October 2007
The Bee Gees – Greatest Hits
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Bee Gees Greatest Limited Special Edition 3 out of 5 stars Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson |
Ah, senior year in college…The freedom, the parties, the unidentified naked underclassmen passed out on the floor…All this bliss was shattered one afternoon when Mary, my roommate, brought home the soundtrack to “Saturday Night Fever.” My first reaction was, “This is on the wrong speed.” When Mary insisted it wasn’t, my second comment was “What happened? The Bee Gees sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks!”
I laughed at their newfound accelerated identity. Barry? Robin? Maurice? What happened? Was this same group of brothers who’d produced such heart warming ballads as “Holiday,” “I’ve Just Gotta Get A Message To You” and “I Started A Joke?” Well, the joke was on me. “Saturday Night Fever” soared to number one, and not one, not two, but three singles by the Bee Gees (“Stayin’ Alive,” “Night Fever,” and “How Deep Is Your Love”) and a fourth by former Clapton back up singer Yvonne Elliman (“If I Can’t Have You”) topped the charts. Everything the brothers Gibb touched for the next 4-5 years turned to gold, or at least platinum. Barry and Robin wrote the tuneful “Emotion,” a #3 hit for Samantha Sang (who never sang another noteworthy song on her own), and the Dr. Zhivago influenced #1 “Woman in Love” for Barbara Streisand; Barry scored a #1 with the indecipherable “Grease” sung by Frankie Valli, and all three brothers got some serious coin for writing the country bumpkin #1 “Islands In The Stream,” performed by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton. At one point on the singles charts, “Stayin’ Alive” was replaced as the #1 song in the nation by Andy Gibb’s “Thicker Than Water,” which was supplanted by “Night Fever,” then “If I Can’t Have You,” making Barry Gibb the only artist to ever have four #1’s in a row. All that success didn’t come without a price – by 1980, the backlash against disco had begun (and I was leading the charge). The growing perception was the Bee Gees had sold their soul (s) for a few shekels. Wrongfully accused as the Dr. Funkenstein’s who’d created the ugly disco creature (K.C. & The Sunshine Band, the Village People anyone?), the Bee Gees popularity slowly dissipated until falsetto-less albums such as “E.S.P” in 1987 and “One” in 1989 restored their reputation.
Now that my ears have finally recovered, here comes the release of “Greatest Hits.” Spread over 2 CDs, “Greatest Hits” 28 tracks include the previously unreleased “Warm Ride,” and remixes of your favorite bump and grind mirror ball missives.
Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb had placed seven songs in the top 20 in a mere two years between 1967-69, including the folky “New York Mining Disaster 1941,” the soulful “To Love Somebody” (written for Otis Redding), and “Massachusetts,” which was with a few votes of being the state’s song until someone mentioned the writers weren’t American. Sibling rivalry, specifically between oldest brother Barry and Robin prompted the latter to go it alone in 1969. The brothers reunited a year later, ushering the second phase of their careers with powerful pop ballads like the piano pounding “Lonely Days,” the weepy “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart?” and the tender “Run To Me.”
Punk, the scourge of all things melodic, and the baby steps of the dance music craze began blocking the Bee Gees progress on the charts. The hit machine was running low when the brothers Gibb convened in Miami in 1975 to record the album “Main Course.” Their previous album, “Mr. Natural,” had been an unnatural bomb. Despite producer Arif Mardin’s push for the group to explore their passion for R & B, they were uncertain if the change in direction would be successful. On their way to the studio each morning their car would pass over a small bridge. Barry took note of the bouncing sound the shock absorbers made and thought it might make a good backing track. The result was “Jive Talkin’,” which was delivered to DJs in a plain cover with limited information about the artist. The DJs went along with the ploy, playing the single without first announcing who the artist was. Sales skyrocketed even after a stunned public was told the perky pop sound was the new Bee Gees record. The successful third resurrection of The Bee Gees had begun – this time as leisure suited groove masters with an abundance of gold chains and chest hair.
The 2 CD retrospective takes all the high heeled hits and rump bumping best sellers and puts them in one neat package (naturally with a white cover to match John Revolta’s pants suit). “Don’t Throw It All Away (Our Love)” was a hit for brother Andy, a successful solo artist. His siblings had been providing Andy with material from the outset, including the hits “Shadow Dancing,” and “I Just Want To Be Your Everything” (you can easily hear his older brothers chirping in the background).The group often recorded demos that were nearly as elaborate as the finished product. In this case, The Bee Gees version is also superior to brother Andy’s more adolescent pop stylings. Barry’s vocal sits on the outskirts of Chipmunkville, but the reflective pace and Barry’s over dubbed offsetting baritone back up give it more of an adult flair.
“Stayin’ Alive” was Saturday Night Fever’s Rosetta Stone, a tribute to growing up in the tough streets of New York: (lyrics). The irony was “Stayin’ Alive” was also the Bee Gees full court Chipmunk press with Barry’s falsetto sounding as tough as a best two out of three falls between Paul Lynde and Charles Nelson Reilly. The pounding rhythm track, although completely fabricated, gave “Stayin’ Alive” staying power. With drummer Dennis Byron attending his father’s funeral, the Bee Gees used a drum machine to keep time, looping the same beat throughout the length of the song. So, there you go. You can blame Dennis Byron for the birth of disco.
If John Revolta can strut down the street to the beat of “Barely Alive,” then “You Stepped Into My Life,” is the soundtrack for a black-hearted confident villain, a disco terminator. Blue Weaver’s synthesizer slithers and Barry tempers the energy with a from his past strangled leads. It’ll help you understand the allure of The Bee Gees’ dance music.
“Children of the World” deals from a major strength – the brothers well oiled voices. It starts off acapella, and what little music there is comes mostly from Weaver’s gurgling synthesizer. “From arrival to survival...” Is that a comment on the boy’s career? Even if you despise the Bee Gees disco period, this one has enough of what brought them to our attention in the first place (catchy lyrical content and three part harmonies) to make it worth repeated listens.
“Night Fever” typifies the interesting yin and yang of the Bee Gees disco music. Most of the song is a pleasurable swirl around the dance floor, the wocka-wocka guitar, the flood of keyboards, and the brother’s hypnotic harmonies. But every once in a while the gerbils get into the mix. When Barry goes into full shriek mode it’ll give you the night sweats.
Barry gets his man-badge back during the verses of “Nights on Broadway”: “Heeeeere we are..” bellowing from the gut like a jump suited Luciano Pavarotti, and an underused Robin gets to light up the recording booth with a line of two.
“Fanny (Be Tender With My Love)” from “Main Course” is a stylistic holdover, pre- Barry vein-in-the face backed up by the Chipmunks. You’ll get to hear Barry as he’s supposed to sound – human – and the Bee Gees when their music was still rooted in ballad rather than boogie. Not to disappoint the mirror ball crowd, this is one of the first songs where the eldest Gibb tested out his window-shattering falsetto near the very end of the song. Despite that brief lapse in judgment, “Fanny,” deals with relationships rather than rhythms, making it easier to identify with the narrator.
Every disco dude and diva needed a breather, a song they could clutch and grab to. Enter “How Deep Is Your Love,” which plays off the Bee Gees’ breathy vocals. There’s no straining, no pre-stroke vein popping out of the middle of Barry’s head. If chipmunks could have orgasms, they’d sound like this. (P.S. I once had the opportunity to sing “How Deep Is Your Love” at a party. I was very hesitant about singing this one, but someone has requested it, so we added it to our set list at the last moment. By the time we hit the chorus, “’Cause we’re living in a world of fools, breaking us down, when they all should let us be, it belongs to you and me,” a group of soccer moms and Wall Street dads were on the dance floor, clutching each other tenderly. Ah, the power of love.)
When the Bee Gees disco demolition derby went off the road, it usually careened head on into a wall of bad taste. Disco was meant be danced to, not listened to, so when you actually sat down and cocked your ear toward the speaker and diffused some of this through your skin, you realized where the expression “Disco sucks” came from. “You Should Be Dancing” is a prime offender, with The Bee Gees baying like unbridled donkeys alongside an army of Tito Puente wannabes that includes…Stephen Stills! Stills spent part of his childhood in Latin America, but that’s no excuse for him to imitate Ricky Ricardo. This horn flooded repetitive frenzy is meant to sound celebratory – instead it sounds like a trio of Perdue chicken’s being strangled. Dance, but don’t listen too closely.
If you’re wondering what the Budweiser ferret was doing before he made it in commercials give “Tragedy” a good listen. (Word has it the ferret is also using the name Neil Young.) High pitched is one thing, being able to shatter six inch glass is another. ”Tragedy” is just that – an unlistenable calamity.
There are other tragedies set to music on “Greatest hits,” including the brothers’ version of the Yvonne Elliman hit, “If I Can’t Have You,” which crosses the line separating tempting from torture. The boys occasionally reach for heights they shouldn’t, their voices quivering like a trio of sun worshippers in their underwear at the Artic Circle. Elliman’s version had a sturdy, hammering beat and was brimming with sexuality. There’s no hint of the narrator getting lucky here, as Barry comes across as having the sex drive of a eunuch.
The boys warble about their hearts or their livers hanging out in “Love You Inside Out,” but it sounds more like their trusses have given out, and in “Too Much Heaven” they complain that “Nobody gets too much heaven no more.” Well, that’s because they have to sit through the hell of this mawkish imitation of a ballad.
The Bee Gees had an unnatural love for country music, and with the exception of “Marley Purt Drive” (from “Odessa”) and Maurice’s lone vocal, “Lay It On Me,” (from “2 Years On”), their forays into Hicksville belong in a spittoon. “Rest Your Love On Me” is no exception, combining pedal steel, an Australian drawl, Arp synthesizer, and a disco cadence. Somewhere the corpse of Hank Williams is putting in his false teeth and coming after the boys, because this song bites.
Aside from negating one of their strong points – their angelic harmonies – The Bee Gees disco sound proved hazardous to their health. Robin, whose delicate vibrato always seemed in danger of making him sound like Elmer Fudd, began to stand stock still during live performances, his finger stuck in his ear, supposedly to keep his pitch, but likely to block out the noise. Barry, who was stuck singing in an exaggerated falsetto 2,000 octaves above his normal level, could be seen red-faced, a large vein protruding from the center of his forehead, a high note away from a stroke. As for Maurice, well, he’s dead isn’t he? See, disco kills.
Looking back, it’s still amazing that a trio of Australian brothers could become the de facto fathers of disco. But whether they were creating songs in the realm of folk, pop, baroque, adult contemporary or disco, Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb could always come up with a good hook or a quality piece. That combination guaranteed success, even if you think they sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks O.D.ing on too much Maxwell House.
Posted October 4, 2007 Permalink
John Fogerty – “Revival”
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John Fogerty Revival 3.5 out of 5 stars Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson |
Like Larry Holmes down for a count of 9 ½, John Fogerty has slowly climbed back to his feet, cleared his head and fought back like a champ. He took it on the chin for years after Creedence Clearwater Revival’s break up in 1972, weathered the catty remarks of his bandmates (especially the sour grapes criticism from his late brother, Tom), and then battling his own record company for control over his own songs. In a bizarre twist of litigious misfortune, Fogerty was sued by Fantasy Records for plagiarizing his own material. Fogerty may have been Creedence’s lead singer, main writer, and lead guitarist, but he was a world class yutz when it came to business, signing the group to an outrageous deal that promised they’d produce two albums per year. David Geffen bailed Fogerty out of that ludicrous contract, but when Fogerty recorded “The Old Man Down The Road” for the “Centerfield” album, Fantasy’s owner, Saul Zaentz, sued him, claiming Fogerty stolen the melody from Creedence’s “Run Through The Jungle.” Zaentz expected to get paid for the privilege of letting Fogerty sponge from himself. (He might have won if he claimed Fogerty copped the tune from “Green River” instead.) He sued Fogerty again when the guitarist wrote “Zanz Can’t Dance” and “Mr. Greed” for the “Eye of the Zombie” album, claiming the sarcastic cuts were about him, and therefore, slanderous. The lawsuit left a bad taste in Fogerty’s wallet and he refused to play any Creedence songs in concerts if Zaentz stood a chance to make a penny. It wasn’t until 1987, when Fogerty was performing at a benefit and Bob Dylan told him that if he didn’t perform “Proud Mary” people would think Tina Turner had written it, that Fogerty finally acquiesced. Nearly two decades after they were filed, the lawsuits were finally dismissed. Now, for the first time in 30 years, Fogerty is back on Fantasy Records, and as the title suggests, he’s reclaimed his identity and his music.
Most of Fogerty’s solo releases have at least one studley stand out track. “Centerfield”’s best catch was “Rock N’ Roll Girls.” The walking dead “Eye of the Zombie,” had “Change In The Weather,” while the Grammy winning “Blue Moon Swamp” boasted the steamy “110 In The Shade.” “Revival” may not have that singular track that will make you want to give up your McMansion for a houseboat on the bayou, but it’s one of Fogerty’s more consistent albums, and it’ll tantalize your mojo with bits of the old Creedence charm. Two frank and biting assessments of the Bush administration, “It Ain’t Right,” and “I Can’t Take It No More” may not be award winners, but serve notice that instead of trying to hit a homerun, Fogerty is paying attention to the overall quality of his game.
In the official press statement about the album Fogerty said, “It’s just seemed like all the records I have made since Creedence Clearwater Revival have been pushed off center. I felt like I was dancing around the outskirts of what is my true center. With this album I really wanted to stay on the mark, right in the middle, right where rock and roll is. I wanted this to be easier, a lot more fun than some of the past records have been.”
There’s no doubt Fogerty has tapped into his Creedence roots and he certainly sounds like he’s having fun. His guitar work is polished and jumps out of the speakers like a fat bayou bullfrog hittin’ up a juicy fly.
The first cut, “Don’t You Wish It Was True” starts off with simple Hank Williams strumming that’ll remind you of Fogerty’s stint in The Blue Ridge Rangers. It slowly builds up to a mid-tempo sleepy rocker with John in relaxed voice, sounding like he’s sitting on the front porch singin’ to his kinfolk: “But if tomorrow everybody was your friend, happiness would never end, Lord don’t you wish it was true.” Fogerty’s fade out line is “What a beautiful day,” and even if you’re listening to this in the pouring rain (as I was), you’ll agree.
The lyrics to “Gunslinger” establish a theme that runs the length and breadth of the CD -- John’s a little fed up with Bush Junior’s overall Iraq ineptitude. Many of us are, but not everyone can put it so tunefully: “I think we need a gunslinger, someone tough to tame this town. I think we need a gunslinger. There’ll be justice all around.” The laid back packaging sounds like Fogerty’s been listening to John Mellencamp and takin’ notes. It’s no surprise Fogerty’s picked up on Mr. Middle America’s ability to deliver a topical heartland zinger – the drummer is Kenny Aronoff, Mellencamp’s stick man.
Another jab at George Bush? Yes, “Long Dark Night” is a venom-injected “Run Through The Jungle,” with a puff or two of harp to sharpen its sarcastic edge: “Be a long dark night before this thang is done.” Fogerty’s playing is bursting with intoxicating riffs, and you gotta love his riding Bush like an obstinate bronco, but this is one where Johnny’s perturbed attitude gets in the way of a the listener having a good time.
“I Can’t Take It No More” owes a great deal vocally to Little Richard and musically to Plastic Bertrand’s “Ca Plan Pour Moi.” It’s Fogerty’s third and best poke at Bush, the detainees, and the war. “I bet you never saw the old school yard, I bet you never saw the National Guard. Your daddy wrote a check and there you are, another fortunate son.” “I Can’t Take It No More” is a finger pointing tirade that’ll make Junior wish he’d been
4-F.
“It Ain’t Right” is a slammin’, no prisoners country boogie that mixes the wit of “Yakety Yak” with the pace of “Travelin’ Band”: “Another long weekend with your friends. I thought that party would ever end. Well after your rehab you’re gone again. It ain’t right. It ain’t right .Honey such as waste of life.” You listenin’ Brittany? Lindsay? It ain’t right that this song is so short. It’s one Fogerty’s more accurate derisive commentaries on today’s slipshod celebrity life style.
“Creedence Song” takes the stomp from “Suzy Q” splicing it together with excellent pickin’ straight out of Tony Joe White’s swamp guitar book. It’s not really about the group; it’s more about Saturday night dances down home: “Say you can’t go wrong if you play a little creedence song.” It’s cute and catchy. Hopefully Tony Joe is more forgiving than Saul Zaentz.
Wait a minute…There’s something unnatural about “Natural Thing.” Okay Tony Joe, you might want to call your lawyer after all. “Natural Thing” has got more “Polk Salad Annie” in it than any of Tony Joe’s songs on his last album. Fogerty wisely doesn’t copy Tony Joe’s style for the whole song, ditching the swampy stomping beat at mid point for a more revved up electric sound. You’d think after all those court battles, John would steer away from controversy. Hopefully when Tony Joe gets an earful of this he and John will remain friends, rather than becoming plaintiffs
Fogerty drifts into JJ Cale territory with “River Is Waiting.” The guitar swings like Cale’s “Crazy Mama.” Fogerty puts a little charge in his voice, and adds some Booker T organ by Tom Petty keys man Benmont Tench to give it a sanctified flair. It’s stuck in the same gear, but flows easily, like a lazy stream headin’ out of the muddy Mississippi.
On an album of inspired tunes, even the clunkers merit a spin. The majority of Fogerty’s best songs have been mid-or up tempo rockers. When he ventures into the land of ballads, as in “Broken Down Cowboy,” his horse often comes up lame. “Broke Down Cowboy” is a slow paced story about a dirt between his fangers type, a hard livin,’ hard lovin’ loser: “He’ll string you along, sing you a lovin’ song, but you’ll wind up alone.” A little too yippy-yi-o-ki-yay for my taste.
“Summer of Love” doesn’t have much to do with psychedelia. It’s got a modern more arrangement, grafting Matthew Sweet’s “Girlfriend” to Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love.” Slapping the two styles together is like asking Salvador Dali to spray paint a Hummel. Fogerty is well outside of his element, despite the very Claptonesque soloing.
“Somebody Help Me” continues the pattern of excellent, economical guitar work, but it’s mucked up by Fogerty’s zombie-like whispered vocal in the middle eight.
More cowbell! Fuzzed out guitar (again not a Fogerty staple) populates “Long Shot”: “Ain’t no doctor and I ain’t no noyce (nurse) ain’t no aristocrat, nothing could be worse.” Amen, John, but it’s a long shot listeners will be interested in this one. It’s very middle of the road and not too interesting.
It’s a long shot Junior will invite John Fogerty to the White House as long he’s sitting in the high chair, but “Revival” will get even the most broken down cowboy through any long dark night. It’s a natural thing you’ll have a good ‘ol time listenin’ to that Creedence song.
Posted October 4, 2007 Permalink
San Francisco Nuggets 1965-1970
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Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-1970 Various Artists 3.5 out of 5 stars Reviewed for Coffeerooms by Mike Jefferson |
Released in time to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love, Rhino’s 4-disc “Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-1970,” has 77 far out tracks that are bound to inspire multi-colored flashbacks. If you can’t reach nirvana meditating to this, then you’ve taken the placebo and need to grab a latte, put on that tie dye T-shirt you bought at the last Ratdog concert, light up a Macanudo and let the coolness get in to your vertebra.
Because of groups like The Beatles, Donovan, Pink Floyd, The Moody Blues, and Traffic, England is viewed as the cradle of psychedelic rock. But outdoor concerts, poster art, underground radio and mind altering drugs all originated in San Francisco, as did the music that inspired these artistic distractions. “Love Is The Song We Sing” is a musical touch stone to a time when the psychedelic revolution captured the imagination of a generation, when hippies challenged the establishment to make love, not war, and to tune in, turn on, and drop out. Its proof that good, bad, stoned or weird, it all started in San Francisco, baby.
“Love” is divided into four distinct themes. Disc one’s “Seismic Rumbles,” marks the shift from folk and pop in San Fran to heavier sounds. Disc two’s “Suburbia,” explores the psychotic and psychedelic music emerging in nearby Berkeley, Sausalito, Sacramento and San Jose. Disc Three, “The Summer of love,” assembles some of the classics of the era, and Disc four “The Man Can’t Bust Our Music,” examines the evolution of late 60s San Fran rock.
Familiar tracks are spread over the four discs, including “It’s No Secret,” by the Jefferson Airplane, featuring original lead singer Signe Toly Anderson; the heavy metal sonic overdose of “Summertime Blues” by Blue Cheer; “Soul Sacrifice” and “Evil Ways” by Santana, the superstars of Latin Rock; the eloquent “White Bird” with classically trained violinist David LaFlamme; and “Mercedes Benz,” a grizzled commentary about materialistic fat cats offered up a by jaded Janis Joplin.
The set’s main attraction is the bonanza of obscure tracks from cult bands of the period. Artists include the Warlocks (an early version of the Grateful Dead), the Sons of Champlin (whose leader, Bill Champlin would eventually join Chicago), and the Grass Roots (singing Dylan long before they became AM darlings). But the number of groups you’ve never heard of or have long since lost inside the cobwebs of your smoky memory is astounding. How about the Vejitables, who boasted Jan Errico, one of the few female drummers; the Tikis, who birthed Harper’s Bizarre, or Loading Zone, with Linda Tillery’s bad trip shrieks? And yes, there’s a few bands here I’ve never heard of.
Rhino sent out an eleven track sampler in advance of the box set’s release, and it offered a good cross section of what to expect. The set begins with “Let’s Get Together,” written by firebrand folkie Chester Powers. Powers was better known as Dino Valenti, lead singer for another San Francisco band, Quicksilver Messenger Service. (He was also known by a third name, Jessie Otis Farrow, and he wasn’t even in the witness protection program.) Facing serious time for a drug bust (for which he ended up in the slammer anyway), Valenti sold the rights to the song. “Let’s Get Together” had already been recorded by The Kingston Trio, We Five, and Jefferson Airplane, among others, so Valenti was satisfied it had run its course. When it was released as a single in 1967 by the Youngbloods, “Get Together” tanked, barely inching its way into the Top 100. Two years later, the song was picked by The National Council of Christians and Jews as their theme song in radio and TV commercials. Re-released, it peaked at #5. Valenti did his time, rejoining Quicksilver, whose popularity hit its apex with him at the helm, penning the classics “What About Me?” and the thinly disguised tribute to illegal tobacco, “Fresh Air.” Success was short-lived and the group fractured in 1972. Valenti reconstituted the band in 1975, but by then the chance to reclaim their notoriety has slipped through their hands. Valenti was felled by a brain tumor, succumbing in 1994. The tumor was said to have been the reason Valenti was viewed by his peers as an angry, scary, sometimes violent and bitter man, but just as many will say it’s because he didn’t get a dime for writing one of the peace generation’s most enduring anthems. “Love is the Song We Sing” begins with the roughly hewn folky Valenti original of “Let’s Get Together” that offers little of the peace and love he’s singing about, and ends with the Youngblood’s more familiar, gentler version. Aha, closure. What goes around comes around.
The Youngblood’s may have been one hit wonders, but what a hit it was. Their version of “Let’s Get Together,” retitled as a demand rather than a request (“Get Together”), was a starry-eyed, idealistic message of hope that sadly went unfulfilled. In the wrong hands the weighty message would have sounded preachy (as Valenti’s version did), but Jessie Colin Young’s fresh, boyish vocal gives him the air of innocence the song needs. The accompaniment is equally understated, from the quiet chime of the guitars to the short bass solo that introduces the last verse.
With lead singer Dino Valenti in jail for a three year stretch, Quicksilver sojourned on as a blues/jam band. (One of their best known songs without Valenti is a version of “Who Do You Love” that lasts for a mind numbing half an hour.) Actor Hamilton Camp’s “Pride of Man” registered on the charts and “Codine,” gave listeners a look at the world of an addict without the pain of withdrawal. David Freiberg is more a tortured communicator than Valenti, but what he lacks in ability he makes up for in realism, and guitarist John Cipollina should be canonized as one of rock’s groovy greats. “Codine” burns rope, and is an impressive high point of the set.
Country Joe and the Fish’s “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ To Die Rag” is one of those songs that made parents cringe. Every child of the Woodstock generation who owned the soundtrack album would play Joe’s rebellious intro loud enough for their ancestors to hear “…Gimme an F…Gimme a U...etc..” When Joe finished with his spelling bee urging listeners to tell him what the letters said, thousands of teens rejoiced in getting what they thought was a free pass to swear. (“But Mom, it’s on record!”) The song poked fun at the cavalier manner in which the government conducted the Vietnam War: “And it’s one, two, three, what are we fighting for? Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn, the next stop is Vietnam. And it’s five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates. Oh there ain’t no need to wonder why –WHOOPEE! We’re all gonna die.” Removed from a live audience, “Rag” is more of a good timey novelty piece with serious overtones, a protest song with its middle finger pointed at the establishment that supported the war.
The Charlatans were one of the first folk groups to embrace psychedelia. They chose their version of Buffy Saint Marie’s “Codine” as their first single, but the record company turned then down, promoting “Number One” instead. Singer George Hunter has a slightly stoned, goofy delivery -- Buddy Holly meets Jonathan Richman. Hard to believe country dung-slinger Dan Hicks was a member, and it’s even harder to believe he was the group’s drummer!
“No Way Out” by The Chocolate Watchband is replete with rippling drums and bumble bee guitar, mixed together with Alan Price-like organ runs. Aha! Flashes of backwards guitar, a staple of psyche music! “No Way Out” is a kitchen sink of styles and tempos. Every time you get comfortable with something, the format changes. It’s blues, it’s hard rock, it’s R &B, it’s interesting! The Jorma Kaukonenish guitar gets a little annoying, but the Pink Floyd suck the air out of the speakers ending befits its way out nature.
The Beau Brummels were best known for melodic pop singles, particularly “Laugh, Laugh,” “Just A Little” and “Sad Little Girl.” The distinctly romantic voice of Sal Valentino carries “Two Days ‘Til Tomorrow,” although Valentino sounds like Jerry Lewis with the shakes, (which is to say he’s sounded better). A little outside the realm of psyche, “Two Days ‘Til Tomorrow” indicates the Beau Brummels were downplaying the harmony thing and attempting to evolve with the times. They may not have survived the transition, but they went out singing.
Moby Grape was a band of dysfunctional rebels who fell victim to their own hype, drugs and each other. Resident nutter and guitarist Skip Spence wrote “Omaha,” with its “everything free in America” intro and country redneck sound that inspired the New Riders of the Purple Sage, Poco, Graham Parsons and other spineless country rockers. Spence, one of those semi-talented, heavily medicated types whose creative pilot light burned out quickly, once chased a band mate down the hall with an axe and wound up homeless, carrying on detailed conversations with himself in the street. Spence started out as the guitarist for Quicksilver Messenger Service, who had their own temperamental talent in Dino Valenti. He shifted to drums when he joined the Jefferson Airplane and then back to guitar when he co-founded Moby Grape. Perhaps all that shape shifting was an early indication of the schizophrenia to come.
“White Rabbit” is Grace Slick’s finest rock and roll moment, one of the first songs to couch drug references and sneak by the censors – much to the delight of the record buying public. It’s “Alice in Wonderland” set to music, with glimpses of the Dormouse, the Red Queen and a hookah smoking caterpillar, a surging, operatic synopsis of what a mind expanding journey was supposed to be like: “One pill make you larger…and one pill makes you small…” Marty Balin, Slick’s mortal enemy in the band, thought it was genius, and it is.
A pair of tunes on the sampler registered as buzz killing bummers. “How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away?” by Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks is dippy, twangy country-rock. Dan and his not-so-hot licks have somehow survived to annoy us to this day (only the good die young). He should have followed the advice of this title a long time ago. The Grateful Dead, the most trippy, dreamy, disjointed band to come out of San Francisco, serve up an edited version of “Dark Star.” This will speak to anyone who drank the brown Kool Aid and mistakenly envisioned Jerry Garcia as some sort of guitar deity. Decades removed from anything non-prescription, “Dark Star”’s lack of cohesiveness hasn’t improved – and this is the edited version. Please pass the Cherry Garcia.
You get every type of music imaginable in “Love Is The Song We Sing.” Some of the songs seem to revel in their offensiveness and primitive production – but that’s why they were obscure in the first place. The majority of the musical novellas are bound to take you back to an innocent time when everybody had long hair (or at least had hair), and the only flavor of coffee you could get was coffee. Ready? (I’m going to sum things up using some titles I’ve yet to mention…tricky, eh?)…
It’s no secret… “Love Is But The Song We Sing” will lead you down the golden road (to unlimited devotion)…So go find somebody to love, and roll with it baby…It’s fat city…Satisfaction guaranteed.
Posted October 4, 2007 Permalink
