The Pretty Things (1965)

Most of what we've seen of the Pretties here has come from their creative peak period of S.F. Sorrow and Parachute, their fourth and fifth albums. Here we wind all the way back to the beginning, featuring a largely different band, save for vocalist Phil May and guitarist Dick Taylor (who quit his own band after S.F. Sorrow and does not appear on Parachute).

The "Embryonic Stones", a label applied to all variant of the Rolling Stones prior to their first album, spun off at least two important groups. One was more by affiliation, which was the Kinks, who picked up early drummer Mick Avory. Meanwhile, the other was a direct offshoot, the Pretty Things, created by early bassist Dick (not Mick) Taylor, who really wanted to play lead guitar for his own band than bass in somebody else's.

The early Pretty Things are incredibly raw and about as bluesy as a band could get during the R&B fueled British Invasion years. Phil May sounds like he gargles regularly with razor blades to get that voice. They perform almost entirely covers and the few originals sound more like studio jam outtakes than anything else. Most of the songs here went nowhere, a fact of life that would plague almost every one of the band's albums, though their version of "Rosalyn" is a real standout track and earned inclusion in the Nuggets II box set alongside a couple of their more progressive cuts.

And boy did things get more psychedelic and progressive. Their next album, Get the Picture? shows inklings of a move away from blues purity, while the third album, Emotions, is a flawed document of uncertain psych with a grating horn section, yet all the elements were in place to unleash S.F. Sorrow the following year. In the midst of all of this they were releasing albums under the pseudonym "Electric Banana" as soundtrack music for various low-budget and/or adult films. A band's gotta eat, you know.

East-West (The Butterfield Blues Band, 1966)

This is another album that challenges my practice of genre-tagging these posts. Even though this band would run in some very rock-friendly circles, their brand of blues-rock came early enough and held true enough to the genre to warrant the coveted "blues" tag. Oh, and they actually put the word "blues" in their name, so extra points awarded.

The Butterfield Blues band played both Monterey Pop and Woodstock, which is mostly all I knew about the band. I learned from some very brisk reading that it sported an extremely fluid lineup, with Paul Butterfield being the only constant factor. This was the second and last album to feature Mike Bloomfield on guitar, who would leave shortly thereafter to form the Electric Flag, another mercurial kind of band and (weirdly enough) the provider of the soundtrack to Roger Corman's cult classic The Trip.

I actually picked this up from the library for my uncle who was looking to expand his blues collection. From what little I knew of the band, I didn't see the harm in adding it to my own collective along the way.

Never Say Die! (Black Sabbath, 1978)

I've always had a soft spot for the final Ozzy-era Black Sabbath album. For most of the second half of the 1970's the band was completely going off the rails, primarily because of rampant drug consumption and growing animosity among its membership. Initially the band attempt to wrench itself from its gloom-and-doom roots by adopting a more riff-heavy solo-lite approach to their albums. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath in particular illustrates this change, while following album Sabotage showed the beginning of a new direction, where Tony Iommi would literally be front and center, evidenced by his placement in their live shows. Technical Ecstasy then attempted to weaken the gritty core further with a "sweeter" sound, but was marred by horrendous production, even by Black Sabbath standards. That album was such a low point for the band that Ozzy Osbourne (depending on who you ask) was either fired or quit shortly afterward and was replaced by a guy name Dave Walker (Fleetwood Mac, Savoy Brown). With Ozzy's return, plans for a new album with Walker were scrapped and this album shortly thereafter was born.

All of this sounds like a recipe for an utterly disastrous album, and...surprise, surprise...it's actually quite good! This album is probably about 75% Tony Iommi (the other three were battling drugs and/or waning enthusiasm) and he is in fine form on most every track. In fact, songs like "Johnny Blade", "Shock Wave", and "Air Dance" showcase him at his very best. Sure, there's a couple duds like "Hard Road" and "Over to You" but overall most of the tracks defy the low expectations. Even Bill Ward, not a pillar of sobriety himself, manages to belt out a forceful final number, making up for the wimpy "It's Alright" from the prior album.

Needless to say this wasn't the album that saved the band, with Ozzy leaving once and for all (er...until 2013, not counting a few so-called "reunions"). The band effectively disintegrating for a period of time before being resuscitated by new singer Ronnie James Dio and a strangely revitalized Geezer Butler. However, cohesiveness wasn't a strong point for Black Sabbath going forward, with no two consecutive albums sporting the same lineup ever again. For those wanting to continue the Black Sabbath story, check out Never Say Die (the book) by Gary Sharpe-Young, quite possibly the most detailed book ever written on the band post-Ozzy.

Kind of Blue (Miles Davis, 1959)

And now for something completely different. How can I just switch gears and say a few words about what most people regard as the greatest jazz album of all time? Well, here goes nothing...

We've visited Miles in various stages of his career here, from the groundbreaking Birth of the Cool (1949-50) to the groundbreaking in a totally different way Bitches Brew twenty years later. Kind of Blue neatly falls between these two landmark albums and is itself a crossroads album. Bill Evans and John Coltrane (and soon Cannonball Adderley) were getting too strong to be confined to sideman gigs, while the Chambers/Cobb rhythm section was quickly becoming one of the most in-demand pairs in jazz. It is a minor miracle that all these folk could come together in one room, let alone produced the most renowned jazz session in history.

Until the remastered version came along I was a little reluctant to pick this one up. It had more warning labels slapped on it that any album in its right mind should. For one thing, having the words "Previously Recorded Material", though true, should not be the biggest label on the package. Secondly, and less obviously, there were serious pitch problems on earlier editions thanks to sloppy mastering or something, so this version fixed that.

This album routinely nets the #1 spot on any best jazz albums list. Although the usual cries of "overrated" accompany this, they aren't nearly as loud as other "cliche" best albums in other genres. Sadly, everyone from these sessions except for drummer Jimmy Cobb, has passed away, a couple not long after the album was recorded, others much later. Of course this is a 55 year old album and nobody lives forever, so I guess I shouldn't be getting all weepy about it.

Monty Python Sings (1989)

The unrestrained silliness of Monty Python either delights or enrages. For some reason the American experience just don't produce comedy like the Monties and their ilk. Listening to a soundtrack of songs, disassociated from the visual only drills this down even further. Many/most of the songs impose the most ridiculous lyrics (often featuring perfectly inoffensive words you won't here on any other songs) superimposed over (usually) very serious music. I mean, without the lyrics, most of the songs here would pass for fairly competent serious music. ("Oliver Cromwell" would change from a bizarre history lesson to the Polonaise, for instance.) Monty Python was blessed to work with excellent musical composers, so you never really feel like they punt on the music just to get a comedic point across in the lyrics.

Monty Python Sings was just a random gag gift I received years and years ago and many of the songs I heard before I actually saw them performed. This compilation covers a wide spread of Monty Python material, from the middle of the Flying Circus era to the three major movies. A few of the songs appear in a different form than when they were featured visually and I believe this was the debut of the song "Oliver Cromwell" on any Python album. I think I redefined irony when I played "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" on the way to church, then "Every Sperm Is Sacred" on the way to work (I work at a Catholic seminary).

Gillan's Inn (Ian Gillan, 2006)

So this took forever: a weekend full of distractions, then dropped right into a busy work week. Safe to say, this poor blog hasn't held a high priority, but I've made it to the end of August and this is no time to give up on the goal of an album each day, even if some days get bunched together.

In 2006, Ian Gillan celebrated 40 years as a professional musician, from humble origins in Episode Six's debut single, "Put Yourself In My Place" to his more recent solo albums and of course the Steve Morse era of Deep Purple. To commemorate the occasion he brought together a huge heap of guests, most of them former collaborators, to revisit some of his favorite moments.

Probably the closest relative to Gillan's Inn that was reviewed here earlier was Ray Davies's See My Friends. There are some big differences, though. Ray's album was decidedly hits-oriented and all Kinks songs. I think Ian only took on three Deep Purple songs. In fact, Gillan (the band) was more represented even though nobody from that era was around to help except an uncredited Janick Gers. Some of the songs I had never heard before, mainly because they were from solo albums that never got a proper American release. Overall the production is pretty bad, but I don't think the intent here was to produce a slick million-seller; this was a documented party in the studio. As usual, people like to harp on the fact that Ian's voice "isn't what it used to be" but let's compare notes with other vocalists who shred their cords in their 20's and listen to how good they sound at age 61.

This was all brought to life when Ian brought his house band to the House of Blues in Anaheim, a show I attended, and was recorded for posterity. The camera swept over my head quite a bit, so we were pretty sure some kind of live document was being made. The tour was highlighted with guest appearances throughout, from Lars Ulrich in San Francisco to Ronnie James Dio in Los Angeles and Roger Glover in New York. Our guest was a familiar face at most Southern California Deep Purple shows, Michael Bradford, producer of two of their albums. He isn't exactly as well known as the others, but he did a bang up job contributing to "Smoke on the Water", a staple of any show featuring Ian Gillan, Purple or otherwise.

Opening track of the show - I saw myself way down at the bottom of the screen at 0:20!

By the Spear (Ian Worthington, 2014)

Oxford's Ancient Warfare and Civilization series is consuming my attention these days. It got off to a great start in 2011 with Robin Waterfield's Dividing the Spoils, which I read back in 2012. The series was quiet for a little while (a series of one book!) and then suddenly this book and another by Waterfield on the Roman conquest of Greece came out this year, a few months apart from one another. Another volume of the Arab conquests is due out this fall and another on the Punic Wars in 2015. Folks, we've got a real series on our hands!

Chronologically, this is the first book of the series, so it's perfectly fine to start here. I mean, this is non-fiction, so you don't have to worry about spoiler alerts or anything. However, I've found that reading history books chronologically to be incredibly beneficial to my slightly OCD worldview. I like it when the book I'm reading references the last book I read, almost as if I'm continuing the story, even if the two authors hardly know each other. To keep myself from getting stuck in ancient times forever, I usually "reset" every so often. In fact, the most recent reset just happened, jumping back from 1848 to the Persians. Up next in world history, another book about the wars of succession following the death of Alexander. Oh...spoiler alert!

Mojo Music Guide Vol. 4: Blues Power (2004)

The once mighty Mojo Music Guide series was flailing by the time volume 4 was released and, to nobody's surprise, the series wrapped after this. The thing to remember with the series is that they were all free discs taped to fancy British music magazines, all trying to woo readers away from rivals Uncut and Q and probably a bunch of others I can't think of. Therefore, the real purpose behind each volume was to sell something, not provide a rich and comprehensive listening experience. They got away with achieving both on the first two entries, Instant Garage and The Roots of Hip-Hop, mainly because those came out at a time when it was easy to make connections to newer material or fresh new compilations fans would be likely to buy upon hearing those volumes. Those volumes were loaded to capacity. Volume 3, Raw Soul, failed to capture my interest (mainly because I know zilch about soul), but this volume did capture it...and left me disappointed. The songs are good and hit a lot of the standards, but overall it just feels like a thin offering, only about half the length of its predecessors. Additionally it seemed hung up on surface-level material, while the others weren't afraid to dig a little deeper. Sure it's great that these pillars of the blues are getting representation, but dang it, I want more! As I was bemoaning earlier, I am in dire need of more real blues material in my collection. Thank God for public libraries.

On Air: Live at the BBC, Volume 2 (The Beatles, 2013)

I've always been a big fan of the first BBC recordings of the Beatles (Live at the BBC) released back in the mid-1990's, on the eve of the Anthology series. Even though there's a little trickery involved, the BBC versions give you a sense of what a force the Beatles were as a live act without having to compete with hordes of screaming girls. From that disc's liner notes, I knew that compilation was not comprehensive, so I wasn't surprise to see a second volume, even though I had to wonder why it took nearly 20 years.

For the curious, this compilation is a little more slight than the first volume. It also features a lot more live (or "live" as defined by the Beeb) versions of tracks from the studio albums, particularly heavy on the first album. A number of the tracks also appear on the first volume, albeit different recording sessions. I'm thinking that a lot of these songs were held back to drum up more interest for non-album cover songs (stuff like "The Hippy Hippy Shake" and copious amount of Chuck Berry) and also because they probably didn't want to put multiple versions of the same song on to the same volume. There is a lot more studio chatter on this volume, which I typically graft on to the supporting song when ripping the discs to my computer. As an added bonus, there are four "pop profiles", an interview of each Beatle, which I think fall chronologically after most of the recordings here.

Strengths Based Leadership (Tom Rath & Barry Conchie, 2009)

I'm not going to spill a lot of pixels here since this was required reading for the program I was in. I went through a business book (bizlit) reading phase about ten years back and witnessed quite a range of styles and writing density across the genre. This book is fairly lightweight. In reality it is less than 100 pages and the rest is devoted to profiles of the 34 different strengths and an appendix on methodology (and yes I read all them). You can read the heart of the work in one sitting. The Clifton StrengthFinder 2.0 exam was personally insightful and I'm glad I took it, but there isn't a whole lot in the book to add value to my results. My program recommended some other titles that sounded quite intriguing so some of those titles may pop up here from time to time.

Garage Beat '66, Volume 5: Readin' Your Will! (Various Artists, 2005)

If you like your 1960's more garage-flavored that psych-flavored, the Garage Beat '66 series from Sundazed is a good series to move on to after you've finished off Nuggets. This particular volume gets a lot of flak for making more psychedelic concessions than its four predecessors, but there's still plenty of fun stuff to go around. I certainly don't see it as the worst of the bunch; that's like listening to the first five Beatles albums and proclaiming Help! to be their worst because after three hours of intensive Beatles listening you're getting worn out. On the other hand, Sundazed was already 80 songs along in the series by the release of the fifth volume, so maybe the pool of upper-mid-level garage was running low.

A number of the bands on here are playing their "secondary" hits, particularly the Lemon Drops and the Zakary Thaks. I think the only Nuggets crossover is "Optical Sound" by the Human Expression. There doesn't seem to be a strong geographical bent to the compilation, though a bunch are from California and Chicago. Maybe I'll get around to a more detailed analysis, but I'm too busy right now!

Sundazed would go out to squeak out two more volumes a couple years later, both with substantial psych content and heightened obscurity, then realize that Garage Beat '66 had finally run its course. But don't cry, there are many more compilations out there to help you along in your exploration of the era.

Study In Brown (Clifford Brown & Max Roach, 1955)

Seeing that this is his third appearance, you may think I'm rolling in Clifford Brown recordings, but in fact this pretty much cashes me out. As mentioned before, Brown has a very short career, with all his recordings dating from 1952 to 1956 including sideman gigs. Max Roach, on the other hand, recorded in every decade from the 1940's to the first decade of this century.

A short career is a mixed blessing. On one hand, when you die at 26 you leave so many questions behind about what you could have done if you made it even to just 40 or 50. On the other hand, it doesn't give you any burnout time or room for mistakes, so, in Brown's case, it's hard to find a bad recording featuring his trumpet playing. This also make it hard to rate Brown against his peers, especially somebody like Miles Davis who had a decades-long career and explored numerous subgenres in jazz, some more successfully than others. Brown stuck to hard bop, very much in its ascendancy in 1955, and did it really well. Study in Brown and the plainly titled Clifford Brown & Max Roach are standout examples of the genre and almost always appear together on lists of top jazz albums.

The Stooges (1969)

The debut by the Stooges is underwhelming. In the rush to capture the new Detroit sound heralded by the MC5 with 1968's Kick Out the Jams, Elektra signed the Stooges as well. Unlike their colleagues, the Stooges hadn't peaked yet, so their first album still clings tightly to their influences, such as the Bo Diddley beat of "1969". The band also quickly fell under the spell of ex-Velvet John Cale (and for entirely non-musical reasons, Nico), resulting in the jarring "We Will Fall" plunked in the middle of it all. Iggy Pop is fairly restrained; I know you're not supposed to judge an album by the cover, but it illustrates that restraint fairly well compared to the two albums to come.

Just be sure I wasn't being unduly unfair to this album, I listened to Fun House for the afternoon drive and it's clear something good happened musically between these albums. Whereas I found the debut album intriguing, but ultimately disappointing, all the stories about its recording kept me away from Fun House for too long with no good reason. It's pretty amazing how strong the first half of that album is since the band was downright coming off the rails at that point, aptly illustrated in the second half.

Even though I don't regard myself as a fan of this album, it's worthwhile to listen to it, study it, and see how it pointed the way to things to come.

Last Chance to Dance Trance (Perhaps) (Medeski Martin & Wood, 1999)

MMW has been getting some heavy representation here as of late. If you are looking for two discs that tell their story (well, up until 2004 anyway), this one (covering the Gramavision years 1991-1996) and Note Bleu (the Blue Note albums from 1998-2004) are the way to go. Note Bleu has already been covered here, so it's my lot in life to cover things backwards.

The trio started life as a piano trio with a more avant-garde thrust than the later acid and soul jazz styles that would dominate later on. Only one track, "Hermeto's Daydream", is from that period, though in later years they would revisit that sound on albums like Tonic, of in the Blue Note era. The other tracks show changes primarily by John Medeski, from piano to organ, to Wurlitzers and other fun keyboards. By 1996, on the songs from Shack-man, bassist Chris Wood would sometimes chuck the upright bass and go electric. Billy Martin has always been an inventive percussionist throughout their career, so it's harder to detect much evolution by him, not that he needed to change things up.

This compilation stops short of the next real phase shift in the MMW story, so no turntables, spoken word bits, or bizarre Mellotron breaks to be found here. The album that had been released just the year before, Blue Note debut Combustication, would introduce all of this stuff, though the Bubblehouse remix EP was a clear sign of things to come. That's all covered in the Blue Note chapter.

As far as I know there hasn't been an Indirecto compilation, which would cover material from their third era/label. A lot of that stuff was done with John Scofield's name on it (Out Louder, Juice), so he may want a credit on that release!

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn ([The] Pink Floyd, 1967)

While yesterday we witnessed the decline and fall of a key 1960's British band, today we observe another band that came to prominence that same year. Way back in high school we all used to view this album is sort of a prelude or false start for a band destined for bigger and better things, like themed progressive rock albums and expansive rock operas. The truth is though this album was huge in its day. The Pink Floyd, produced by former Beatle engineer Norman "Hurricane" Smith and fronted by the charismatic and insane Syd Barrett, were hailed as the next big thing to come out of England, practically rubbing shoulders with the Sgt. Pepper era Beatles.

Of course they weren't perfect. First off Syd was backed up by a somewhat ugly and frequently boring band. Nick Mason and Roger Waters especially didn't look like they were going to win any beauty contests, especially when sharing the stage with Syd of the Hypnotic Eyes. Also the Cambridge sound was a new thing, distinct from the London and Liverpool hotspots. And even though this was the summer of love, there is sort of a cool dispassionate feel to many of the songs, even when they get musically into freakbeat territory.

The rest of the Pink Floyd story is fairly well known, but any betting man (or woman) in 1967 would have assumed that Syd Barrett would carry the banner. Although everyone knew he was a little crazy, nobody realized it would take him on the fast track to Burnout Town by 1971, by which time the remaining members had longer since jettisoned him. Thankfully the seemingly hapless trio of Mason, Waters in particular, and Rick Wright would vastly develop their own talents, with considerable support from Dave Gilmour, who first joined the band following this album to augment and then replace Syd outright. However, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn will always be regarded as Syd's album, capturing him at his full powers. History hasn't been so kind, but if you step back in the moment, it's hard to deny the importance of The Pink Floyd's debut.

Little Games (The Yardbirds, 1967)

This album, the only full album to feature Jimmy Page on guitar, usually ends up disappointing just about everyone. Fans of Jeff Beck era Yardbirds stuff like Roger the Engineer are left scratching their heads wondering what happened. Meanwhile, people like my younger self track it down in hopes of discovering the mythical Led Zeppelin 0 and are more than a little bummed out. Let's address each perspective.

(1) It's not the Yardbirds. Well, it says so on the cover, so what gives? The main problem here is the producer Mickie Most was hell-bent on getting the band some hit material, even if it meant totally stripping their identity. Following the departure of original bassist Paul Samwell-Smith, the band rebounded fantastically by finally landing the services of Jimmy Page, first as emergency fill-in bass player ("Psycho Daisies"), then as co-lead guitarist with Beck for a pair of songs ("Stroll On" and "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago") and some guy named John Paul Jones providing the bass until Chris Dreja could properly switch instruments. Alas, it turned out to be a "jump the shark" moment for the band. They just couldn't top this. Not to mention none of this stuff was particularly lucrative for the band, as much as it is appreciated way out here in the future, so they turned to Most to get a really commercial album out and restore their financial fortunes.

Mickie Most was best known for stuff like Herman's Hermits and the Animals. In the case of the latter, the band got much better once they severed ties with Most, and the Yardbirds proved the reverse of this. He effectively split the band into Jimmy Page and Keith Relf on one side, who would play on all the tracks, and Jim McCarty and Chris Dreja who would be mostly left off the album, with their roles filled by session musicians. Consequently the only real link between this album and the previous one is Keith Relf's singing and he himself was clearly getting tired of the whole scene ("Only the Black Rose" illustrates the direction he was heading). Oddly enough the songs sounded a lot better and more energetic when performed live, since the whole band was involved. In fact the Little Games tracks played at the BBC are among the best of the set.

(2) It's not Led Zeppelin. A lot of fans of proto-metal mistakenly assume that anyone who was a part of Led Zeppelin played that way all the time and/or everything they were a part of was automatically something special. Although John Paul Jones was around for a lot of the sessions, you really can't call anything Zeppelin if Robert Plant and John Bonham are nowhere to be found. There are little glimpses (no pun intended) into Page's future throughout Little Games, but nothing here really screams "we're turning into Zeppelin!!!". Examples of these glimpses include the manic solos on "Smile On Me", the bowed guitar on "Tinker Tailor Solider Sailor", and of course "White Summer" which survived into the Zeppelin era. Also interspersed among some truly ridiculous songs like "I Remember the Night" are gems like "Think About It" and "Puzzles". Those songs, as was Most's strategy, are relegated to B-sides (bonus tracks here) to stuff like "Goodnight Sweet Josephine" and other inferior work.

In the wake of this album, the band sort of split along the lines of Page and Dreja on one side and Relf and McCarty on the other. When the second faction left to pursue a folk-rock career with bands like Together and Renaissance, and soon after Dreja quitting to go into photography, Jimmy Page had a chance to remake the Yardbirds to his own specifications. A "New Yardbirds" emerged with John Paul Jones, and Band of Joy members Plant and Bonham. Of course, there was a name change after just a few performances by a band that really had no strong ties or obligations to any band called the Yardbirds....

Birth of the Cool (Miles Davis, 1957)

We have a little classic "East meets West" album for today. Birth of the Cool (sessions from 1949 and 1950) launched a whole bunch of careers (Mulligan and Konitz to the West coast scene and the official "cool jazz" movement), Lewis into the Modern Jazz Quartet, and Gil Evans' future collaborations with Davis) and in a lot of these cases this is the only time (or one of the few times) you will see some of these musicians playing with Miles Davis (Max Roach, for one). Also, there are a few less common instruments featured, like trombone, tuba, baritone sax, and French horn. Regular bop instruments like string bass and piano are either absent or pushed to the background. Finally this is the only Capitol album in the Miles Davis catalog; most of the albums from this period were issued by Prestige. Oddly enough, Miles Davis himself would return to hard bop after this and eventually "cool" into a whole different subgenre in modal jazz.

Birth of the Cool was one of the first jazz albums I really studied hard. It was almost always the first disc I played when opening up the store during my Borders years and the songs were tight enough to get a good feel for the distinctiveness of each track.

In Venice (Albrecht Mayer, 2008)

The oboe has dethroned the guitar this morning and a full-on celebration of all things Baroque is encompassing my work day.

This is another example of "careful what you wish for". In this case, I was telling my aunt "I'd like a copy of the Four Seasons" and next thing I know I get not only that (from the Academy of Ancient Music) but two Albrecht Mayer albums to boot, one that's all Bach, and this one, a whirlwind tour of Italian Baroque. After an isolated movement from "Winter", Mayer (with the New Seasons Ensemble backing him) delivers oboe concertos from Vivaldi, Platti, Marcello (Alessandro and Benedetto), Lotti, and Albinoni. In all fairness, I'm such a neophyte only the first and last names ring any bells with me. Nevertheless, the album has a strong theme throughout and flows nicely.

I'm not sure I can really use this as a jumping off point to explore new musical territory since I'm still inclined to stick to the best known works and get comfortable with them. However it's good to know that I don't have to settle for just Vivaldi, Handel, and Bach as I explore the Baroque period.

Truth (Jeff Beck, 1968)

Of the three lead guitarists spun off of the Yardbirds, Jeff Beck had the most varied and difficult journey. While Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page worked within band contexts in their post-Yardbirds careers, Beck, who logged the most time in the band, went straight into his solo career with this, his first album.

Although the album enjoys generally high reviews, I've always seen it as a bit of a mess. This probably has its roots in the singles between the last Yardbirds recordings with Beck and this album, which has generally sweet A-sides backed with gritty B-sides. Generally the latter sound is in charge here, though it doesn't always work so well. Case in point with the opening track, a re-working of "Shapes of Things". I'm not a huge Rod Stewart fan, but it feels like a plodding clunky version of the original. From there it bounces around blues numbers and odd cover choices. None of the songs are bad, but the order can be jarring at times. Especially near the end, with the crescendo of "Beck's Bolero" everything else feels tame.

The Rod Stewart-Jeff Beck era ended the following year after the brief Beck-Ola and half of the old Jeff Beck Group would be mainstays in the Faces in the new decade before storming off into solo careers and, in Ronnie Wood's case, the Rolling Stones. For such a blues-driven debut that gave very little thought to the weakening psych rock scene of 1968, Beck himself would wander into more jazzy territory in the 1970's. Although he lent his services to many other musicians, he never fully immersed himself into any band identity (I think Deep Purple tried twice with no such luck - not sure that would have been good for anyone's health in hindsight).

I don't know why I don't have more Jeff Beck stuff. There's a lot of good albums out there and many are closely linked to other albums I have and enjoy.

The Real Folk Blues (Sonny Boy Williamson II, 1966)

Seeing that about 90% of what's here has some kind of connection with the blues, it's kind of sad that very few albums actually have the "blues" tag, and of those R.L. Burnside represented a less traditional and largely undiscovered scene (until the 1990's anyway). Meanwhile Sonny Boy Williamson (the second one) and others were heavily exploited and largely uncredited in the 1960's British Invasion and subsequent blues boom later in the decade. Some were too deceased to protest, and others just plain had no recourse to say anything to stop their music from being pilfered. Williamson's approach was a little different in that he actively worked with the British bands (namely the Animals and the Yardbirds). When this compilation of recordings, dating from 1957 to 1962, was released to show the world the blues pre-dated the Beatles, Stones, and all of the others, Williamson had already passed away the prior year.

Williamson's compositions and performances have ended up on myriad releases by rock artists. Most notably from this particular set is "One Way Out" (Allman Brothers Band), "Checkin' Up on My Baby" (John Mayall, Tommy Bolin), and "Bring It On Home" (Led Zeppelin, Dave Brock/Hawkwind). Even the songs that don't immediately jump out have readily recognizable riffs and licks incorporated into numerous rock songs transcending subgenres.

Another compilation (More Real Folk Blues) followed from Chess in 1967, a part of their series of same-titled compilations for various blues statesmen, and the same holds true with that set. My particular CD has both short albums on a single disc.

REAMDE (Neal Stephenson, 2011)

No I haven't stopped reading. I was just doing my annual 1000+ page book read. Last year the honor went to Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth (he will likely be my big read of 2015), which clocked in just a hair under quadruple digits. When you set a goal of 52 books a year and you aren't a fast reader, adding huge books like this to your reading queue naturally gives you pause. In fact, I decided not to add a 1100 page biography of Beethoven to my queue mostly because of its length, though the glowing reviews gave me a measure of regret. Fortunately I put down enough quick and short reads earlier in the year to earn about a four-book buffer, which this book pretty much destroyed. So the good news is I'm still on track!

The last novel Neal Stephenson wrote that was under 800 pages was The Diamond Age, from way back in 1995. In 1999 he blew the lid off of the 500-page barrier with the release of Cryptonomicon and there was no looking back as he embarked on the adventurous 2400-page 3-book Barque Cycle and the wildly imaginative Anathem. All of the aforementioned works here are pretty different from one another, so it would be folly to assume REAMDE would be related to any of these works.

Basically, to the utter disappointment of those who loved Anathem, this is a very long techno-thriller and falls somewhere between Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon, though I don't think loyalists of those books would find this one to be better than those. It's a return to the virtual vs. the real a la Snow Crash, but with the modern day and recent history sensibilities of Cryptonomicon. We're in the here and now, so there isn't a whole lot of spectulativeness. We aren't plugging in computers to VR machines and the structures of society are largely familiar to our own. If you were expecting pizza delivery mafia conglomerates, they aren't here. On the other hand, there is a strong "virtual world" component to this novel and the importance of games and computer networks cannot be emphasized enough in the narrative, even when the characters are running around the streets of China or the backwoods of Idaho.

In the end, I agree with most that this isn't Stephenson's best work, but it isn't a waste of time. Plus uses the narrative style that is distinctively Stephenson. Sometimes he has such a strange way of wording things you can't help but laugh. Without spoiling anything, I will say that I appreciate that this book has an actual ending, something strangely difficult to find in his novels.

Aside From Me (Kaluka Bone, 1998)

They say to write what you know and in this case this is the probably the only instance here (for now) where I actually know somebody in this band and have met most of them. So this actually makes this post a bit more awkward since it's easy to wax on about this band and that band from a healthy distance, like a critic, but considerably harder when you have a personal link to the band.

In this case I know this band from being friends with the bass player since high school. I've met the two guitarists/singers briefly, and I don't think I had the honor of ever meeting the drummer. In 1998 it seemed pretty natural that since they were in a band and I was at a radio station we could help each other out. It was a good debut album, showcasing a bunch of different styles and probably resembling something of what their live set would sound like. The influences are fairly well-studied, with more than a little nod to the post-grunge sound that was starting to dissipate in the music scene around this time. Everyone had a favorite around the radio station, but it was probably "The Waiting" that carried the most traction of any of the songs ("Body vs. Mind" was a personal favorite of mine though).

If I remember my history correctly, the band was formed by Rich and Paul after being let go from some other band (Clockwise?). Ben and Dave were brought aboard for their new band. I think a few more songs were recorded after the album, but I'm not aware of any other album. Dave left the band and a few years ago was seen on national TV behind the drumkit of a performance by Sondre Lerche and is a regular in the band Jupiter One. They added a third guitarist and Ben left the band at some point. They sort of re-formed under the moniker "Mrs. Grundy" a few years later and there's some mention of an outfit called the Border Cops that I know nothing about. These days, other than Dave, it seems like the Kaluka Bone guys are settling down in life, which most people do in their thirties (I'm raising my hand here). I had one of those moments this morning thinking that it's been 16 years, which is the same amount of time between the Beatles appearing on Ed Sullivan and John Lennon's assassination. That seemed like a really long time for that period, but 1998-2014 still seems like a blink of the eye in a lot of ways.

Next time I see Ben, I'll try to fill in the blanks. I don't have the cover handy, so you're getting an awesome picture from their Google Plus site. Of course there's always the comments box if anyone dares to go there...

Body and Soul (Coleman Hawkins, 1995)

You don't have to call your Coleman Hawkins compilation Body and Soul...but it helps. It gets confused people like me to buy the wrong version! Now, there is some overlap with the other Body and Soul that graced this blog earlier (we don't do repeats here, at least not until I've run out of albums), but this ended up being different enough to keep around. Whereas most of the tracks on the RCA version are songs preformed by Hawkins or some band carrying his name, most of the tracks on the Topaz edition feature his work within other combos and orchestras like Spike Hughes, Fletcher Henderson, and Leonard Feather. Also this compilation covers the years 1929 to 1943, while the other one runs from 1939 to 1956 (the title track appears to best represent the small overlap). Therefore this serves as a nice bridge from the Louis Armstrong-Hot 5 and 7 stuff I have to the Swing Era and beyond. The opening tracks are very "hot" sounding and follow very naturally from Armstong's body of work during the 1920's. By the end of the run we are comfortably in swing mode with lush orchestration.

Red Sails in the Sunset (Midnight Oil, 1984)

I've seen this album referred to as the band's "White Album" in that a lot of different musical styles are featured, sometimes within the same song. You've got some danceable stuff ("When the Generals Talk", "Who Can Stand in the Way"), a little guitar blasting ("Best of Both Worlds", "Kosciusko"), two tracks that mix up acoustic with modern beats ("Sleep", "Minutes to Midnight"), a couple oddball (mostly) instrumentals ("Bakerman", "Bells and Horns in the Back of Beyond"), and three grim epics ("Jimmy Sharman's Boxers" - their longest song* and NOT about underwear, "Harrisburg" and "Shipyards of New Zealand"). And if that isn't enough, Peter Garrett lets drummer Rob Hirst take the mic for a couple tracks. Why not?

Nevertheless, Red Sails is a natural sequel to the transformative 10 to 1. Both albums clearly reject the Head Injuries era approach in favor of slicker production and more expansive instrumentation. While I'm not a giant fan of "eighties" style (whatever that is), the band's timing was impeccable when it came to moving with the times. From this point onward, the albums started getting further apart. Although Diesel and Dust continues the traditions established by this album and its predecessor, the band would once again sound-shift into the 1990's with Blue Sky Mining and its ilk.

I first heard this album way back in the early 1990's when my cousin shared some songs off a cassette tape version he owned. He claimed this was their first album, no matter how many times I tried to work Head Injuries (one of my earliest gets) into the conversation! Of course as I swept through the catalog I picked up the full album eventually and it currently stands as one of my favorites.

* - oops, technically that goes to "Nothing Lost - Nothing Gained", the closing track on their first album

Franz Ferdinand (2004)

If you were hoping for some Throwback Thursday content, look elsewhere. If you consider this Throwback, then you must be considerably younger than I.

I accidentally stumbled on Franz Ferdinand in Doves-like manner, meaning I heard a track ("Dark of the Matinee") playing in the music section at the Borders I worked at and ended up putting my employee discount to work. It's an exceptionally good debut album; in fact the following album, You Could Have it So Much Better, was inevitably a disappointment, through no fault of the band other than that their debut was just too good.

For some reason 2005, I once snidely remarked, was the honorary eleventh year of the 1980's. Eighties nostalgia was one of the more regrettable aspects of the previous decade. As this album hit the year before, it isn't guilty of this, though the inspiration hits somewhere very close to 1980 and early new wave. Just as the post-grungers had a deep affinity for the early 1970's, this band has clearly studied the music of 35 years ago. It's danceable, but not overly synthetic.

I never got around to listening to the third or fourth albums, but the band has been kind enough to stream them on YouTube, so I'm doing a little catch-up work today. So far, so good three tracks into Tonight.

Head Hunters (Herbie Hancock, 1973)

This album is a landmark of jazz fusion (in the "jazz funk" subgenre) and one of the few in that category to regularly sit in top albums list for both jazz and rock. Herbie Hancock, after a period of wandering from hard bop, through an experimental phase, finally settled into something far more "mainstream" than his peers. His rhythm section was fairly new, while his horn player, Bennie Maupin, was a veteran of the nascent genre (and another Miles Davis alum). Each album side is features two long pieces and the longer pieces can be viewed in movements rather than solid slab of one style. For example, on "Chameleon" there are four distinct parts: the main synthesizer-driven opening, an electric piano and fast drums sections, a return to the synths, then a coda featuring a brief solo from Maupin.

I've got two Herbie Hancock albums in my collective, this one and Maiden Voyage. I can't say which I like better since the two are so different from one another. That's the fun thing about Hancock's extensive solo career - he never seems content to settle into any one genre for long. Just as this album is far removed from his early solo albums, in an equal number of years into the future he would be adding turntables to the mix, then ten years further ahead dabbling in acid jazz. Not every single album is a winner, but it's a powerful repertoire.

In Deep (Argent, 1973)

Released in the shadow of their biggest hit ("Hold Your Head Up"), In Deep had to deal with expectations the band had never had to live up to until now. Considering the band originated from the unexpected success of Rod Argent's old band right on its very last breath, Argent was largely immune from high expectations one may have expected from a successor band to the Zombies. Their earliest hit, "Liar", actually ended up benefiting Three Dog Night far more than the author, Russ Ballard, or the band. The second album, Ring of Hands, didn't unleash anything of note although it was a fine album. Then of course came the third album and a newly-earned reputation as a key prog-rock player. "Hold Your Head Up" is a bit of an anomaly in the Argent catalog in that it wasn't a Russ Ballard song, but a Rod Argent/Chris White creation, and they tended to have more progressive leanings. All Together Now shows the divide pretty well, but it has nothing on In Deep, which awkwardly tries to balance a Ballard-dominated A side with an Argent/White B side.

Ballard finally gets his hit-writing mojo back on this album, with "God Gave Rock and Roll to You" and the secondary "It's Only Money". While these are the more commercial portions of the album, they both show a growing dissatisfaction by Ballard of the music biz and probably his strange role in what often felt like somebody else's band. Meanwhile Argent, with his old Zombies bandmate Chris White, continued to move in a more prog direction. Although none of their songs here (except for minor holiday hit "Christmas for the Free") carried this album they are among the most interesting of the band's entire catalog, be it the moody "Losing Hold", the instrumentally-diverse and bouncy "Be Glad", or the mournful "Candles on the River". The album weirdly closes with the decidedly rootsy un-prog "Rosie", highlighting my main problem with the album, which is that it is sequenced poorly, with jarring transitions between the Ballard and Argent/White songs.

I picked up In Deep as a two-fer with it's successor album, Nexus, their final album with Ballard, which continues the Ballard vs. Argent/White issue. Following Ballard's departure (plus Chris White disassociating from the band), there was nothing to tether the band to a commercial sound, resulting in a hyper-prog couple of albums bordering on jazz-fusion. Finally, Rod Argent dropped the fiction of the Argent band name and launched his solo career.

Mozart: Symphony #40, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, et. al. (Various, 1995)

At the risk of sounding like an advertisement, this is a great deal for anyone wanting their first taste of Mozart. I got mine from the World's Largest Store for under $4.00 in convenient mp3 format. I'm not sure why each individual track goes for $1.29 or who would want just individual tracks.

I'm not a classical music scholar, but this compilation presents top-notch legacy performances from Wilhelm Steinberg's Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (the two title pieces) and Sir Colin Davis's Philharmonia and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (Serenata Notturna and the Overtures), all dating from the early 1960's.

Now if somebody can tell me where I can find "Jupiter" (Symphony 41) without having to re-buy No. 40 and not pay a zillion dollars. It's hard enough to manage just one version a symphony; I'm too much of a novice to take on a second!

Them Crooked Vultures (2009)

Supergroup alert! I was thinking if it was just my imagination or are there a lot of these around these days, so I went over to the Encyclopedia Anyone Can Edit and scrolled way down from the days of Cream and Blind Faith down to the last few years. Sad to say I must be getting old because most of the groups I saw were all composed of groups I had never heard of. 2009 was a fairly beserk year for disparate musicians getting together to make music, and TCV's multi-generational approach deserves special mention.

It's not too hard to get Josh Homme and Dave Grohl to record together. After idly mentioning he liked Queens of the Stone Age, Grohl suddenly found himself behind the drumkit for that band's Songs for the Deaf. Just last year he subbed in for their most recent album following a little drummer-drama.  Overall, this album feels more like a natural sequel to Songs for the Deaf which for me is a good thing; Grohl turns Homme into a wacked-out riff bashing machine anytime the two get together, something that feels a bit lacking on other QOTSA albums. Where TCV gets strange is when you throw John Paul Jones into the mix on bass and keyboards. It's not an obvious feeling, as JPJ isn't really known for any crazy-bass antics. In fact he's more noticed when there are some keyboard bits, like the funky clavinet (a la "Trampled Under Foot") on "Scumbag Blues". So in the end I can't officially say that JPJ was indispensable in the birthing of the album, but it's pretty cool that he's there. I mean, the guy is living history.

Considering the stupid-short lifespan of the average supergroup, I'm not sure if there's going to be anymore TCV albums, considering the very active recording careers of the two younger members. The marketing of this album wasn't particularly good, and I don't think I would have been aware of this if an astute former colleague of mine hadn't brought it to my attention.

'Round About Midnight (Miles Davis, 1956)

I've gotta hand it to Columbia. The guys are marketing geniuses. Think of the first (and second, and third) Miles Davis albums you picked up and they were probably all from that label. Chances are this was quite likely one of them (my third or fourth, I think). His entire Columbia catalog has been reissued with eye catching packaging, deluxe editions, and extensive liner notes, plus the pitch labels slapped on the front of each CD heralds the album inside as a jazz masterpiece (and usually rightly so).

'Round About Midnight marked the beginning of a transition for Miles Davis that would transform him from just another bebopper into a jazz genius in his own right. First off, he sweat off the drugs and heroin, though deeply problematic for many/most of his sidemen, was off the radar. However, the "new" Miles Davis was increasingly skeptical about the future of bebop, a style he was both immersed in and trying to free himself from. Sessions like Birth of the Cool seemed to indicate he was ready to set off in a new direction, but other than a souped-up "Budo", this album doesn't have much "cool" about it outside of the opening of "'Round Midnight". In fact, with odes to Parker and Gillespie, this album shows Davis still very much in the bebop vein.

Davis would remain on Columbia for the rest of his career. Considering the earlier labels made a bit of a hash out of his early days, it was probably wise for him to stick with the label that upheld him as a jazz legend rather than ones that thought nothing of slapping together moments of genius with hazy heroin-fueled sessions. What Columbia may not have realized was that new styles would rule the day on future albums. Modal jazz would take off in a big way in the small combo recordings, cresting with Kind of Blue in 1959. Then of course there was the experimentation and fusion of the 1960's and 1970's, but that's well-chronicled elsewhere!

Animal Instinct (Gary Hoey, 1993)

Like a lot of people I hadn't heard of Gary Hoey until he had the good fortune of having his version of "Hocus Pocus" hit the airwaves. Even today his Metallica-ish rendition of the Focus classic still holds up, no yodeling required. Later, I bought the album secondhand while visiting friends in Santa Barbara.

Animal Instinct is a reasonable collection of heavy instrumentals. Like a number of his peers, there's some genre-bending going on, from speed metal to Texas blues, and a cute little acoustic ditty at the end, though I must confess I'm not a fan of baby sounds on music of any kind. Sometimes it sounds like Stevie Ray Vaughn without the vocals, but fellow instrumentalists Joe Satriani and Steve Morse also come to mind. He's got excellent support from Tony Franklin on bass, Frankie Banali on drums, and Claude Schnell on keys, giving Hoey instant musical links to Blue Murder, Quiet Riot, and Dio. Again, this isn't really a metal album, but Hoey can shred with the best of them.

Hoey remains musically active to this day. Thanks to his involvement with Endless Summer II he's gained a reputation of being a surf guitarist these days. However, I haven't heard any of his work outside of this album.