Case Histories (Kate Atkinson, 2004)

Overall this book was good. While the plot itself was somewhat underwhelming, compelling characters and a non-linear narrative made up for the shortfall.

I added this after seeing the TV show of the same name a couple years back. Jason Isaacs is a perfect fit for Jackson Brodie, probably one of the best casting calls on a Masterpiece-aired production since Sean Bean took the role of Sharpe.

I'm just crazy enough to follow the further adventures of Jackson Brodie and will revisit the series at a later date. I've got some Roman historical mysteries to reckon with first.

Up next....Animal Farm! (I need some easy wins here to keep pace for the year.)

The Blanton-Webster Band - Disc 1 (Duke Ellington, 1990)

I needed to draft a new policy on the spot this morning. As much as I love Duke Ellington, 66 songs in a single day is overload. So, when dealing with sets of more than two discs, the randomizer will focus in on just one of the discs.

The Blanton-Webster era was a virtual speck in Ellington's lengthy career, (mostly) representing his work with bassist Jimmy Blanton and sax-man Ben Webster. All of these songs were recorded between 1940 and 1942, with disc 1 covering the early side of this range. And considering they weren't just bashing out standards but a number of Ellington originals, some of his most renowned, that's a staggering output in such a short period of time.

Ellington was at the peak of his powers during this period, in the postwar era he steadily eroded before enjoying a resurgence following the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival. Until I picked this up, that was pretty much my knowledge of Ellington in performance. Of course his compositions are everywhere in jazz and are still enjoying fresh interpretations from new artists. Ellington himself also pops up from time to time in small outfits, like the trio (with Max Roach and Charles Mingus) that did Money Jungle, as well as a collaboration with John Coltrane, included on the Ken Burns Jazz disc reviewed last week.

Psychedelic States: Alabama in the 60's, Volume 2 (Various Artists, 2002)

I'm not going to lie. Alabama wasn't exactly ground-zero for the 1960's garage/psych scene. In fact, looking back on the other comps here, no band hailed from Alabama, and about the closest we ever get to Alabama is Florida and Arkansas. Yet, if you are willing to dial up the obscurity-meter a bit, there is plenty to discover in America's first (alphabetically) state.

Although part of a 19-volume series, none of the bands here have appeared on any other compilation I own except for The In, who scored a spot in the Garage Beat '66 series. While the whole "let's focus on a single state" thing is admirable, the series has taken some flak for being low-budget. I'm sure a lot of this is due to the fact the bands and their source material was fairly scratchy to begin with, but some of the transfers have left a lot to be desired (e.g. CD skip sounds have been reported on some volumes). Also this disc has a big error on it, with one song being repeated twice. I have since located the real track online and dutifully restored it to its rightful place. Thank me later.

Finally, the name "Psychedelic States" is misleading, as this series takes a Nuggets-esque approach of including a lot of pre-psych garage/punk material (sometimes even reaching back to 1965). It's not that I don't think they belong together, but it's generally not a good idea to use the word "psychedelic" to cover both of the sub-genres. Of course, that would rob the series of its snazzy pseudo-alliterative title, but I leave that to the marketing team to puzzle out.

The Best of the Gerry Mulligan Quartet with Chet Baker (1991)

Why let the East Coast have all the fun when it comes to jazz? Perhaps thanks to the ways of the world, I don't have a whole lot of West Coast/cool jazz. Frankly, some of it is just a little too cool, and I don't mean as in for school. What little I have is either something like Art Pepper Meets the Rhythm Section (which is actually a West Coaster moonlighting in New Jersey) or the seminal Time Out by the Dave Brubeck Quartet. However, the album that these recordings are probably closest linked to is Miles Davis' Birth of the Cool, not a pure West Coast recording, but the music itself paved the way for a West Coast scene.

There is a formal link to that album through Gerry Mulligan's involvement as the baritone sax player on all of those tracks. I think he may be a little disloyal to the barry sax on this collection, which covers 1952 to 1957 (not long after that landmark album), but the distinctly low-down instrument is still sharing the spotlight on most of these songs with Chet Baker's trumpet. As I'm sure with numerous others, I'm more familiar with Chet Baker as a singer, but he doesn't utter a word here (and an instrumental "Darn That Dream" was almost too much for me!). Another unusual thing about this collection is that there is no piano. It's fairly played down on Birth of the Cool (John Lewis is on the keys for those sessions), but it is just plain gone here. While artists like Ornette Coleman excluded piano as part of a "no-chords" policy, I think Mulligan and Baker did it more out of convenience, making the quartet a more mobile touring unit. It also allowed them to handle all the lead parts in all of the songs. There is very little in the way of bass or drum solos here and the absence of piano eliminates the only other feasible competition.

As I am still growing my jazz collection, I'm sure I'll be coming into contact with Mulligan, Baker & Co.'s music again fairly soon.

The Dark Side of the Moon (Pink Floyd, 1973)

Even though the process here is for me to stumble bleary-eyed to my laptop and random draw the album of the day, I felt like a total hipster on the drive into work this morning, as if I had said to myself, "Hmmm...what to listen to this morning? You know what would be crazy? Dark Side of the Moon! Let's listen to it....ironically."

How does one approach the second-best selling album of all time? For it's larger-than-life reputation, this album has never held the number one spot. That honor currently (as has for the past 30 years) rests with a whole other kind of crazy, Michael Jackson's Thriller (now talk about ironic listening!). Even before Jacko came along, Pink Floyd was kept out of the hallowed number one spot by Carole King and two soundtracks (The Sound of Music and Saturday Night Fever). To PF's credit, their album still resonates with today's listeners while the competition sounds positively trapped in time.

Dark Side of the Moon hits on two levels, the immediacy and the legacy. Obviously, to escape the label of "cult classic" (something I would award to a number of their prior albums), they needed to sell a lot of albums right out the gate. It's an album that succeeds at both the song and album levels. As previously explored, we have seen how concept albums usually end in financial failure (see Family and the Pretty Things) because the individual songs can't stand on their own, and certainly not against its contemporaries in the context of radio airplay. So while songs like "On the Run", "Any Colour You Like" and "Eclipse" need the context of the album to make sense, others like "Money", "Time" and "Us and Them" sound great either alone, in the context of the album, or in a classic rock playlist.

However, 40 years later, it's the legacy that keep the album going. Invariably, high school me wasn't satisfied to stop with Dark Side of the Moon, and went on to pick up everything from Piper at the Gates of Dawn through The Division Bell, paying the premium price for each CD. This gave me the perspective of what came before and what followed, and how unlikely a success Dark Side of the Moon really was and what a dividing line it turned out to be for the band. Analyzing the whole sweep of albums, it is clear that Syd Barrett had some kind of influence throughout their career arc. When the hit the scene back in the mid-1960's it was almost entirely powered by the electrifying charisma of their eccentric frontman. It was widely presumed that without him, the band was nothing. The immediate post-Barrett albums in hindsight do seem like a period of wandering for the band, with no hits and and an increasing tendency toward experimental arrangements. While this built their reputation as a progressive band, rather than a psychedelic band, it wasn't doing much to raise their profile. While their albums never left the top 10 in the UK (even Atom Heart Mother, with a half-hour mini-symphony managed to become their first #1 album), they were barely registering across the Atlantic. An increasing fascination with insanity, through the experiences of Syd Barrett, led to initial explorations in songs like "Fearless", and then Dark Side of Moon devoted an entire album to it, looking at the various types of madness in daily living, working, money and war. Thanks to skilled production work at the hands of engineer Alan Parsons, a shrewd marketing campaign and the aforementioned song/album dichotomy, it became their breakthrough and signature album. Syd's fate continued to influence the band on the following albums, which also wrestled with the sudden catapulting to transatlantic fame, and bassist Roger Waters was becoming increasingly concerned he would be next to lose his mind, as evidenced by the tortured lyrics of Animals (1977) and The Wall (1979). It is through this grand sweep of recordings that we continue to appreciate the keystone role of Dark Side of the Moon both in the career of the band as well as rock music in general.

Finally, it always seems like Pink Floyd attracts a lot of crackpot thinking, most notably the "Dark Side of the Rainbow" phenomenon. I think that just as with the Beatles and the "Paul Is Dead" business, people tend to read way too much into the goings-on in Dark Side of the Moon. For example, that little whisper on "The Great Gig in the Sky" is just saying "there's that whisper every time" - sort of a Brechtian bit of album self-awareness. Nevertheless, many are convinced she is saying "If you hear this whisper you will die." If that was true, it seems like album sales would have tanked shortly after the release of the album (along with civilization). In the same way, all those voices that populate the album are just words, people talking about this and that. When the band originally planned their followup album to Meddle (Obscured By Clouds was more of a side project in soundtrack work), they had thought of creating an album out of sound effects and "found" instruments, so the voices, the clocks, the cash registers, and other bits are simply legacies of that original thought. Don't over-think it!

The World Needs a Hero (Megadeth, 2001)

During high school, my friends and I tended to gravitate toward Megadeth over Metallica as we were under the impression that Metallica had sold out, seeing that they were getting all kinds of airplay, the cool kids were listening to them (we were not cool kids), and there were some embarrassingly weenie songs on Metallica (The Black Album). We didn't even think about them getting even less metal, since Load and Re-Load were still a number of years off. Meanwhile, Megadeth was keeping it real, delivering quality metal albums every other year. 1990's Rust In Peace may still hold claim to the best metal album ever recorded. They even withstood the anti-metal mood of the 1990's for a couple more albums, but even they were soon reduced to sports-arena anthems like "Crush 'Em" on the decidedly unmetal Risk from 1999.

So it was quite a surprise to hear The World Needs a Hero, the album where frontman Dave Mustaine decided he was going to be metal again. It's not a total comeback album. In fact it really did nothing to restore the former glories in any financial way (we can all hate on arena rock, but it does pay bills). There are some weenie tracks on their, like "Promises", yet another example of Megadeth competing and envying Metallica at the same time. Also, the lyrics department dropped the ball here, as Mustaine is on the fast-track to his more conspiracy-theory type subjects, interspersed between woman problems. On the other hand, there are some mad powerful hard-hitting riffs and solos going on, especially "Burning Bridges", "Recipe for Hate", the nostalgic "Return to Hangar" and "When", the song which should have attracted any lawyers working on behalf of Diamond Head for cloning their NWOBHM classic "Am I Evil?", best covered by Metallica back in the mid-1980's.

With about half good songs and half so-so/lame songs, The World Needs a Hero is a partial success, not getting the band back to 1990, but maybe 1994 or so. Not long after its release, the band abruptly broke up, unable to properly perform due to an injury Mustaine suffered to his arm. That was the official story anyway, and suspicions of extreme tensions in the band were justified when Mustaine re-emerged in 2004 with an all-new band called Megadeth. It turns out that this album was recorded by a very unhappy band and its a minor miracle it even was released given all the interpersonal problems wrecking the band. Mustaine was and still is a difficult boss, but his animosity toward late-joining members Jimmy DeGrasso and Al Pitrelli was spilling over and damaging relations with his long-time bandmate David Ellefson. To release an album with someone else on bass was seen by many as an act of betrayal. Fortunately time has healed the rift and the Mustaine/Ellefson partnership is back again. Unfortunately the music just isn't what it used to be.

Music in a Doll's House (Family, 1968)

Pretty much everything that's appeared here I've considered to be good, or at least somewhat above mediocre. You can't win every time. However, this album is one of my absolute favorites. Until very recently it was impossible to find for under $30. The band was a launching pad for various members into other groups such as Asia (John Wetton), Blind Faith (Ric Grech), and Tony Ashton's various endeavors. Also latecomer John Weider brought ties to (Eric Burdon and) the (New) Animals, while a later re-invention of the band (called the Streetwalkers) featured a young Nicko McBrain (Iron Maiden). Yet Family itself, and mainstays Roger Chapman and John Whitney, are largely an unknown factor to most so-called "classic rock" fans.

Music in a Doll's House is Family's debut album. They had been kicking around since 1966, but it took a couple years to finally pull together an album. Sonically, it falls somewhere in the spectrum between Sgt. Pepper-era Beatles and King Crimson and is very much a product of the times bounded by those albums. It's not really a concept album, but it lacks a strong "single" type song, which probably contributed to the lack of large-scale success. While it's an excellent album to listen through, I've never been able to lock on to a track that could stand up with other artists' material from the same time period. It's not just that song "fragments" sprinkled across the 15 tracks - it's all the songs. They are all really nice songs, but they would get totally stomped by other 1967-1968 songs. They belong together, not torn apart to fend for themselves.

Interestingly, the Beatles took notice of Family, enough to ditch their initial proposed name for what would become the White Album ("A Doll's House"). Also, in one of those weird things about this random project I'm doing, this is the second album in the space of the week to borrow the "God Save the Queen" riff - it appears in the final tracks of both this album, and CCR's Pendulum.

Family trooped on until about 1973, enduring heavy lineup changes around the Chapman/Whitney core. The sound of the band toughened up over time to suit Chapman's gravelly vocals, to the point where the whole "Family" thing wasn't making a lot of sense, hence the birth of the Streetwalkers around 1974. Of course the Streetwalkers didn't make much of a splash and their stuff is even more hard to find than Family. Not sure what Chapman et. al. are up to these days but solo careers have been more their focus post-Streetwalkers than working on any kind of band identity.

Swing Is Hell (Demonspeed, 1997)

In the late 1990's, classic metal was beginning to regain its popularity, and for some reason a number of punk bands were releasing full-on swing songs. Yet only one band, composed of various members of the New York hardcore scene, had the notion that the two movements could be combined. Thanks to their bold experimentation, we have Swing Is Hell, the EP that heralded the release of full album Kill, Kill, Kill.

I first encountered this disc back in college at the radio station. I liked it enough to mail away for a copy of my very own from the long-gone Black Pumpkin Records. Songs like "Pogo" and "Green River" stood out immediately and the others didn't take long to warm up to.

Unfortunately, like the swing craze of the late 1990's, Demonspeed called it quits after their single album. In fact, in seems like the album didn't even see daylight until 2003, well after the novelty had faded (the same source also gives two different track lists for this EP, so who knows). I know the bassist Sal Villanueva would go on to work as a producer for a handful of much better known bands, but the others are a mystery. Nevertheless, this is always fun to listen to and I hope someday to track down the elusive full album!

An Overdose of Heavy Psych (Various Artists, 1997)

Another Dose of psych! We've been through Hard and Wylde, so why the heck not explore Heavy? I believe this was the second of the four volumes, released in tandem with the yet-to-appear-here A Heavy Dose of Lyte Psych. The fuzz is cranked and applied to just about every instrument except the drums (which I'm sure they would have fuzzed if they knew how!). For some reason this comp was the hardest of the four for me to track down, but I had a friend score this from Amoeba in Hollywood, where it was readily available.

As I seem to love doing with these compilations, here's what I was able to figure out about the artists included here. Two of them are pretty much wild guesses. Unlike the Wylde compilation, which seemed to draw mostly A-sides, this collection favors the B-sides strongly. A major reason for this is many of the bands, in valiant attempts to hit the big time, elected to cover a major song (e.g. Rolling Stones) and put it on the A-side. The last six tracks, variously credited to the "Firebirds" or "31 Flavors" are quite different in nature, more proto-doom metal than psych, performed by anonymous session musicians.

The Orange Wedge - Baltimore, MD - "From the Womb to the Tomb" (1968) - L.S.P. *B side
The Quiet Jungle - Toronto, Canada - "Everything" (1967) - Mark/Taylor *B side
Twentieth Century Zoo - Phoenix, AZ - "You Don't Remember" (1967) - Farley/Sutko *B side
The Fumin' Humins - Massachusetts - "Relative Distance" (1967) - Cardoza *B side
Powered By Love - Victorville, CA - "Powered By Love" (1967) - Guy
Crystal Rain - Wisconsin - "You and Me" (1969) - Moan
ESB - Hollywood, CA - "Mushroom People" (1967) - Burke/Caldwell/Fortunato/Lagana/Zinner *B side
The Colder Children - Long Island, NY - "Memories" (1968) - Felton *B side
The Kollection - Miami, FL - "Savage Lost" (1967) - Chimelis/Rissoff
Kindred Spirit - Pennsylvania - "Blue Avenue" (1969) - Ulaky *B side
Blu-Erebus - North Carolina - "Plastic Year" (1968) - Deatherage/Evans *B side
The Shadows of Time - Boston, MA - "Search Your Soul" (1969) - Chase
Graf Zepplin - Illinois - "You're In My Mind" (1968) - Blumenthal
Kiriae Crucible - Wisconsin - "Salem Witch Trial" (1968) - Edland/Erickson
The Boston Tea Party -Burbank, CA - "My Daze" (1967) - Miko/Rich/Travis
Paraphernalia - New York? - "Watch Out" (1968) - Serio/Zannini *B side
I.R.A. - Los Angeles? - "Dooley Vs. the Ferris Wheel" (1968) - Clifford
The Loose Enz - Pennsylvania - "Easy Rider" (1968) - Barshinger *B side
Glass Sun - Michigan - "Silence of the Morning" (1971) - Roll *B side
The Firebirds - Los Angeles, CA - "Reflections" "No Tomorrows" "Gypsy Fire" "Free Bass/Fuzz/Drums" (1969) - *album tracks

Thanks to Garage Hangover, Flower Bomb Songs, Rockesteria and 45Cat for the data.

Pendulum (Creedence Clearwater Revival, 1970)

I spent a good chunk of this morning's drive behind a 2014 Nissan Mid-Life Crisis and got to wondering if this is my favorite Creedence album. I generally go back and forth between the first album and this one, which is some ways bookend a short but successful burst of productivity by CCR.

This morning, I also decided to breeze through these in-between albums, just to make sure I wasn't missing anything. Generally these albums are well-served by the "greatest hits" packages (Cosmo's Factory is covered by Chronicles so intensely, the only songs I hadn't heard were the rhymers, "Ramble Tamble" and "Ooby Dooby"), so most of what I had been missing were instrumental-ish or cover songs. So I will stand by my convictions that either Pendulum or the debut album are my favorites.

Pendulum is fairly under-represented in the CCR canon, especially if you are familiar with the first volume of Chronicles. "Hey Tonight" and "Have You Ever Seen the Rain" are unquestionably classics, but there is so much more in this album. Aside from the jaunty "Pagan Baby" that kicks off the album, keyboards and horns (introduced in Cosmo's Factory) have moved front and center, with solos and extended jams abounding. I think they had pushed the old CCR formula to its limits earlier in the year (this would be their fifth album in two years) and were seeking new musical territory. Nothing is more obvious than the final track, which, with limited success, meanders into avant-garde territory.

Pendulum marks the end of an era for CCR. There was another album to come, but it was a complete disaster, permanent destroying the band in the process. Following Pendulum, Tom Fogarty quit the band, upset over his increasing negligible role in the band. The remaining members went on to record the cringe-worthy Mardi Gras, an ill-advised attempt to distribute writing responsibilities equally among the three. Needless to say, bassist Stu Cook and drummer Doug Clifford were not singers, yet they were forced to sing their own material. Meanwhile, John Fogarty, who had written virtually all of the band's original material, had almost entirely checked out, letting his bandmates flounder. It is no surprise that the band was officially finished following its release. I can't say I really care much about John Fogarty post-CCR.

Stand On Zanzibar (John Brunner, 1969)

Years ago, back in my public librarian days, I would walk past this book, one of the thickest in the SF
section and say to myself "someday I will read you". I duly placed it in my Goodreads queue and it percolated its way up the charts until, voila! it was sitting on deck, ready to go!

John Brunner was a prolific writer in the 1950's and early 1960's, cranking out volumes of fairly stock-sounding science fiction and space opera. In 1968 he made a very dramatic transition in both form and content with Stand On Zanzibar. The first in a quartet of dystopias, this novel deals with the cultural impacts of overpopulation in the far future year of 2010. It is written in a non-linear style, with the main plot line (Continuity) weaving among brief portraits of other characters (Tracking With Closeups) and fragments of the cultural world of 2010 (Context and The Happening World). Obviously this book's 2010 bears little resemblance in "past" events, politics and language to our world four years ago, but Brunner is actually not far off the mark as to where we are technologically and it is not unreasonable to think some of these things could come to pass in our own still-unwritten future.

It struck the right tone and the right time. The book would go on to win the Hugo Award in 1969 as well as a few other prestigious awards internationally, assuring its status as a classic. Brunner's health took a turn for the worse in the 1970's, so his output declined, but he continued to explore various dystopias in works such as The Sheep Look Up (pollution), The Jagged Orbit (racial discord) and The Shockwave Rider (computers in control). I would like to check these out in the future!

Ken Burns Jazz: John Coltrane (2000)

My iPod is apparently having a love affair with Ken Burns. I only have two discs from the series  (both free promos) and it managed to select both of them in three days. I'm not sure I have the heart to tell it there is no more Ken Burns left after this.

As with Billie Holiday, the Ken Burns compilation of John Coltrane's career highlights is not comprehensive, but adequate. Because it is able to cross labels (except Blue Note, apparently), it offers up a diverse selection of material, from his first stint with Miles Davis ("'Round Midnight") to his avant-garde final recordings ("Jupiter"). All of the recordings except the first one are performed under his name, so the collection naturally skews to the 1960's output, as Coltrane's status as bandleader was still developing in the prior decade. There's only so much you can squeeze on to a single disc, especially when 30 minutes are devoted to two tracks ("My Favorite Things" and "Chasing the Trane") and many tracks run closer to ten minutes than five.

Half of the album still enjoys unique representation in my library, so I can forgive the exclusion of material off of "Blue Train" which is already safely in my possession. I'm not really sure if there are any other discs in this series I would make an effort to acquire since either I already have ample content by the artist or I would rather pick up some of their key albums. As I said, these Ken Burns things were free to me, so it wasn't hard to make the decision to grab them, especially considering the generally-awful selection of free stuff we poor Borders wage slaves were offered back in the day.

High Time (MC5, 1971)

The MC5 is sort of like the person you hear singing in the shower and you think to yourself "what an amazing singer" and you somehow get them in front of a group of people to sing and it just doesn't happen.

Back in 1968, the MC5 was just another garage band out of Detroit that one Halloween night, fueled with ample amounts of drugs, electricity and left-wing politics, released one of the most explosive albums of the 1960's, Kick Out the Jams. Even though most people never even made it to the end of the album (a friend of mine joked that "Borderline" carried multiple meanings), it remains the album by which they are best known. In 1969 it seemed like there was nowhere to go but up.

Their debut studio album, Back in the USA was a total disaster, marred by lousy production and an unimaginative list of songs. Also working against them behind the scenes were nonstop problems with the record industry. Elektra dumped them after Kick Out the Jams and they were now being handled by a nervous Atlantic.

This takes us to High Time, their final album. If the band hadn't been on the verge of dissolution, it would likely have marked the beginning of a new era, where they finally figured out how to craft their sound in the studio. While it never captures the energy of their debut, some of the avant-garde exploration has returned, and there are even some new flourishes, like some horns on the opening and closing tracks and a little piano as well. Vocalist Rob Tyner presages latter-era Robert Plant and even Bon Scott on a couple tracks.

Tracking down High Time took a bit a work a few years ago, but fortunately a friend came through for me. It seems like while Elektra in hindsight likes to tout their foresight in releasing Kick Out the Jams, Atlantic seemed content to forget that the MC5 was ever on their roster. Nowadays with the rise of the MP3, etc., it's not hard to find additional MC5 material at a decent price. You kids today don't realize how good you have it!

Ken Burns Jazz: Billie Holiday (2000)

Let's switch gears from 45's to 78's. Ignore the date of 2000 you see on the post title. We're taking it back to the 1930's and moving through Billie Holiday's career to the 1950's. Jazz from the 1920's and 1930's can be especially challenge to categorize in terms of an artist. Since Holiday didn't release a full-length album until the 1950's, it can be a bit of a mad scramble to identify all of the singles from various labels without the help of compilations such as Lady Day and, to a lesser extent, this one. To further complicate matters, often the artist is not "Billie Holiday". In fact, many of the recordings will be credited to the bandleader (e.g. Teddy Wilson) even though Holiday's voice is the main attraction. Other examples include Charlie Christian, who never recorded under his own name, Coleman Hawkins, and Louis Armstrong, who often released singles with another far-lesser known person's name placed on top.

I picked up this particular disc for free well before I really got into jazz. It served its purpose for the time, but, as with most of the Ken Burns series, it is too lightweight of a compilation to warrant spending a lot of money on. Stick with Lady Day, which as almost all of these tracks and a lot more. If you find yourself really getting into her music, the 1950's albums will take care of the rest.

***Addendum: I must have been feeling some hostility toward Mr. Burns when I wrote this. Upon closer inspection, this collection includes a number of songs not featured on Lady Day, most critically "Strange Fruit", one of the most important songs of the entire first half of the 20th century. While I still believe other compilations can do the job better than this one, I would suggest something in addition to Lady Day.

A Deadly Dose of Wylde Psych (Various Artists, 2003)

This was the last of the four Dose compilations released by Arf Arf Records around 10 years ago (geez, I still think of 10 years ago as sometime in the 1990's), and probably the best of the bunch. The Dose series, depending on your criteria, runs in the middle-high end of the obscurity index, not quite as "out there" as the Psychedelic Experience, but certainly more so than Nuggets and its ilk. Compared to the others in the series it runs fairly heavy and also includes the lyrically weirdest songs. Just like the others it is a psychedelic road trip across the USA. Once again, I decided to spend a little time learning the backgrounds of the various bands contributing to the "wylde" psych scene:

The Sound Apparatus was from New Jersey and "Travel Agent Man" (Dee/Harris) was the B-side of their only single, released in 1969.
Finch was from Wisconsin and the wall-shaking "Nothing In the Sun" (Dougherty) was the A-side of their only single (oddly, the B-side is titled "Let It Be", not the Beatles song which came out a year later!).
The Nite Watchmen of Ohio actually managed two singles, of which "Mimic Jester" (Merchant) in the A-side of the second, released in 1969.
Sweet Cherry of Michigan released "Funny Things Floating" (Carli/Chaivre/Soucie) in 1967 as the B-side of their only single. Allmusic has an amusing short biography worth reading for those curious about what came next for the band.
Peacepipe brings us "The Sun Won't Shine Forever", (Uzonyi) the A-side of their 1968 single. The song would later appear on their full-length self-titled 1969 album. That's right....a full album! From what I can tell these guys were either from California or Arizona.
The Moon Dawgs had two singles to their name, with "Keep On Pushing" (Samuel/Schroeder), the A-side of the second one, released in 1968. Thanks to this other super-weird comp I found, I learned they are indeed from Louisiana.
A latecomer of sorts to these comps, Blue Creed released their only single in 1970, of which "Need A Friend" (Franko/Gordon/Rexroad) is the A-side. Thanks to even sketchier information, I'm reasonably confident these folks hailed from West Virginia, ground zero for chunky organ and caveman vocals.
And on the chronological other end of the scale is The Chocolate Moose. Hailing from Fort Worth, Texas, "Take a Ride" (Harris) was the A-side of their first single, released in 1966.
The Pawnbrokers were a North Dakota band moonlighting next door in the red-hot Minnesota/Iowa scene. "Realize" (English/Hanson/Richey/Rogne) from 1968 was a A-side of the first single.
The Christian Brothers hailed from California's Inland Empire and "Feeling Bad" (Carter/Edison) was the A-side of their only single (and I think the only thing ever released on Sidewinder Records).
Oscar and the Majestics have their own website. It's minimal but sometimes you have to take what you can get! "House of the Rising Sun 1969" (Price) was actually recorded in 1966 although it may have kicked around until an actual 1969 release, the A-side of their fifth (!) and last single. They were from Indiana but gravitated toward the Chicago scene by virtue of geography.
Liberation News Service of Philadelphia is another trip to musical bizarro world. "Mid-Winter's Afternoon" (Esko) was their only single, holding down the A-side. However, they changed their name to the Esko Affair and scored two big-label single releases with Mercury.
Wet Paint is yet another one single sensation, this one from Massachusetts. "Glass Road" (John/Mike/Mike/Paul/Wally) is another latecomer, released in 1970. Apparently these guys also abhorred the use of last names.
The Waters is the reason I picked up this comp. "Mother Samwell" (Barrickman/Burgard), released in early 1969, also appeared on the Psychedelic Experience, Vol. 2 and is one of my favorite tracks. If you think nothing good has come out of Kentucky since Henry Clay, give this one a listen! (I've noticed we're getting A-side heavy and I'm getting tired of mentioning it, so I'll just say this is actually a B-side.)
The Chaparral Trio is another fine outfit from Texas. "Roxanne" (Hill) their only single, from 1969, is completely unrelated to the one put out by a certain law enforcement outfit about 10 years later. Too bad, think of all the royalties they could have scored. (oh hey, this is a B-side too)
Lime Frost has a primitive but informative website. "Post Bellum Blues" (Brown/Brown/Gregg/McNabb/Rice/Scott) from 1968 was their only single. This Michigan band did a TV gig in Canada, but that's about as famous as they got (thank the US military).
The Leather Pages were another Louisana band (who knew?). "Accept Me For What I Am" (Borges) from 1968 was their only single.
Blues Inc. give us a meh cover of Love's "7 and 7 Is" (Lee) from 1968. My friends over at Garage Hangover tell me they are from Ohio (which conforms with their Ohio-based label United Audio).
Wildwood was from California's Central Valley. Rockasteria has a great article on the band. "Plastic People" (Colli/Mora/Ross) is from 1968. The band made it to 1971 and although I only see two singles to their name, they recorded enough material to produce a nice compilation many years later. As with Lime Frost, the military wreaked havoc with the band.
"It Had To Be You" (Rakozich/Watson) from 1968 appears to be the sole output of The Portraits. Information is scanty, but I'm fairly sure these guys were from Wisconsin.
I think the real chronological outlier here is "I've Been You" (Mijal/White) from 1973. (Mikes) Mijal & White were from Michigan. It looks like Mike Mijal continued to enjoy a varied career through the 1970's.
The Tea Company is a favorite in this series, having also shown up on another Dose compilation (A Heavy Dose of Light Psych). "Come and Have Some Tea With Me" (Carr) is the B-side of this band's sole output, from 1968.
"Angel Angel Down We Go" (Mann/Weil) has no known artist associated with it. True obscurity! It was released in 1969 in support of the same-titled movie. I can only take a wild guess that it's a Los Angeles-based performer.
The Attack (not the British freakbeat band) channels Jimi Hendrix with "School Daze" (Strasz) from 1969. This is yet another Michigan band. Take that, Motown!
Mass Temper channels Led Zeppelin with "Gravedigger". I can't find anything about this band except they are from North Carolina and it MAY be from 1968. There always has to be one hard-case out there.
The Johnny Thompson Quintet draws things to a close with "Color Me Columbuth" (Thompson?). This weirdo from 1966 is a true novelty, taking the A-side ("Color Me Columbus") and doing a "lispy" version. These nutbars are from Monterey Park, California.

Volume 3 (The Easybeats, 1966)

The Young clan returns, but this time it's older brother George, not Angus and Malcolm, in the spotlight. The Easybeats came roaring out of Australia in the mid-1960's, synthesizing the best parts of the Beatles, the Who and the Kinks and creating something new and exciting from the mix. They seemed poised to make it really big, relocating to the UK to capitalize on their ever-increasing fame, but largely due to horrendous management and general unhappiness in the band they would not make it much further. Volume 3 was the second-to-last proper album by the band, capturing them in the glow of their biggest hit, "Friday On My Mind". The opening track "Sorry" promises more hits, but the album wanders off quickly and the album feels more like a pile of songs lumped together than a cohesive work, so much so that I wasn't even sure without consulting the track listing when the album itself ended and the bonus tracks started. Attempts to release a fourth album were torturous on the band, at which time Young and lead guitarist Harry Vanda effectively seized control of the band and moved into more of a songwriting/producing role, ultimately leading some years later to the birth of AC/DC, which was under their guidance for most of the 1970's.

This disc is part of a reissue series by Repertoire, which I usually trust to release top-notch versions of lesser-known classics. However, I have a couple issues with the disc. First, the quality of the recordings seem low. I can't put my finger on it, but the mixes seem a little off on certain songs and I can almost pick up a faint wah (or whatever you call it when the volume wavers) when doing an apples-to-apples comparison with "Sorry" from the Nuggets II box. My other gripe is the bonus track situation. Normally it's great to see 11 bonus tracks alongside the 13 original album tracks, but there is no rationale to their selection (some are from much earlier, others later) and the "Easybeats Medley" is a jarring listen, consisting of mostly tracks from other albums awkwardly stitched together.

Between the difficulties of the album itself and the technical difficulties of the CD release, I would advise fans of the two big hits ("Sorry", "Friday On My Mind") stick to a greatest hits compilation and leave Volume 3 to the completionistas.

The Number of the Beast (Iron Maiden, 1982)

Once again, the mighty Iron Maiden returns to these pages, this time with the undisputed classic, The Number of the Beast. Like a few other albums previously featured or discussed, this is a third album. While Maiden never experienced a mass firing a la Atomic Rooster or Guns N Roses (at least not since the 1970's, before the first album), this album was released in the midst of a slow transformation from the lean, mean NWOBHM band into the classic metal monster that would dominate the rest of the decade. Even before the first album, the band experienced incremental transitions. Doug Sampson, an early drummer, appears on exactly one song ("Burning Ambition"). Guitarist Dennis Stratton then joined along with Sampson's replacement, Clive Burr, but was out of step with the rest of the group and sent packing following the "Women In Uniform" single in 1981, replaced by Adrian Smith. Vocalist Paul Di'Anno was getting increasingly reckless as the band grew in fame and bassist/man-behind-the-curtain Steve Harris ousted him followed their second album, Killers. Enter former Samson vocalist Bruce Bruce (now using his real last name, Dickinson) and things really began to change. Although Dickinson has no songwriting credits, his influence is all over the album and probably was only omitted from the credits for contractual reasons. Furthermore, the band had exhausted their cache of original material that had served them well for their first two albums, so it was time to get down to business, write some new stuff, and use the talents of newcomers Dickinson and Smith to the fullest.

Musically, the album stands alone, bearing little resemblance to Killers, but less structured than its successor Piece of Mind and the albums that were to follow. "Invaders" leads off and probably hearkens back the their earlier material more than any of the other tracks (not too surprising as it is itself a re-working of the old B-side, "Invasion"). Most of the other tracks, however, tack in an entirely new direction. "Children of the Damned" and the concert-classic "Hallowed Be Thy Name" are far deeper musically and lyrically than anything from the previous albums. Songs like "The Prisoner" and the title track blaze with a channeled aggression of a band still hungry to show its stuff. Oddly, their crowing achievement didn't even make it to the final album. Inexplicably, the limp "Gangland" made the cut, while the astonishing "Total Eclipse" did not. Supposedly "Gangland" was included on the album to furnish Clive Burr with his only writing credit, but he also is a co-writer of "Total Eclipse" so that doesn't make any sense. My 1995 2-disc edition, which includes both songs, erroneously listed Paul Di'Anno as a co-author, which made me think maybe they just didn't want their old singer getting royalties from the album. Whatever the case, the 1998 remastered version has both tracks, with "Total Eclipse" holding the penultimate slot.

In true third album fashion, more transition followed, with Clive Burr bowing out and the band finally reaching a period of stability in what most consider to be its definitive form, unchanged until 1990. Steve Harris had finally assembled the band that he was confident would conquer the world, at least for the 1980's!

Welcome to the Real World (Trapeze, 1992)

Or, when bad albums happen to good bands. I love Trapeze; they are one of the greatest "unknown" bands of the 1970's, contributing to the ranks of Deep Purple, Judas Priest, Whitesnake, Uriah Heep and others. Medusa, released in late 1970's, may actually be in my all-time top ten.

Welcome to the Real World seems like such a great idea on paper. The original trio is back with a couple new songs and a clutch of classics (including the post-Hughes "Midnight Flyer"). They are even joined by keyboard legend Geoff Downes on a few of the tracks. It even seems like they are poised for a real reunion, as none of them at this point were enjoying rewarding solo careers or firmly in the ranks of an established band.

The problems, though... Oh, the problems. Guitarist Mel Galley, back in his Whitesnake days, pulled some kind of stunt that resulted in broken bones and an inability to play guitar. It hastened his exit from that band, which even had the mishap never occurred, probably would have happened anyway as David Coverdale went kept horse trading his guitarists. The result is some of the most hideous guitar playing I have ever heard. He can't even manage the basic riffs of "Touch My Life" or "Your Love Is Alright" and most of the solos just sound like crazy messes.

Moving on to Glenn Hughes. Now, Glenn is a class act (in spite of some touchy relations with other musicians), but in 1992 he was fresh out of his drug years and still finding his feet. He is just WAY too excited to be back on stage with his old bandmates, to the point where he can't even deliver a complete lyric without some kind of interjection or scream, many of which involve the almighty f-bomb.

So who is left? Drummer Dave Holland turns in a great performance (although I've always found his drumkit to be way bigger than the sound he gets out of it). Unfortunately, Dave got himself in a heap of trouble with the law, over things that were probably happening during this time.

In the end, the problems, especially with Galley, sunk any chance at a full reunion and it pains me to admit that's probably for the best. That said, Trapeze has a number of great albums to their name and will remain one of the great bands strangely few people have listened to. Holland and Hughes would go on to record with Tony Iommi in 1996, resulting (ten years later!!!) in the DEP Sessions, though Holland's part was erased and re-recorded in light of his conviction and jail stint that followed soon after. Galley never really reappears in a major capacity after this and he died from esophagus cancer in 2008.

AC/DC Live (1992)

As long as we have parties and beer, we will have AC/DC. In the range of metal topics, from "we are all going to die" and "party all night", they thorough reside in the latter category. Statistically the band is an outlier, hailing from Australia (mostly) and throughout its existence wandering somewhere between metal and rock. They also managed to become even more popular following the sudden death of their frontman Bon Scott, an event that would drive most bands to throw in the towel or flounder at best.

Live is pretty far along in the band history, with most anything that mattered involving AC/DC falling into the 1975-1985 window, a number of years after this recording. Nevertheless, the band was still (and still is) drawing enormous crowds. Personally, I lost interest in the band after Back In Black, but as previously mentioned, I cannot resist free stuff, hence this CD enjoys an awkward place alongside the Bon Scott era albums.

I think my main hang up with the band is that Brian Johnson just isn't Bon Scott. You can tell on this recording because he does his own material so much better. Whereas Scott was clever and brash at the same time, Johnson is just brash. Drummer Chris Slade also applies a generic treatment to the older songs. "Dirty Deeds" just sounds a little off with a 1980's beat instead of the distinctly different 1970's style by Phil Rudd.

Of course AC/DC is going strong today, with Angus Young still rocking the schoolboy outfit and pushing 60 years old. However they've done about as much good stuff in the last 30+ years as they bashed out in their first five, and that has to make anyone stop and think.

Sunday at the Village Vanguard (Bill Evans Trio, 1961)

Since we started the week with some jazz piano, why not end the week with some jazz piano. Of course, I would be hard-pressed to say Bud Powell and Bill Evans sound alike beyond the fact they both play piano. Their styles are very different, practically a generation apart.

Bill Evans (along with John Coltrane) really took off following his time with Miles Davis, which culminated in the legendary Kind of Blue. In the wake of that album he assembled his own trio, which recorded two albums in the studio and two live albums, of which this is one. As I have said a bazillion times, I am not a music critic, so all I will say is that the combination of Evans's ethereal style with the almost-lead style approach of bassist Scott LaFaro just works. In fact, this album makes a point of giving LaFaro much more of the spotlight than the bassist usually receives. Interestingly, LaFaro in this same year appeared on Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz, contributing bass for one of the double-quartets. Talk about opposite scenes!

As always I'm curious about where people end up following these recordings. Evans and LaFaro are well-chronicled, with one dying suddenly (LaFaro, in a car crash, just a few days after this was recorded) and the other very slowly (Evans, who struggled with drugs most of his life, the other legacy he carried out of his work with Miles Davis). Drummer Paul Motian was a bit of a mystery to me, so I did some research and learned that he fell in with the whole ECM scene in the 1970's and recently passed away in 2011, officially closing the book on the Bill Evans Trio.

Northwinds (David Coverdale, 1978)

To paraphrase a certain Russian president, the breakup of Deep Purple in 1976 was one of the greatest rock catastrophes is history. Well, maybe I won't go that far, as it did result in a deluge of pretty good to excellent albums, many of which never would have seen daylight if their creators were still working under the DP banner. Thinking aloud, the post-breakup period gave us Play Me Out (Glenn Hughes, 1977), Private Eyes (Tommy Bolin, 1976), and Malice in Wonderland (Paice Ashton Lord, 1976). Meanwhile, members that left pre-breakup were doing interesting things as well: Child in Time (Ian Gillan Band, 1976), Rising (Rainbow, 1976), and Elements (Roger Glover, 1978). In the midst of all of this activity was the former (and future) brash frontman David Coverdale, with two very low-key solo albums, White Snake (1977) and this one, released on the eve of his new band, Whitesnake.

Most people, especially stateside, hear that name and immediately start smelling the hairspray. 1987 was still a long way off at this point. Northwinds, which is not a Whitesnake album, but a solo album, was released at a challenging time, against the tidal forces of punk and its ilk. Its predecessor included some material Coverdale had written for the D.O.A. 1976 Deep Purple album and some bluesy odds-and-ends. Northwinds went even further in the introspective direction, with some really quiet numbers like the title track and "Time and Again". Lest we think Coverdale was on the verge of releasing a folk album for 1979, we have stomping tracks like "Breakdown" and the bonus track "Shame the Devil" which sounds like he is channeling P-Funk (loosely). As it would turn out these more animated tracks would dictate the direction Coverdale and his guitarist/partner-in-crime Mick Moody wanted to go. Later that same year the two would channel this energy to assemble a new band with a new name.

For those interested, early Whitesnake enjoyed a great deal of success in the UK from 1978 to 1984, consuming 3/5 of the old Paice-Ashton-Lord, and then nearly consuming itself in the wake of a falling out between Coverdale and Moody in 1982. The reconfigured Whitesnake emerged in 1984 with a series of successful albums that finally cracked the US market, though bearing no resemblance to the old band and furiously rotating through various band members (Galley, Sykes, Vai, etc. etc.) until Coverdale decided to fold the band and team up with Jimmy Page for an album. There's more (much more) following Coverdale/Page, but that's another story altogether.

Living After Midnight (Judas Priest, 1998)

Last night we had some serious wind, causing a nearby power line to arc and our power to flicker in and out about six times in the middle of the night. That kept me wide awake for most of the early morning hours, so I was glad to dial up some Judas Priest for the ride into work.

If any band has reason to fear they were being lampooned by Spinal Tap, it is probably Judas Priest, with its extensive history, numerous drummers and leathery image. Their first few albums are surprising to listen to mainly because the motifs of riding motorcycles on stage and wearing lots of leather didn't gel until the end of the 1970's. Although Sad Wings of Destiny from 1976 is now seen as a landmark of early metal, back then it was a largely ignored album by a band with a strange sound. Who said it was easy being ahead of your time? With each passing album, Priest honed and tightened their sound, making less adventurous but more focused albums, achieving their 1980's trademark sound somewhere between 1978's Killing Machine (Hell Bent for Leather in the USA) and 1980's British Steel, marking the early boundary of the scope of this particular disc. Unlike Dio (see Sacred Heart) the band lineup was stable and the actually continued to improve their sound and popularity from one album to the next, reaching their zenith by the middle of the decade. After a little heart flutter in 1984, the year of Defenders of the Faith, the band launched in a questionable new direction with the synthetic Turbo, followed by the faux-retro Ram It Down. By decade's end they were in a pretty bad place. Longtime drummer Dave Holland (always a strange fit for the band) threw in the towel and the were carrying the image of being has-beens. Amazingly, Painkiller (1990), the last album featured in this collection, was a speed-metal reinvention of the band that actually succeeded, but the success was fleeting and singer Rob Halford exited to experiment with new short-lived outfits like Fight and Two and his very own impressive solo band. Meanwhile Priest would release two true horrific albums in the late 1990's before a successful reunion finally happened in the following decade, one that has stuck to this day with minimal drama.

It made sense to grab this "greatest hits" package because at the time I had nothing by Judas Priest and it was a free promo copy given to the radio station. Since then I've mostly focused on the early stuff, though I did have a moment of weakness and bought Angel of Retribution back in the day. It hits all the key songs from 1978 to 1990, which is good, but I have some issues with the sequencing of the tracks. I don't see why they couldn't just have used a straight chronological approach. It almost feels like somebody stacked the tapes in the chronological order, then accidentally dropped them and put them back in a slightly wrong order. For example, "Turbo Lover" comes before the Defenders of the Faith tracks, and "Metal Meltdown" before "Ram It Down" which causes the listener to lose all track of the band's sound progression from NWOBHM to speed metal. Also there is a ten-year step back in the time for the last three tracks from the not-exactly-live Unleashed in the East featuring songs from their second and third albums, which fall outside the scope of the rest of the album. They could have goosed up the last few 1980's albums instead. All of this aside, if you are a Priest novice like I once was, this is a good collection to pick up.

Get Behind Me Satan (The White Stripes, 2005)

We last visited the Stripes in January, featuring their final album, so it seems fitting that our second visit should be the second-to-last album. There were more changes on this album than just Meg's hairdo and Jack's facial hair. The classic guitar/drums formula, save for three songs ("Blue Orchid", "Instinct Blues" and "Red Rain"), is tossed out here, with mostly acoustic guitar and key-based instruments anchoring the melodies.

This was a hard album for me to get into, but I have to say it's aged well and kept my drive into work today lively. I almost lost interest in the band altogether after hearing this album back around the time of its release, but the following album restored my faith. I think the problem with Get Behind Me Satan is that is grabs you on the first track, then kind of wanders off into marimba-world, whereas Icky Thump has an unremarkable opening track, followed by mostly solid album. I'll take the latter over the former any day.

The Amazing Bud Powell, Vol. 1 (1951)

Starting the week with some jazz is totally fine with me, and if it happens to be Bud Powell, all the better. Powell is firmly entrenched in the classic bebop era, standing alongside the first wave of greats like Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. "Un Poco Loco" is a real standout composition on this short set. In fact, it used to be the lead track on the old vinyl editions. Subsequent CD editions have added rehearsal tracks where available before each studio track to illustrate the development of each song (the original album is under half an hour). Another reissue includes a number of outtakes but I am not fortunate enough to have this deluxe set in my library.

Powell shows up here in there in my library, notably as 1/5 of the Quintet (Gillespie-Parker-Powell-Mingus-Roach) and much later supporting Dexter Gordon on Our Man In Paris. Supposedly by these last recordings in the 1960's he was quite a curmudgeon, forcing Gordon to play only standards, no new music. This is pretty surprising coming from the guy who gave us so many excellent original compositions on this particular album.

A Short History of Nearly Everything (Bill Bryson, 2004)

Another five-star rating for this year's reading! I like to read history chronologically, so I thought what the hell, let's go back to the very beginning. In hindsight, this is much more of a science book than a history book and will probably get reclassed on my shelf as "nonfiction-other" (I don't have a "science" shelf) to put it in closer company with folks like Jared Diamond.

I just loved how Bryson tied the various elements of existence (cosmology, atoms, molecules, evolution) into a single work. Where there is actually history in the book, it's usually in the Age of Discovery, as various scientists and thinkers slowly unveiled the truths of the planet Earth. I would recommend this book for summer reading for AP Biology (and maybe Chemistry) students, or for prospective Jeopardy contestants. And of course it's Bill Bryson, so it's fun to read, too.

The Forever Changes Concert (Love with Arthur Lee, 2003)

Forever Changes is one of the finest albums ever recorded. If you haven't heard it, stop reading this and go listen to it right now, in whatever format you prefer. However, this post is primarily about the concert of over 25 years later, performed by frontman Arthur Lee and an entirely different band playing under the "Love" moniker.

Most people I know have either never heard of the band, or they absolutely swear by them (and listen to the crowd on this recording if you don't believe me). More than just an interracial band with grammatically challenging song titles, the band was one of the top acts in Los Angeles in the mid-1960's. Even up and coming bands like the Doors aspired to be the next Love. By the time of its third album, the combination of poor management (they didn't tour widely to support their albums) and the usual personnel clashes, Love was fairly well finished. Arthur Lee would go on to lead a new version of Love into the 1970's, followed by a largely unsuccessful solo career, then a stint in jail (thanks to California's ridiculous three-strikes law, a very minor offense got him 12 years!!). Meanwhile through all of this, Love's greatest album never got a proper airing on stage.

Thanks to this album, Forever Changes finally gets the respect it richly deserves. Lee bangs out the entire album in track order backed by "Love" (not the original band, mainly dispersed by death and other irreconcilable matters) and the strings and horns that made the original album such a treat. Sure Lee's voice is a bit strained, probably due to undisclosed health problems and age, but he and the band turn in very faithful renditions of the songs, many of which never had a chance to be played live. As an extra bonus (since the album all by itself would have made for a really short concert), they perform the accompanying single, two tracks from 1966's Da Capo and two songs from the post-Forever Changes era. If you are lucky enough to find the 2 disc edition, there are also a couple numbers from the first self-titled album as well.

Sadly, this was the last recorded output by Arthur Lee, felled in 2006 by leukemia. Old bandmates Johnny Echols and Michael Stuart would carry on the Love banner in the following years, but it's pretty safe to say the band has at long last run its course. For those interested in learning more about the band, check out the documentary Love Story from 2008.

The Inner Mounting Flame (Mahavishnu Orchestra, 1971)

I like jazz. I like metal. Liking both was a source of great hilarity back in college, even going so far as to co-host a radio show with my roommate that tried to bring both together. The segues between songs were jarring to say the least, as we veered from hip-hop era Herbie Hancock to death metal a la Celestial Season (not the tea) with no transitions whatsoever.

When it came to discovering music that actually attempted to blend the two together, I had a bit of a struggle on my hands. I liked to consider bands like Deep Purple and their ilk "hard jazz" is that it was largely instrumental driven and featured technically accomplished solos. However the rest of the world was content to call them "hard rock" and move on. Clearly the two circles overlapped very little. I know Dave Mustaine hired a fusion guitarist in the early days of Megadeth (introducing very classic jazz drug problems to boot). Once I even scored an EP by a band called Demonspeed which was honest-to-god swing metal. However it was often either a relationship through trivia (in the case of the former) or a novelty (as I am forced to confess in the case of the latter).

So where was the Mahavishnu Orchestra all my life? The road there was long and twisted (and thoroughly enjoyable!), but I finally arrived at Inner Mounting Flame, an album so good that I was actually afraid of playing it too much, as if it would suck me in and tear my old music tastes straight down to their foundation.

In the true definition of fusion, two band members (guitarist/leader John McLaughlin and violinist Jerry Goodman) have their roots in rock (one via a certain notorious jazz trumpet player) and the other three were jazz guys looking for something with a bit more fire than straight jazz. Like the players, the listeners arrive at jazz fusion either via rock or jazz. Obviously for me it was rock. My first exposure came from the early 1970's output of Tommy Bolin, who jammed alongside drummer Billy Cobham (featuring prominently on his solo album Spectrum) and key-man Jan Hammer. He was even importing the works of McLaughlin and Hammer to his own band, Energy. Meanwhile, I knew Jerry Goodman from his work as a latter day member of the Dixie Dregs, playing alongside Steve Morse. However I was strangely hesitant when it came to the Mahavishu Orchestra. I had recently picked up Bitches Brew and was in the middle of trying to figure it out (average figuring out time I've heard is in excess of a year), so the only McLaughlin I was familiar with was buried in mix (brew?) of over a dozen different musicians. That album launched an entire new jazz fusion scene including the likes of Weather Report and Return to Forever, and later participants like Jaco Pastorius and Pat Metheny. Unlike that album, John McLaughlin is completely unleashed, along with the rest of the entire quintet. Even the "soft" songs crackle and erupt with energy and challenge the borders of jazz and hard rock.

It seems like the fluidity of the jazz and rock scenes crystallized by the end of the 1970's and the rise of smooth jazz in the following decade permanently tarnished the reputation of jazz fusion. Fusion was effectively marginalized by the purists on one end and the commercial conglomerates on the other. In a lot of ways, the sounds of classic fusion were assumed by the latter-day progressive movement. A lot of the progressive bands were stretching into fusion and pretty much took control of that sound by the 1990's, safely couched in a musically-sharp but popularity-starved genre.

Sharks (UFO, 2002)

The history of UFO is pretty darn impressive. Except for a little break in the late 1980's, they have pretty much been around continuously since 1969. Way back then they started as an enthusiastic but largely unsuccessful part of the space rock movement. However they were huge in Germany, which would ultimately draw in a mercurial guitarist named Michael Schenker, allowing them to ditch the space rock scene and propel them to super-stardom in the mid and late 1970's. By 1980, rock star problems began to tear at the band (Schenker and bassist Pete Way were notoriously erratic) and by the mid-1980's vocalist Phil Mogg was all by his lonesome. Except for a single album in the 1990's, the core quartet would be missing at least one of its key players on each album.

Here on Sharks, their sixteenth album, the missing man is Andy Parker, replaced by Aynsley Dunbar, who may actually have a shorter list of bands he has NOT drummed for than been the drummer of. However Schenker and Way are firmly back in the fold. In the case of the former, it is critical to the success of the album, because he's pretty much the one keeping things lively on the album. I have to say that Schenker actually turns in a surprisingly energetic performance, considering this is the last time he would play with them. Sadly, Way and especially Mogg feel particularly uninspired here. The lyrics are largely nostalgic and highly disappointed in modern times. No surprise, as the band isn't following any trend other than its own, as most bands do late in their careers, but 10 songs of "I'm a real man lost in the modern world" gets old fast. However, Mogg's voice has aged very well compared to his contemporaries. Of course it's lowered a bit, but its befitting for his age. I mean, how many singers in their 50's sound like they are in their 20's?! Even Sinatra can't make those kinds of claims.

I picked up this CD as a freebie from my retail days. Of course, this is definitely not the UFO album to start with, but I had no idea. With a little bit of band history under my belt, I think I can appreciate a bit more what UFO was doing around this time than on my initial listening. Now I think I'll go back to the space rock era for the long Friday drive home.

Waiting For The Sun (The Doors, 1968)

The third album is always the killer. Look at a number of bands through time and you will see the third album often heralds a change of direction, maybe a new lineup results, or perhaps the total dissolution of the band. Of course when I picked this up back in high school (on CD, with hard earned money) I just thought of it as the natural continuation of the first album and Strange Days. However, with repeated listening, it's clear that this was the album that nearly prematurely destroyed the Doors. The tendencies of the first two albums were stretched about as far as possible and the old song catalog was exhausted. Initially the idea was to do an epic performance of Jim Morrison's "Celebration of the Lizard" but the recordings went nowhere and the only mention of a lizard king is in the jarring "Not to Touch the Earth". That track and the closer "Five to One" attempt to harness some of the energy of old "megatracks" like "The End" and "When the Music's Over" but far pretty short and stick out awkwardly. Where the album really succeeds is in the mellow department. I could see Sinatra or some crooner turning in convincing performances of most of these tracks, accompanied by a lone piano. However that's not what the Doors are known for. People wanted the crazy, shouting Jim Morrison, and future albums would deliver heavily on this, culminating in the sheer brilliant drunkenness that crowned their final Morrison-era album, L.A. Woman. So, while Waiting for the Sun may not be their finest moment, an uneasy document of a band in transition, it still holds up, best served with a fine wine and comfortable surroundings (well, for about 7 of the tracks anyway).

Sweet Life (Varnaline, 1998)

I'm not a big alt-country person. I own exactly zero Wilco albums (actually, make that 0.5). However, I had little control over what kind of stuff showed up at the radio station back in 1998 and even less resistance when it came to hoarding free CD's from that period, hence I still own a bumper crop of oddball music from the late 1990's. And that brings us to Varnaline.

From my quick research notes (Allmusic is a much better source than Wikipedia when dealing in more obscure artists), Varnaline appears to be yet another band that was unable to survive the great label bloodletting that hit around 2000. They had a little clutch of albums in the late 1990's that score points with the critics, but after their label, Zero Hour, died following the release of this album, only one more release followed, and from all accounts it is primarily the solo album of frontman Anders Parker under the Varnaline moniker. Although the band is long gone, Parker continues to perform as a solo artist, still resting comfortably somewhere between Americana and alt-country. While I probably won't rush out and get any more of their albums, Sweet Life provided a nice enough soundtrack for my drive into work.

Blog Makeover

I'm refreshing the tags and various non-post-based content on this blog, mainly to reflect the large amount of music blogging I've have done this year. Old posts (pre-2014) have been reverted to drafts (i.e. my own personal scrapbook). Look for a new style (goodbye, minimalism) and probably title in the days ahead. I'm pretty much writing this note for my own amusement, but what the hell.

Idlewild South (The Allman Brothers Band, 1970)

It's been a couple months since the Allman Brothers graced this blog with their presence, so it was nice to see them dialed up this morning. Idlewild South is a more recent entry in my library, which I picked up as the second half of the Beginnings anthology, which is the first two albums packaged together. It makes sense to combine the two, as together they don't even add up to 70 minutes of music, and this one only barely cracks the half-hour mark. However, lumping the two albums together can be problematic as they are surprisingly different. Idlewild South marks the first appearance of Dickie Betts songs (although the Ramblin' Man isn't doing vocals yet). Also the production is considerably slicker thanks to Duane Allman bringing aboard the omnipresent, omnipotent Tom Dowd as producer. Berry Oakley contributes vocals on the "Hoochie Coochie Man" cover (I think I now have about 20 versions of this), sounding a lot like Johnny Winter. Finally, the whole album is considerably tamer than its predecessor, with fewer blazing guitar solos and more emphasis on harmonies. While this isn't necessarily my preference, this album marked a real breakthrough for the band. But it wouldn't be until At Fillmore East that people would realize that the band was a completely different kind of beast on the stage than in the studio.

On The Threshold Of A Dream (The Moody Blues, 1969)

Apparently my iTunes library can't get enough Moodies, so let us continue the story. This album is probably remains one of the best-loved of the Core-7 era. While I enjoy the album a great deal, I'm not quite as exuberant as some of the most rabid fans. Working off the groundwork set by the prior two albums, this one pushes the concept idea about as far as the band was willing to go...but is it really a true concept album? Most of this concept is in the opening and final four tracks. Sandwiched between these are a mixed bag of songs, some of which hearken back to the earlier days of the band, courtesy of unabashed rocker bassist John Lodge. Others, generally provided by Ray Thomas and Justin Hayward, are quieter acoustic numbers. I think people get so hung up on the "space-machine" opening and closing that they mistakenly paint the whole album as a concept album. Even as soon as the second track, "Lovely to See You", we leave behind the whole "dreams" and "existence" themes that commonly describe the album. While a few of the others are rather jaunty, there are a some brooders in the mix as well ("Dear Diary" stands out in particular). But is there a theme here? I guess if you really want to stretch interpretations, you could think of the album of as a "Day in the Life" structure, where the middle eight tracks are various daytime activities of a random nature, of which the last two ("Lazy Day" and "Are You Sitting Comfortably") wind things down into the dreamworld of the final "suite" of songs. Again, it's quite a reach.

Some additional notes: I've said it before and I'll say it again, John Lodge cannot escape being the rocker. Not to say that's all he does, but there has to be at least one on every single album. I think as Graeme Edge got away from poetry he began to rival Lodge in this department, but I cannot think of an album where Lodge keeps in mellow the whole time. Also, I've always found it interesting how the most whimsical and darkest songs are usually both written by Ray Thomas. "Lazy Day" and "Dear Diary" written by the same person? Yikes!

Carlos Is Gonna Get It (Kevin Emerson, 2008)

I'm happy to report that reading for this year remains on track, although I've got a couple sizable tomes (aka "thickies") in progress this month. February wrapped up with an easy read, Carlos Is Gonna Get It, a young adult book by fellow Colby album Kevin Emerson. It's always interesting to see what kind of writers the Colby English department is pumping out, and Emerson is one of the most prolific. In fact, I didn't want to get committed to a series like Oliver Nocturne (and a couple others he has written), so this proved to be an ideal choice.

The book ultimately carried a good message of being understanding to others, even if they drive you completely crazy. Obviously Carlos is not being controlled by aliens, but what's his deal? The characters were well developed, with each of the main characters wrestling with their own personal issues (injuries, changing schools, cliques) in addition to the whole matter of what to do about Carlos. The descriptions of various parts of greater Boston and the New Hampshire wilderness were well-written. The Tubs were a nice touch, and supposedly they exist (I'll be sure to check next time I'm in New England).

My main reservation, which has been echoed by others is that the subject matter and the writing style sometimes diverge. Generally books featuring seventh graders target upper-elementary readers who are getting out of serialized chapter books and into stand-alone works. This is because children's lit tends to look forward, so protagonists are often slightly older than the intended audience. However the writing style tended to learn toward young adult, but I'm not sure how interested YA readers would be in these characters, as they are quite juvenile. I know that when I was in high school I would have viewed the characters as petty brats. Therefore it is probably better classed as a children's book, but for those mature enough to handle a little salty language.

Sheherazade; In the Steppes of Central Asia; Islamey (Kirov Orchestra/Valery Gergiev, 2002)

This one is sort of an extra-credit number in my preschool-level knowledge of classical music. The bulk of the album is Sheherazade, followed by the tame In the Steppes of Central Asia, then the lively Islamey.  This isn't a great album for driving because the road noise consumes much of the more subtle moments, especially in the second piece. I'm giving it another go in the office, just to be fair.

I think one of the key early steps to appreciating these works in the modern era is to recognize where they may have appeared in other contexts. Sure enough in 1968, Deep Purple put Sheherazade to good use, oddly enough leading into their own take on the Cream version of Elmore James' "I'm So Glad". Now who is the world would ever have thought of putting those two together?

Jon Lord would do it again in the next album, using Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 as a dramatic lead-in to the Beatles' "We Can Work It Out". Who says those rock musicians have no musical chops?

A Question Of Balance (The Moody Blues, 1970)

Ah, some core-7 Moodies at last. This album is best known as a "simplification" album, going against the increasing trend of the band to record material that studio-only. What is remarkable about the album is that they maintain their trademark sound. In the effort to "get back" to the basics, they could have elected to go acoustic/folk, go back to the "Go Now" era (highly unlikely from various statements by the band from this era) or something about as drastic. Instead it was more a matter of each band member sticking to what they did best. On 1968's In Search of the Lost Chord, they collectively played over 30 instruments. On this album, just about the only multi-instrumentalist in Justin Hayward, who doubles on both acoustic and electric guitar. While I normally don't consider flute and mellotron to be simple instruments for a rock band, each player focuses on just those instruments throughout. Because the mellotron can produce a symphonic effect all by itself, it gives the album a much more lush feel than an acoustic approach. That's why a song like "Melancholy Man" sounds way out there, but probably was not all that difficult to reproduce.

I think some people get hung up on this album being too rootsy. The final two albums which followed this one seem to move the tide back toward a more studio-produced sound, which leads many to view this album as a failure. On various compilations, usually only "Question" gets ample representation. While A Question of Balance was unarguably the bands attempt to create an entire album around simpler production techniques, each prior album had a "rocker" or two somewhere in its lineup. Therefore, I don't think it's too jarring a transition, nor do I see it as a one-off failed experiment. Simply listen to the first side (the first five tracks, for the non-vinyl world) and each band member checks in (Hayward, Pinder, Thomas, Edge, Lodge). Even in the mixed-up of world of Moody Blues writing credits, it is remarkable to see a completely evenly spread out presentation.