myriad of great pastoral/folk rock bands) and America (Quicksilver Messenger Service and late 60s acid rock in general) thanks to thickly accented vocals and an accent on heavy Teutonic vibes they have a very German sound that only occasionally strays into country rock zones.
             -A Detailed Rave On The Brilliance Of Sitting Bull's TRIP AWAY-
    This could be the best German album. It certainly is up there and even on repeated plays it never fails to knock me out completely. There are 10 tracks including the over 10 minute corker "Trip Away" which starts the album and of the 10 tracks not one is a loser. They rock and they can relax. There can be a loud intensity or a quiet intensity. This is amazing music from four very gifted musicians one of whom is a very unique vocalist. The harmonies help out a lot, but the singer's rather dazed/druggy, quavery (a lot of vibrato) vocals that sound like he is stoned out of his mind are way preferable to any American or British stoned yowling (yeah I think Stonewall, Salem Mass, and Douglas Fir from the States completely S.U.C.K and are disgusting!). I would have loved this band in high school and I love them now. That means they transcend a whole long time period and a lot more than that. This is music that ages like wine or some kind of heady brew that gets better with age and not stale with it. It gets better all the time. Some of the songs are really astonishingly atmospheric like "Indian Fate" which is a total killer about how ashamed we should be for what we did to the Native people of our country and I agree with that wholeheartedly. Other songs weave a storyline about the lifestyle of young people in the 60s and 70s sadly through to today who get very drug dependent. "Trip Away" is surprising for a long track in that the lyrics and the structure are more important to this group than any long drawn out soloing or "jams." A message of living life off the land and peacefully rolls out like fields and mountain ranges full of beautiful animals and flowers. The playing is concise, to-the-point, and really explosive when it comes in, but the song is built around more of an easily moving carefree and open structure than a whole bunch of hot air. By the end of the song everything breaks out into wild hard rock, but the forcefulness never becomes sloppy or overindulgent. The vocals wail with a power no Bay Area group ever had- not even Blue Cheer. Listen to this and you'll never need to listen to Jefferson Airplane again.
   At first this album of heavy acid rock and stoned folk rock may take some more time for other people than it did for me, but I soon found myself loving the more laidback stuff nearly as much as the heavy psychedelic tracks. "Every Time " "Too Many Stops," "For Me For You," and "Hopeless Love" together with "Indian Fate" and a few others have a spooky harmony-led psychedelic folk rock vibe that isn't too far from that of the later post Jeff Lynne Idle Race or other great UK bands, but there's still enough Germanic roughness here to not make for one of those "If Only English Had Been Their First Language" albums where the roughness becomes crude. There aren't too many of those for me as I love thick accented vocals, but there certainly are a few (Virus do nothing for me except make me wish they'd sung all their music in German if their English was that bad and their lyrics that pretentious). Some people who don't like German rock and may want to give this a try will be too narrow minded to appreciate Sitting Bull, but as always if you have an open mind and love really inventive music from anywhere this album is essential.
        -Sitting Bull Is A Significant Rarity And An Album Matched By Almost None-
     I can't tell you exactly how small a pressing by German CBS TRIP AWAY was, but it must have been hardly any copies at all over 500 as this is one of the rarest and also can be one of the priciest German records. A legend even before a lot of other records were legendary it is one tough album to track down. Never around and almost never offered that can only mean two things: CBS should be ashamed of themselves for their total lack of promotion for Sitting Bull and this album may take you ages to find especially below $500 and it would be worth every penny of that. Sitting Bull may have come out with their countercultural vibes a few years after that was no longer fashionable in America or England, but it was more than fashionable still in Germany- in fact just beginning there. They hadn't had Altamont (Horrible) or Kent State (even worse) to destroy their dream of a better life for people to live and in truth were only just starting. In the 1960s Germany had missed out for the most part on psychedelic music and their beat bands had lasted way longer than it was reasonable for them to do so. However, in 1969 right when it was ending for us the first rumblings were being made. By 1971 when this perfect gem of an album came out Germany was producing more great music than almost any other country in The World! Unlike before when the top draws had always been British bands who couldn't make it in England the homegrown German scene spread all across the country and thousands of kids were living the Utopian beautiful 1960s dream we had long since lost out on. Whereas the Scandinavian countries and The Netherlands had been overflowing with great music in the 1960s and continued it on into the 70s with a mix of brilliance and boredom Germany took off and Sitting Bull sound like a band who already are coming from some other place out there where you dream of finding it. I don't think any other record is this perfect, this beautiful. It comes across as a real work of handcrafted love and that's how music should be. The lyrics are excellent throughout even when I can't make out quite a few of them. I dream of music like this, but when I actually hear it that is what has made over 20 years of collecting and loving older music forms pay off- get this album and you'll be tripping too- and not with any of the dangers or stupidity of drug use. TRIP AWAY should blow you away and I wish Sitting Bull if they all are still with us could come back and make some more of the great music they made on their only album which is a perfect miesterwork. This is what psychedelic rock is meant to sound like when its also going toward a more rural/laidback vibe of natural beauty and stateliness. One amazing album it truly is and I would be really happy to see a quality reissue for the collectors who either can't afford or can't locate the original and be as lucky as I am to own it as one of the best records in my collection. This record must be heard and must be heard by all- you won't find anything more brilliant out there that may take you as long as this one may take you to find. "Trip Away And See."

     
      

Norway's Popol Vuh/Popol Ace A Band That Shoud Have Been Huge Now A Rare Collector's Progressive Rock Perfection

It's amazing to me how many great bands came out of Scandinavia in the 1960s and 1970s. Even in the 80s there were a lot of brilliant bands for what they did such as Sweden's Treat and more commercially successful Europe, Norway's Da Vinci, and Denmark's Skagarack. There were horrible bands too and one of them called Return who sing about nothing but death and violence gave me a very bad idea of Norwegian music. I don't know why, but Norway is the darkest of all the Scandinavian countries when it comes to the lyrical subject matter and Popol Vuh (not to be confused with the better known and boring German band)/Popol Ace are no exception.
   

                  -Disgusting Winters May Lead To Delicious Music-
  The long winters may have something to do with it, but there's certainly more than meets the eye (a Europe song title) to how intelligent this band is. They should have made it and their lead singer Jahn Teigen was all set to replace Peter Gabriel in Genesis when he turned them down. I'm sure that at the same time that he isn't too happy about that he most have known it just never would have lasted more than one album with them. I wish they'd made that one album! With an original line up of 6 Viking-looking guys from the Oslo area the band were called Popol Vuh at first and I wonder how there came to be two bands at the same time with that name. Their lyrical texts from the start of their career right through to their best and last album with Teigen are very dark and depressed. You imagine bleak winters and long periods of darkness, but there is something there to keep you warm. The music, especially Jahn Teigen's passionate vocals don't sound cold. The rest of the band comprised guitarist Arne Schulze, keyboard player/guitarist Pete Knutsen, bass player Terje Mehti, drummer Thor Andreassen, and flautist Pjokken Eide who only lasted for their first album. I became aware of them at a time when I was big into the Finnish progressive/melodic heavy metal band Stratovarius and I think that had something to do with my initial interest. Later in life I'd be slamming this poor band although I hadn't lost the love I had and have for Stratovarius. Thanks to YouTube and getting more mature I made the plunge into making a big push to get Popol Vuh/Popol Ace for my birthday and it really has paid off with a lot of listening pleasure. The winters in Norway/Scandinavia may be bleak, depressing, and miserable, but don't let that spoil the music for you! And now let's get onto that brilliant creation of music known as symphonic progressive rock!
           -The Self Titled First Album From 1972: A Good Start To A Great Career-
Popol Vuh/Popol Ace like all bands had to begin with a debut album. In 1972 the most heavily influential progressive bands were King Crimson, Yes, Genesis, Emerson Lake And Palmer, Jethro Tull, and the Moody Blues. It would be nearly impossible for 6 Norwegians to sound like such highly British identified bands so they set about putting their own stamp on their influences. Not mellowed out as much as The Moody Blues they still were a big influence along with King Crimson as the first album is saturated in lush soaring mellotrons. That may be the best thing about the album with Teigen's powerful, charismatic vocals another main strength. The texts are very depressing to most of the songs with Side One's two main showstoppers the hard, powerful jazzy prog of "Hunchback" and a really sad song in "All We Have Is The Past." Unfortunately, their lyrics of inequality and environmental destruction ring just as true today as they did in 1972. This is music from people who spent a lot of time thinking, reading, writing, and digesting the sometimes indigestible world around them. Rather than sing of ancient Viking folklore they sing of a homeless hunchback who leads a miserable life with a spoken conclusion that he believes that:
      "When I Die And I Leave This World Of Horror My Coffin's Gonna Be Bigger/So I'll Cause More Trouble To The Digger/And On The Top Of My Grave A Heap So High/I'll Be One Step Ahead Towards The Sky"
    Yeah, it's pretty bleak stuff, but it means he believes he will go to Heaven and that Hell is made by mankind. If that is someone's only consolation then it is really, really sad. I would say there's enough warmth and emotion in Popol Vuh's music to save them, however, and that furthermore they are a band who play thought provoking music with excellent top quality musicianship. Unlike the worst British progressive bands who went off the rails into horrible proto fusion muck even the jazz influences in the music and especially Jahn's vocals work brilliantly rather than are a catastrophic nightmare.
      One of the major strengths of this first album is the amazing musicianship and huge amount of energy put into the performances. It's almost impossible to think that they'd get so good they'd make this look pale in comparison to their first (and last) real album as Popol Ace the 1975 meisterwork STOLEN FROM TIME. In 1972 their music was split between grandiose classic progressive tracks and hard rocking material like "Joy And Pleasure" and the amazing epic closing track "Medicine" which must be heard by any serious music fan. There are moments of extremely sad mourning of things passing away into darkness and death like "All We Have Is The Past" where Teigen sounds like he is literally about to start crying its so sad and emotional, but then "Medicine" closes the album with a miracle cure- music can bring you down, but music is the ultimate medicine! This may not be a concept album per say, but it flows together like one. You even get a really King Crimson "Epitaph" like dark dreamy prog brilliant song in "For Eternity-" a song stuffed with Flamenco guitar and mellotron. This is definitely a great start to a great career, but a very, very rare record. It won't cost half as much as lot of other albums from the same era, but it might be even harder to track down a copy.

                               -A Prelude To STOLEN FROM TIME-
    The one issue on the first album was just how important to the group was Pjokken Eide. His flute performances were great, but he seemed almost superfluous in the band's vast sound. The answer was he wasn't that important I guess as he was gone from the band by the time they made their second album under the Popol Vuh banner QUICHE MAYA. This album changed the approach quite a bit with more emphasis on the romantic, but the major change would come when they started to generate a lot of interest in Europe. It wouldn't last very long and that is not just tragic it is something whoever was writing the script (And we all know by now he goes by the name of Lucifer, Satan, Beelzebub George W. Bush, Adolph Hitler. and a whole host of other names including Bastard, Asshole, and Merciless Idiot!) should have been shot for doing to them. Some of the bad decisions would ultimately have to be blamed on Popol Ace, but that was really after Genesis diverted Jahn's attention and he ended up without a band. I have not heard the followup without him to STOLEN FROM TIME CURLY SOUNDS, but I have heard that it isn't a patch on what they did with him in the line up. STOLEN FROM TIME should have made this band famous, but the seeds for their brilliance after the name change were being planted on QUICHE MAYA which like all their albums is virtually impossible to find. I've only had it once and it was the very first thing I owned by the group.  I was shocked that there was another Popol Vuh and it was something totally new to me.
    STOLEN FROM TIME made the process to mature and grow and make astonishingly beautiful progressive music come to a brilliant peak seldom equaled so let's get on to that magical album right now!
          -STOLEN FROM TIME is Stolen From The Memory Of Most Now Revered By Me-
     Recording studios weren't that high tech in Norway in the early 70s and by 1975 Popol Vuh now Popol Ace to avoid confusion with the German group were looking to go a lot further and push a lot harder to get noticed all across Europe. They didn't sound German, but they recorded some of STOLEN FROM TIME in Germany. They didn't sound the least bit British, but they recorded much of the album in England. It clearly was making the move to make the big time and that is what the first track "Bury Me Dead" is all about. You'd expect a really bleak and dismal song from that title, but the song is about trying to make it big in the music world and all the uncertainty that goes along with it. Jahn Teigen is super here and the playing is so tight and lively that you can almost dance to it! It really is a very bouncy little number despite the strange and unrepresentative song title. I suppose it translates into "The music industry is cutthroat" or something along those lines.
    There are a lot of different things going on in STOLEN FROM TIME and one of the things I love most about the album is the more romantic sound of a lot of the songs and the general mellowing of the group. Now Camel and Kayak, even the little known more-pop-than-progressive British band Kestrel can be brought in as comparisons. So can Genesis and it would be Genesis that would unintentionally or intentionally tear the band apart when they tried to get Jahn Teigen to replace Peter Gabriel. I don't think I need to go any further into how that panned out, but there will always be a lot of early Genesis fans who think Phil Collins demolished Genesis. I wouldn't agree on the earlier albums with him at all. Genesis tended to write rambling epics, but Popol Ace are more concise. When they solo or jam it's in the context of a tight song structure and best of all there is more room for different keyboards and vocal tricks on STOLEN FROM TIME. "Today Another Day" is a beautiful song with great vocals and really impressive arrangements from the rest of the band. Teigen never contributed much to the writing aspect, but the songs were so wide-angled because he had an unbelievable range that could go anywhere from sweetly sung to nearly screaming. Lake, the German band, would come along a few years later and fine tune what had begun with Canada's 25e Regiment and was taken further on by Popol Ace. They would enjoy success in Europe, but the nagging question is always how to break into the US market. I think there is a reason Lake had a cult following here in the States, but they should have been huge. Popol Ace should have had a contract in America with a big label, a huge amount of money poured into them, and acclaim worldwide. I can't believe that isn't how things went for them.
  Throughout music history there have been great bands that have gone nowhere. Listen to tracks like the sure fire hit "Jester" and then explain to me how this band are not only obscure, but virtually impossible to locate! "Jester" continues the progressive pop of "Today Another Day" with some highly energetic music and sprightly vocals. Lyrically, Popol Ace are almost impossible to match with words that are better than those of many bands and artists where English is their first language! There aren't any embarrassing moments where they pronounce things wrong which is more than I can say for a lot of bands. The heaviest track on Side One is the closing track "Mr. Bigalow" which features bizarre tripped out lyrics and wailing vocals from Teigen. The rest of the in total 5 tracks on the side are very melodic and very inspiring progressive pop and Teigen pitches in with the gentle ballad "Soft Shoe Dancer." "Today Another Day" may be my favorite track, but it's not an easy choice.
       Side Two is all romance and the need for love barring the closing epic "Suicide" and the first song on the side "Sweet Tune" couldn't be more aptly named. It really is a beautiful song. In Scandinavia there is a sound that is unique to that part of Northern Europe and Popol Ace have that sound. I would recommend also the great reissue with two bonus tracks of another amazing band Denmark's equally ill-fated The Old Man & The Sea. They were fucked over unbelievably by their label Sonet who only made 500 copies of the album all of which have 4 or 5 skips in them! Thank you Tommy Hansen for putting the record straight in the reissue insert interview! The question can only be "How Do You Do Any More To Succeed?" It seems that these great bands like Popol Ace are always getting ignored until their local fan base brings them back to reform for reunion gigs and as good as that must feel it would be appreciated I am sure more by the band if the publicity hadn't been a disaster at the time. There are a lot of songs on this album that should have been massive hits and I'd especially say "I Can See Tears" is a really beautiful romantic ballad that features some of the best arrangements I've heard on a progressive record. "Suicide" is a very questionable lyric until you realize how brilliant it is to tell the story of someone who is stupid enough to kill themselves from the point of view of their subconscious getting so warped as to talk that person into taking their life over the most trivial things in the world. It's almost funny, but there is something also very dark in Teigen's clever way of singing the words.
                  -The Epitaph Of Popol Ace And The Rebirth-
   I think that Popol Ace were well-educated. I guess the one area in which they weren't that well off was in knowing how to deal with the ruthless record industry. Back after STOLEN FROM TIME was released Genesis had lost Peter Gabriel very suddenly and the only singer they thought was good enough was Jahn Teigen. While that may have been flattering it focused his attention in all the wrong ways and by the time he was ready to rejoin Popol Ace after giving the thumbs down to Genesis it was over and that is really a shame. The rest of the band would virtually disappear, but Jahn Teigen went onto a successful career in Norway as a cabaret singer which is really sad. There have been quite a few ill-fated bands, but the band the world should miss the most or one of the bands to be missed the most is Popol Vuh/Popol Ace. They made brilliant music when they were around and for me they are the perfect prog band. Most of the other top melodic progressive bands are from the same part of the world. It doesn't seem to be a world that can make the right bands at the right time make it, but there is always the rebirth of a great band. Popol Ace are back performing again. Catch them I would if I were in Norway. I'd love to meet such an intelligent and rewarding group! The rejuvenation doesn't even have to be a band getting back together to play again- it can be the band getting the attention they deserve and at the very least a top placing in the world of collector's records. That's good enough for many, but I think that Popol Ace should seriously consider writing and recording again with Jahn Teigen just to make somebody such as me who is too young to have been there to experience just how great an experience it must have been to share a part of such musical magic. My highest praise to this band- find their music at the very earliest opportunity or convenience!

Copperpenny come close to the masterful level Crosstown Bus are a long time fave- Both Revealed Here In Full

I was always curious about Canada. It goes back way before my several-year-period of following ice hockey and getting attached to a lot of players who by now must surely have moved on to saner, quieter lives. I got into Canadian bands with 25e Regiment (pronounced "25th Regiment) and their rare masterpiece ECOLOGY which could have led to huge success if they had followed it up. I was obsessed, completely immersed in ECOLOGY and since it still sounds amazing to me now and since it is the longest kept record in my collection well I don't think I need to groove you any further about what a groove it is. Then it was Klaatu and their brilliant music and it just took off in a big way after them.
                          -The Long Standing Love For Montreal And Canada-
   I've been to Montreal more times than any other place in a foreign country in the world- even more times than England if I'm right. I still feel that Canadians and Canadian bands are both underrated and brilliant music and people. They get put down all the time by Americans of the over-patriotic queasily nationalistic kind who are the avid tea party fox news fools, but a lot of good Americans go up there like me and have a great time. I have been treated very respectfully up north and find it very heartwarming the reception I've gotten from the people up there. For quite some time I had best friends who are Canadians and though we are no longer in touch I think of them a lot. Montreal is amazing. You can essentially go to Europe in a car. I feel like I'm in a completely different land up there and you know what? I am.
                           -Dodgy Business And Narrow Minds-
     Now let's get to the music which is the main thing here. If you were a Canadian band in the 60s, 70s, or 80s and you signed out of your own country not America the chances are you were digging your own commercial grave. That is why there are so many rare and obscure Canadian records that no one's ever heard of here who had hits up North and huge national success. It's almost as bad as it is for the Germans and just like German music Canadian music is a taste that I've acquired amidst much consternation from other collectors/dealers. Some people will even think this write up is nuts. Well, too bad for them.
                       -Copperpenny- A Classy Canadian Band-
     Unlike Germany some Canadian artists and bands signed out of America and made it, but I'd argue that the best got screwed over up in Canada. Copperpenny is a perfect example of that. They actually signed the deal for their first release out of America and were buried alive here. It was probably too far out and too commercial at the same time for narrow minded American radio. Not much was done by RCA to promote ANY bands on their label so it could be blamed on them for Copperpenny's fast descent into the bargain bin in 1970 when their self titled debut was released. That was not the case in Canada. Formed in the late 60s in Kitchener Ontario (a mainly Canadian German community) and recording all the way up to the mid/late 70s they had many successes in their own country including some of the most memorable hit singles to come out in Canada. While the albums tended to get ignored the singles did brilliantly for them and this probably culminated in 1973 when they came up with one of the best soft pop tracks ever laid down in "You're Still The One-" a song right up there with "Precious And Few" by the American band Climax Featuring Sonny Geraci who attained a huge hit with their classic here.
                             -Their First Album Revealed-
     Where things get most interesting with Copperpenny is their first album which was released in America and Canada in 1970 by dreadful RCA. RCA signed up several excellent Canadian bands including the also brilliant Cat, but just like Cat Copperpenny went nowhere here. The album sold well in Canada, in fact very well thank you. At the time of their debut the band centered around the talents of Rich Wamil (vocals lead and backup, keyboards, bass, guitar, trumpet,) Laverne McDonald (lead guitar, vocals lead and backup), Ken Hollis (lead vocals), Bert Hamer (drums, percussion, backup vocals), and Paul Reibling (bass and backup vocals). Their stunning five part harmonies and the unique combination of Hollis's soaring Vanity Fare like tenor and Rich Wamil's soulful bassy baritone are just the start. On the 9 tracks featured here 2 are dark and foreboding epics including the ultimate bad acid trip psychedelic nightmare turned psychedelic masterpiece "Stop The World' and a dreamy, creepy track about mortality/the life cycle of death and rebirth called "Castles Of Sand." The texts to their songs whether they are long tracks or short pop catchy tracks are uniformly excellent and the performances are top level professional from all 5 of Copperpenny. My copy has serous h20 damage to the record so alas I still don't have a clean one of this album, but how many records am I gonna write about right after the day I get them and first listen to them? Not a whole lot.
      Something about the between-songs crackle is kind of nice if I think of it in a weird way, but thankfully the songs themselves here play great and Jack Richardson's production job is amazing. The first track on the album is the two part "I've Been Hurt Before/Ritchie's Party" and it tips you off that this is going to be a really good one to listen to. I love Ken Hollis and Rich Wamil. They sing brilliantly and especially Hollis with a voice that may melt your heart. He sings "I've Been Hurt Before" and most of the other material. Rich Wamil aptly sings "Ritchie's Party" and rocks out on it too. There are straightforward arrangements less than big baroque ones on Copperpenny's 1st and this album therefore should really appeal to British pop and American baroque pop fans.
   "Stop," the second track on Side One is a reworking of one of their earliest Canadian chart smashes "Stop Wait A Minute" and one of the best songs ever written by anybody. Copperpenny had a lot of great material in them and there are no covers allowed here. If you wish Vanity Fare or White Plains wrote more challenging material and at the same time were outdoing themselves for pop brilliance this is the album to have. I love White Plains, but not all their material was as amazing as Vanity Fare who may be my favorite straightforward British pop/rock group of the same era that Copperpenny recorded in. I always wish that harmony pop bands would go just that one step further and rock out or write something really bizarre- Copperpenny do that. "Stop" is the pop/rock side of their sound and you won't find a more beautiful voice than Ken Hollis. Then they clobber you with a spine tingling track at the end of each side. This is a band who can effortlessly go from pop to progressive to heavy psychedelic rock. They can beat the living shit out of Jefferson Airplane, but I'll admit I don't think that's hard to do. I hate most American west coast big name groups and just the same way think the worst Canadians are the ones who made it really big down here. Blood Sweat And Tears I can live without thank you. However, the success of great bands like The Guess Who and The Band opened the door to bands like Copperpenny gaining a recording contract only to have their fortunes change on them in a really bad scenario of broken promises and poor promotion. Listen to songs here like "It's A Happy Day," the perfect pop soul of "Just A Sweet Little Thing," the sad yet bouncy "That Was The Game," and "It's A Rainy Day" and you like me will find that Copperpenny should have been huge in America and worldwide.
                     -Copperpenny Get Way Out There And Show A Progressive Side-
    If you are about to start moaning about them as an out and out pop group then the two long closing tracks on each side prove you way wrong. "Castles Of Sand" is really a pretty freaky, haunting song with beautiful sad baroque vocals and dreamy uncertain mood changing music. The whole text is about how man comes from dust to return to dust to be reborn again as a baby playing with "the sands of you and I-" pretty deep stuff. "Stop The World" is the ultimate bad acid trip song- a warning and a 9 minute epic of paranoid psychedelic magic-making. Hollis can sing both the really pop stuff and the really out there stuff brilliantly and I think it's a bit of a shame that Copperpenny went out and out pop after this album. Quality pop definitely, but they just as easily could have gone progressive. "Stop The World" has made compilations and briefly had this album going crazy with collectors on the strength of the most unrepresentative track. "Stop The World" sounds like they purposefully wanted to close this album out with a huge epic attack on the ears and ill-advised drug use at the same time. The trip you're on starts ominously enough, but some of what goes on in this track reminds me of the far out German bands like Virus!!!!!! Wild!!!! Laverne McDonald plays some scathing fuzz guitar and Hollis gets really dark sounding- a pop psych Arthur Brown or Jim Morrison in tenor instead of baritone range. I've got to find a better copy of this album eventually as I love this record a lot you can tell! I'd give this a really high rating and you definitely should go after it. It will be easier to find than the other band dealt with here- Crosstown Bus.
               -Crosstown Bus Are One Of The Most Overlooked Bands From Canada-
      Crosstown Bus came out of Vancouver and were arch rivals in the late 60s with 49th Parallel and my good friend Doran Beattie hates them not just for that, but for how the band's leader Jeff Boyne was brought into the band post 49th Parallel Painter became Hammersmith. His stay was short before the group booted him out, but that is where I'm afraid Doran and I will have to differ. Jeff Boyne was a very talented man, but definitely the wrong guy for Hammersmith. His abilities as a songwriter, guitar player, and singer were the driving force behind Crosstown Bus and this album has always been near the top of my Canadian list with much jeering at me for it. Well too goddamned bad for you narrow minded record dealers!! I don't have a clue as to why this album is hated by a lot of people as there is nothing to hate and a lot to love.
      Crosstown Bus may have been popular in Vancouver and to a certain extent Canada, but their 1971 one-off HIGH GRASS is really hard to find and especially really rare in good condition like almost all Canadian albums. For pop psych it's a monster. I love to love bands that record dealers love to hate. I don't do it as a perverse thing where it isn't based on the merits of the music and is based just on loving a band no one else seems to like- I do it because the music is of a really high quality that is overlooked in the face of vastly inferior hype jobs. Crosstown Bus came out in 1971 with an album that sounds closer to 1968 and I love the British/Canadian/late 60s amalgam of styles that is to be found on HIGH GRASS. There are two fuzz guitar blasters in the form of two covers of obscure songs "Pretty Millie" by Canadian band Houston and "Rochester River" by Rockin' Foo, an American group. Both of these songs are done much better here than the originals.
                    -Crosstown Bus HIGH GRASS In Full-
   Crosstown Bus have a sound that is a group production not just one guy so while Jeff Boyne is the main writer and has a very special, very strong voice he isn't the entire reason why this album is so good. The band line up is Boyne (lead vocals, guitar, congas), Rob Sommerville (organ, congas, vocals), Frank Ludwig (piano, guitar, organ, vocals), Brian Anderson (bass, vocals), and Mike Killeen (drums and vocals). They didn't last very long after recording HIGH GRASS, but what an amazing album it is! I love British influenced bands and as a commonwealth country Canada could turn out some real winners who also had a very Canadian sound. That would be the case here. I love the moodiness of some songs like "Overcoats" and the title track. Then I love the bright sunlight-through-the-window vibe of other ones like "In Ten Years Time" and "Too Many Mornings." There also is in the closing track a great version of the Van Morrison classic "Caravan." I love Van Morrison's voice and I love his music even though I've heard he's a really disgusting person. I don't want to find that out. He doesn't sound disgusting to me, but a big voice like his could definitely be a big ego trip. Jeff Boyne sings in a similar range to Van Morrison and other deep voiced melodic and strong singers, but he has a quavery vibrato that is closer to the late Robin Gibb or on "Overcoats" a mellower Family's Roger Chapman. While Robin Gibb and Van Morrison had/have serious personality issues you don't get a sense that Jeff Boyne is on an ego trip. He doesn't once over sing even at his most dramatic which also brings to mind not just vocally, but musically the Swedish band Blond.
           -More On Crosstown Bus And Don't Pass Up The Brilliance Of Canada-
     There isn't a note I'd change here. There isn't a word or phrase or twiddle of the engineer that I would change here either and the "live" sound of five very good musicians augmented with tasteful Beatlesesque string and horn arrangements make this a top Canadian masterpiece. Every song is great. "Too Many Mornings" has a very Beatles circa 1966/1967 sound and to counteract that "Overcoats" and the title track sound very much more of a progressive dramatic kind of pop that is more like that of other UK bands. I don't know what there isn't to like here. The cover art is very psychedelic, but although this album isn't a psychedelic trip out it's got a strong late 60s vibe to it and there is nothing to complain about. I've always been able to pick up on whether a band or album is real or if they waste my time going through the motions of something they most certainly are not. This album is no fake out like The Frederic or any number of overhyped American non-psych "psych" records. Even bands as great as British North American Act were always getting blown off by a lot of American dealers, but I never came across that one which now fetches over $500! I hope that somebody can also appreciate Crosstown Bus as they come across as an honest and very talented group who focused on great songs in an era that was veering off into a lot of self-indulgence. They didn't try to keep up with the times and the quality of 1966-1968 in 1971 I find very appealing in their songs. "Pass This Way Again," and "Renie" are both songs that convey polar opposite time frames and polar opposite kinds of bands, but the album never becomes disjointed. "Pass This Way Again" is moving into the early 70s, but "Renie" is a good 1966 beat meets 1966 bubblegum pop song. "In Ten Years Time" is catchy and evocative. The whole album flows together beautifully and I really don't see what there is that some people find to adamantly hate about such a wonderful record. I guess you'll have to make up your own mind if you are lucky enough to find a copy of HIGH GRASS. I'd say give this a few spins and it should make you be the one laughing at narrow minded dealers and collectors not them laughing at the fact that you have an open mind. As for me, this may make my top 5 and I'll leave the rest up to whether it makes your top 5 or your top 10. I like to think that I know a whole lot more than most other dealers/collectors and what makes me happiest is that I know I do know a lot more than they do. Just keep an open mind and don't let other opinions influence your own. Canada is a country you shouldn't overlook. Overlook Canada and to me that's overlooking half the world. Especially for the musical part of things.