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Saturday, March 29, 2014

#0071. Simon & Garfunkel - Parsley Sage Rosemary And Thyme [*****]

Can you be a big fan of an artist without owning or at least knowing all of their recordings?  I'd like to think so.  I have a couple of S&G collections and I adore them but I've never got around to listening to an album.  

This is apparently their third offering and it begins with the intertwined contrapuntal masterpiece Scarborough Fair/Canticle.  If you think you know it, listen to it again and really focus this time.  The layers added, round upon round are diaphanously subtle.  The changes come in the form of vocal harmonies on both the melodies and the intricacy of the incidental harpsichord and a second guitar.  Putting it that simply robs the song of praise for this is magical arrangement and coupled with their crystal clear and breathy voices, the result is acoustic nirvana.

The songs are short, most coming in under three minutes and using minimalist percussive hooks or bass lines along with the inventive melodies distinguish themselves clearly one from the other.  

Paul Simon's lyrics are an inspiration and a masterclass in capturing the intangible detail that makes ordinary life beautiful and succinctly expressing the agonies of existence.  I find I have to consciously veer my attention from the lyrics in order to hear the accompaniment properly.

There was a time, many years ago, I was travelling back to Swansea for Christmas.  I was standing on the platform at Reading waiting for the through train from London Paddington to take me home to Wales.  I had a Panasonic Walkman that I had recently bought, of which I was very proud because it was smaller than a cassette case and had a remote control.  Yes, I said "cassette"!  

In this time of iPods where 1000s of songs can be carried with us, that's not so impressive but as I sit here listening to "Homeward Bound", it is that memory that floods my inner vista so eagerly I can smell the engine diesel and feel the chill of the wind on that December day.  It is a bitter irony that my perception of "home" was to change dramatically over that holiday and indeed I would never be the same again.  There are times even now I look back wistfully on those days of innocent discontent and "all my words come back to me in shades of mediocrity".  It is Homeward Bound that somehow expresses my transient longing and my weariness of the world.

We don't spend the whole time lazily kicking up leaves around the eccentric folk framework.  The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine gives you a blast of a harsh rotor organ and a rockier drum pattern and some bluer notes, a lift in pace that is maintained in The 59th St Bridge Song.  It's a totally different feel, of course.  Feelin' Groovy (its alternate title as many know) has to be up there among the Happiest Songs Of All Time not to mention Most Distinctive Double Bass Lead-ins.   

I think the first time I heard it might've been Nana Mouskouri covering it when I was a child.  Either that or somebody who looks like her was singing it on Sesame St.  No I'm not saying she looked like a muppet[1]

The gravitas is given a boost with The Dangling Conversation as timpani and cellos enter the fray but the swooping drama of the arrangement fails to distract from the piercing observations, eloquently painted by the words.  I would love to quote from this song but I honestly cannot choose a single couplet over the others.  Tell you what; just read them yourself.   
   
When I saw the title A Simple Desultory Phillipic, my heart sank.  When I heard the introductory chords, my eyes widened in terror.  But when I heard the stomach curdling nasal whining kick in, I truly thought someone had gone back in time and convinced Hitler not to invade Russia.  This sound was unmistakably emulating Bob Dylan.  So somebody must have got a Delorean and changed history so radically it resulted in Simon & Garfunkel being shit.

But as I listened, I began to notice things.  Firstly, the arrangement sounds like somebody is listening to the band and making decisions about who should be heard and when.  This is not just a stereo picture being taken.  This is a stereo film being shot.  

Second, when Simon begins to sing he is imitating old rat face but there are notes in that forced speaking style; notes that follow the chords implied by that distorted riff.   It is choice musicianship even in this restrictive style designed by necessity to forgive the imperfections of its innovator.

Third, the lyrics don't directly deride Dylan but quoting from Rainy Day Women ("The man ain't got no culture, But it's alright, ma, Everybody must get stoned.") and then finishing with "I lost my harmonica" I get the sense that the pretentious title, and the deft handling of how the style _should_ be rendered are nothing short of the most invidious satire.  Genius.

The album closes with 7'o'clock News.  This is a clever piece of social commentary, delivered in the form of a very simple arpeggio accompaniment on piano with Silent Night being sung on one side and the news being read on the other.   

Thought provoking, entertaining and adept from edge to label, this is staying on my playlist for a long time to come.


[1]:  I'd've totally shagged her, btw, but she doesn't look the sort to put out to be fair.  Found this while I was fact-checking, though so not Sesame St as it turns out  

[2] If it turns out to be homage I shall be very disappointed and will be drafting a strongly worded greetings card to Mr Simon. 

Sunday, March 23, 2014

#0070: The Rolling Stones - Aftermath [****]

It was policy in the 60s to release a different version of UK albums in the US.  The version I have of this is the US release and I'm not entirely happy about that.  Nevertheless, that's the version this review is based on.

This cut begins with Paint It Black.  It's not on the UK version cuz in those days the singles were not included on the album.  That says a lot to me about how music was marketed.  Singles weren't used to promote an album or if they were you had to buy the single as well if it was what motivated you to buy the album.  It's not like they didn't have room on the vinyl.  

Paint It Black is a great song but for me it loses its way half way through.  I've heard it many many times and when it comes on I think "Yeah, great" but I've never got to the end without losing interest.

That aside, these songs are slinky beat babies and if I had to pick something the Stones had over the Beatles it's that.  They were funkier.  Even the more obviously blues rooted tracks like Flight 505 have a quality that I cannot pinpoint to a specific instrument or rhythmic signature.  It's in the audaciously worded Stupid Girl, Under My Thumb, Think; an incorporeal funkiness that makes me buck and grind right here at the table.  

One exception to this is Lady Jane and it's here I was impressed.  Mick Jagger shows a versatility with his vocal I've been unaware of all these years.  The harpsichord, dulcimer and acoustic guitars produced a beautiful, mellow sound and the lyrics, while grandiose in their mock-Elisabethan court style somehow escape sounding pretentious.

The drums are a bit messy on High and Dry, otherwise a good country stomp.  It's Not Easy has a sneaky little organ jabbing almost indetectably low in the mix that puts a cherry on top of this already magnetically animalistic tune.

So far, this is a delight.  Then comes I Am Waiting.  It's got a functional chorus that kicks in with drums after a verse carried by guitar and dulcimer/harpsicord and I can't help but feel like I _am_ actually just waiting for that chorus.  Not so great, really.

The last track is Goin' Home.  It's 11 minutes long.  Long closing tracks seem to be very common on albums from this time and in my experience to date, they destroy all the good work an album may have done.  Why do they do it?  Is it self indulgence?  Is it to fill time?  Do they think it lends credence to their image as "artists" to be able to play the same pattern round and round for four song lengths?  

This album is no exception.  11 minutes of one of the groovy ones with some extended solos might've been something but it's just a very loose quasi-skiffle on the same bass note with Jagger improvising over the top.  

To put it in perspective it is at least tuneful, which is a lot more than I can say for other Closing Epic Offenders.  But it's soooo tedious.  And to think they cut 4 songs from the UK version in order keep this.  It beggars belief.

I went and found those four tracks and they were great.  Take It Or Leave It was borderline but still a damn sight more engaging than Goin' Home.

I wanna make sure I come back to this so I'm giving it a 4 but only on the understanding that I will be making my own hybrid playlist that excludes that last track.   And probably I Am Waiting now that I think about it.  There.  Perfect.

I was born too late, y'no?  Think of the suffering I could've saved everyone.

#0069: Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention - Freak Out []

I don't think I have ever listened to a single Frank Zappa album in my life.  I've heard of Joe's Garage but I have no idea what it might sound like.  Friends of mine think Frank Zappa was a true genius.  Based on what I've heard in conversation, I get the feeling it's going to be too avante garde or experimental for my patience but I'm going to keep an open mind.  He apparently released over 300 albums before his death so it's in my interest to like this as it will give me a nice, juicy catalogue to pursue.

It's a double album, which makes me nervous.  Having sufficient material to fill 4 sides of vinyl is not enough to justify recording a double album.  The material needs to be of consistent quality with the best songs you intend to include.  Anything that doesn't meet your best should be tossed or used as B sides.

Blonde On Blonde was the first (rock) double album by a week followed by this.  Blonde On Blonde wasn't worth cutting down to a 7 inch single let alone a single LP and I really hope there's more to this than funny titles.

Case in point: Hungry Freaks, Daddy.  The opening track explodes onto the aural landscape with urgent pace and the tambourine used like closed high hat and a fat bass line playing a line reminiscent of the Stones' Satisfaction in unison with a tightly distorted guitar.  I'm on board.  Even when the almost-spoken vocals start, I am still engaged because he's double-tracked it and makes it interesting.  By the next section though, it becomes clear this is a distraction technique.  On its own the vocal would be quite poor.  As soon as the "singing" gives way to the instrumental sections, things improve again.  There is some great guitar work and I can even put up with the cazoo at the end of each turnaround but it's novel at best.  

I Ain't Got No Heart is a more traditional title but it's a kung fu B movie soundtrack interrupted by the same atonal political whining.  Painful, yes, but evidently there was worse to come.

Who Are The Brain Police is the sort of track that would be really funny if I was on acid.  During my experimental phase I would've even tried to like this.  It's got a very odd melody, which I'm sure I could explain if I concentrated hard enough.  But who wants to listen to music you have to explain?  It's unpleasant already but then goes into an arrhythmic, reverb-soaked playout section that has me reaching for the scissors.  Thankfully, it ends before I start to look like Snake Plisskin.

The next few songs seem to return to this planet, or at least to the solar system.  They're accessible rhythm-wise, the voices are singing melodies and if the arrangements are weird then it serves to separate them from how they would have sounded if produced by the Soul and RnB engineers of the time whose genre these closest resemble.
  
Wowie Zowie bounces along in a poppy kind of way, every so often declaring "I don't care if you brush your teeth" and then we're back to popular styles in a hall of mirrors.

That's what it is.  Every few songs there is something utterly alien like "You're Probably Wondering Why I'm Here" and then there is what must've been a song at some stage distorted and blurred and Pollack speckled with random instruments and effects.

It's evenly distributed between senseless excrement (Help I'm A Rock for example) and satirised pop but the melodious, accessible stuff isn't nice enough to counterbalance the fucking hideous racket interleaving. 

The last twenty minutes of this album are just agony.

For the first minute and 20 seconds of It Can't Happen Here you get random vocal noises, clicks and the title phrase repeated.  Then a drum beat sort of comes in for a bit and then we're back to the vocal crap.  It's like somebody left a few wooden spoons and empty biscuit tins in a psych ward and left the tape running.  But there was still worse to come.  

The Return Of The Son Of The Monster Magnet, the remaining twelve minutes of what was a promising album for 8 bars, is pure SDT.  That's Sensory Disorientation Treatment if you're not a fan of 24.  

It begins with the words "Suzy?  Suzy cream cheese?" and so heralds the start of something that made me truly wish I had never started this project.

Frank Zappa may have been gifted as a child but in the pursuit of frontiers, he lost sight of what was important.  This isn't entertaining, it's torture.  I'm trying to imagine somebody listening back to this inexcusable shit in the studio.  Of course, he produced the record but even so.  

In Rain Man, Raymond farts in the phone box and Charlie exclaims the question "How can you you stand that?"  I guess a visiting producer could ask the same question of Frank Zappa.  

How.  In the FUCK.  Can ANYONE.  Stand.  This.  Shit.  

No word of a lie, they are playing the SPOONS and repeating the words "cream cheese" over and over again.  And now playing that back sped up by a factor of 4 or 5.  For TWELVE minutes!

Remember what I said in the beginning about justifying the length of the album?  Yeah.  This could've been an inventive, ground-breaking, maybe even inspirational 35 minutes of actual music.  Instead, I feel a responsibility to not award even the two stars I was going give this so that I don't unwittingly lead you to walk onto the blade of this mindless cunt fudge.

Saturday, March 22, 2014

#0068. Paul Revere And The Raiders - Midnight Ride []

Chaaang Chaaang a chukka chang chang.  Now keep doing that for 42 minutes and you've pretty much reproduced this.  There  - I just saved you a fiver.  Please send £1 to my PayPal account for my pain and suffering.

There's nothing specifically wrong with it I suppose.  I just don't get why I could not die without hearing this.  It's so ordinary.  When it does veer from the not-even-particularly-well-executed machine pop it's to baleful, stinky cheese wank like Melody for an Unknown Girl.  It's a sweet enough tune but surely if Acker Bilk wasn't willing to play guest clarinet on it then maybe that's a sign.

I have no idea if Acker Bilk was even approached by the way but it's something to talk about while this unimaginative dross is spiraling down the plughole of my attention span.  

How dull is it?

It's so dull I got up and tidied the living room while it was on just so my hands would be too busy to poke myself in the eye repeatedly.

It's so dull I pumice stoned my feet and counted the flakes of skin that came off (93).
  
It's so dull you could use it to cure addiction.  Simply give the addict as much alcohol, cigarettes, drugs or biscuits as they want and play this album while they consume their chosen poison.  They'll be so bored by the end they won't want to partake of it ever again.  Of course, they would then need to be treated for narcolepsy.

Point made?  I think so.

#0067: The Mamas & the Papas - If You Can Believe Your Eyes And Ears [***]

I didn't remember until the track came around the half way mark that California Dreaming was this lot.  I'm learning not to just assume it was their song but I have confirmed it was written by two of them a couple of years prior to the release of this album.  From my perspective it's their most famous song yet Monday Monday (the opening track) was their only number one.  

Maybe that's not so weird.  Cultural importance can push things to the forefront more effectively than record sales perhaps.  If that's true, I think that's a good thing in general.  But it does expose the extent of how fucked up the world is that a laborious dirge like California Dreamin' could outstrip a song like Monday Monday.  

Here was a tune that starts with a catchy tag but has the self awareness to get away from it before it causes irritation.  It not only uses those hooks sparingly but the changes create blue notes and genuine shiver points that mitigate the record sales.  It is a travesty then that a progression as arduously repetitive and lyrics so boring Dido could've written them could exceed the cultural endurance of this plaintive requiem for the weekend.

Their harmonies are without question, beautiful and that is sustained throughout this album.  I'll say no more about it.  Just assume that if I comment or don't comment on a track, I think the harmonies are lovely.

There are times when they're too nice, mind you, and in those moments the saccharin levels rise to nauseating levels that are only made worse by the arrangements.  Specifically, these low points are Do You Wanna Dance, Spanish Harlem and I Call Your Name, proving that I am not dyed in the wool with regards the Lennon and McCartney catalogue. 

Got A Feelin is a well placed song on the album, being a slow song at track 3, chilling us out after the up beat very-obviously-about-drugs Straight Shooter.   Got A Feeling is a song of suspicion in a relationship and concludes with a dark foreboding that the unfaithful will get what's coming to them.  Throughout the song the rhythm emulates the ticking of a clock, symbolising that time is running out for the subject, which I like.  

It appears Aretha Franklyn did the most successful version of Spanish Harlem.  I've not heard it but I can't imagine it's up to much considering the base material.   In context, this now means five tracks on the spin have been a disappointment with California Dreamin only offering relief cuz it's familiar.

In short, after a good start with the first 3 tracks, it's all starting to look a bit dicey for the foursome but then, just in the nick of time Somebody Groovy comes along.  This is a five star song on a two star album and thankfully, it is every bit as groovy as the title suggests.

Sadly, Hey Girl is a Beatles emulation that doesn't really hit the mark and You Baby, whilst a considerably better paint-the-fence[1] boogie is still not up to the standard I had hoped would endure throughout.  

The album closes with another addictive groove monster in The In Crowd and with the girls taking the lead vocal it's very reminiscent of Darlene Love or Nancy Sinatra and there's fuck all wrong with that.

It's short and at points it's very sweet but it lets itself down too often.  I can see that perhaps it was done in the pursuit of variety but they strayed too far from the path of grooviness for my liking.

[1] I don't know what the dance is called if it has a name at all.  But it's that 60s step where you alternate your weight every other up-beat from side to side while doing an exaggerated "paint the fence" move from The Karate Kid.  

Monday, March 17, 2014

#0066: The Kinks - Face To Face [*****]

The first thing that struck me was how much like the Beatles it sounded.  Indeed the opening track even had all the cheeky mischief of some of Lennon's more comical output.  But once that initial impression had faded, it became clear this was much more than another cloned cash-in on the Fab Four's era-defining sound.  

These songs have great character both lyrically and musically.  From the first song I knew that I was in the hands of a songwriter of skill and imagination.  Clearly defined and smoothly navigated A and B sections with melodies that negotiate each turn in a manner that delights and impresses.  

The production is interesting too.  From track to track, still operating in that reasonably primitive 60s framework, it's not just a formulaic treatment of the composite tracks with regards reverb and panning.  

Even on tracks that give way to what could easily be an endless and tiresome jam (Rainy Day In June), the spontaneity and transience of the idea is preserved by not making too much of it.  They appear as interludes used as epilogues.  

Occasionally we get sound effects interlaced with the songs and as introductions.  The lyrics discuss everything from big houses to the weather, and while those are fairly bland topics to explore in every day conversation it is the carefree delivery that stops it being dull.  I've a feeling Blur may have been influenced by The Kinks.

Little Miss Queen Of Darkness is a stand out track for me.  It's such a happy-go-lucky tune but the lyrics present quite an acerbic view of the subject.  Even here at what perhaps constitutes satire, still they manage to sidestep the pretentious.

12 tracks in and I'm enjoying it so much the idea of whether a song I know might be on here hasn't even entered my mind.  And then there it is; Sunny Afternoon.  Bold as a mandrill's buttocks it sits there in the penultimate position, familiar and comfortable and you would expect it to seem out of place among the album tracks.  But the fact is it's no better than any of the songs preceding it.  

I've always liked what I've heard of the Kinks but never got around to hearing more.  This is an album that is consistently good with very few weak points and even then they're not really stinkers.  I'm Not Like Everybody Else and Dead End Street didn't really grab me but these were only included on the 1998 re-issue as a bonus track along with a handful of others.

So I can breathe a sigh of relief.  I really didn't want to be let down by this one.

Saturday, March 15, 2014

#0065: Monks - Black Monk Time [*]

I shouldn't have looked.  It's a big 60s, cavernous sound and the opening track is a thrashing, 2-beat - a polka set at breakneck pace.  It sounds clean and spacious though and it's not looking too bad until the vocals come in.  It's at this point the question presents itself to my conscious mind.

"What the fuck is this?"

It's a guy shouting about Vietnam for a bit and then they launch into a chant-style chorus purporting that it is "Monk time".

Fair enough.  Not my bag and at just over two and a half minutes, it's not a total turn off.  The term "monastic silence" doesn't come from nowhere however and I do fear that by the end of this I may be praying for exactly that.  But not wanting to dismiss it out of hand just because they wanted to make an entrance I reserved judgement.  

I did a little background reading.  They were a group of US soldiers stationed in Germany.  They only made one album.  Like I said, I shouldn't have looked.  I shouldn't have looked because now instead of "musicians trying to do something new", I've got "boys having a knock about, working out their frustrations".  

The next track, ironically is called "Shut up" and it's a kind of fucked up tango - could be a foxtrot too, thinking about it but still fucked up.  It's got a slow, ascending, chromatic hook line played on an organ, which is quite reminiscent of the Doors.  Although we've yet to encounter any of their stuff on the list yet.  It's different from the first track which works in its favour but it's still kinda loud and unskilled.  

See?  I'm tainted.

It's still playing now while I form these thoughts and I have to say I'm blocking it out so I can concentrate.  If this was on, even quietly while I was trying to work or have a conversation, it would raise my blood pressure and make me very tense and uncomfortable.

Apparently a cult following has built up around this group, who have been touring since 1999 without recording any new material.  

There are tunes.  I just don't like them.  There are arrangements.  I just don't like them.  There are solos and harmonies.  I just - don't - like them.  Now, if I could just leave it there, things would be so much easier but I have to listen to the rest of the album.

The variety of rhythm isn't quite diverse enough to offer a break from the overused floor tom.  The bass follows the chord so predictably as to be unnoticeable.  The neanderthal sexism in some of the lyrics is particularly pitiful and the stereotype of the rape-and-pillage GI mindset is woefully supported in that respect.

The keyboard player can go quite fast on the one scale he knows but loses his way quickly and his phrasing is choppy and awkward - all the signs of someone playing with too much enthusiasm and not enough confidence.  

Drunken Maria is a very short song that could've done with being shorter.  I think it's a baritone sax that makes the arrangement interesting and the tune is peculiar and entertaining.  But once the words kick in, it just sounds like all the other songs.  Cut that second minute, or even replace it with a variation and they might've been onto something.

Love Can Tame The Wild offers a long overdue display of competency and I actually like it.  There is texture here and character.  The harmonies are well placed and balanced and the piano is quirky and interesting if still a little clumsy.

One star or two?  As far as likelihood that I'll return to this, it's one.  Yet, in spite of how much I disliked the sound, you can still see how much love has gone into this recording.  But giving points for effort sets a dangerous precedent.  When the arm returns to the cradle, this is just another 40 minutes I had to waste to get to one song.

Saturday, March 08, 2014

#0064: Bob Dylan - Blonde On Blonde []

I suppose I should be grateful that all 35 of this self-satisfied, eternally ready for a close-up of his own prostate's drivel are not on the list.  It's not surprising he's so prolific.  At my most prolific I was writing 8 songs a month.  I go for a shit twice a day.  Case closed.

This particular collection of slowly putrefying offal is #9 on the Rolling Stone list and the second most highly rated of his albums.  Considering what a ball-piercing waste of time Highway 61 Revisited-Over-My-Dead-Body was I will not afford this the same attention.  It's not like I haven't listened to it before.  I remember being told his definitive work was to be found on this and Blood On The Tracks.  I listened to them both at the time - a good ten years ago - and didn't get on with them then.  I think that's when I started developing my fierce animosity towards him.  How dare he squander my attention with this appalling display of amateur doggerel?

Onto the album.  Rainy Day Women #12 and #35 is the opening track and I like the oompa slash New Orleansy kind of feel but after the novelty of that and the cheeky giggle you get on "everybody must get stoned" you're left with "they'll stone you" followed by a random reference which if it does have meaning is esoteric and shuts off the piece in a pretentious little box.  And what a stupid title.  Do the lyrics shed any light on it?  Of course not.  What a cunt.

The next track - who gives a fuck what it's called - is a vehicle for his shit-sucking harmonica playing.  Harsh and abrasive, it cuts through my head like a bread knife through a tin of beans resulting in instant migraine and fury.

"They sent for the ambulance and one was sent.  
They said he got lucky but it was an accident."

He says that like it's meant to be clever.  Wanker.

Visions Of Johanna starts well and indeed has a nice groove but there are three things working against this piece.  His voice, his harp and the fact he refuses to edit his words so we end up with 7:34 of extraneous bum mustard.  There's still 5 minutes left of it but I've heard enough of this tosser to know it's not getting any better.  I've had hangovers where I felt less suicidal than listening to this.

"These visions of Johanna kept me up past the dawn."  

Well maybe they did, Bob.  Maybe they did.  But maybe they kept you up so late because there's three hundred and seventy fucking eight of them!

More of the same dry heaving vocal for another couple of tracks until we get to the next seven minute editing fail.  No effort made to make the song interesting.  Just verse after verse after random, senseless, tuneless verse.  

A few interminable tracks later, "she makes love just like a woman but she breaks like a little girl".  That's nicely put I suppose.  There's a bunch of reputable singers who have covered this.  Maybe I'll listen to their versions.  Actually, I think anybody who covers a Bob Dylan song should be given a writing credit for the melody they sing.  It's not like they had one to start with is it?  Somebody should get the credit who actually did the work, right?

Temporary Like Achilles is an interesting title.  Let's see what an abortion he can make of it.  Yep.  Same "note" repeated for the words, same hideous harmonica like a buzzsaw through a creche.   Five minutes and three seconds later, I'm thinking he needs to look up "Temporary".

Listening to this is like being in a sort of Hellish Narnia.  The witch Dylania cuts the webbing between your fingers and toes with a blunt razor soaked in chilli sauce and does it slowly over the course of 3 hours and when you come back to this world only a minute has passed.  How in the name of all that's holy can anyone bear to listen to this?  It is physically painful.  It is so shit that no stars is not low enough.  I'm gonna have to go back and take a star off one of the other reviews to make up for it. 

Last track.  Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands.  Eleven minutes twenty one seconds.  What can you possibly have to say that the preceding three sides of the album did not already cover with saturated ambiguity?  Huh? 

"With your silhouette when the sunlight dims
Into your eyes where the moonlight swims"

Good words but not exactly a new idea is it, genius?  Why don't you fuck off, Bob? Fuck off and die in a fucking hole with a live piranha up your arse you fucking detestable little twat.

#0063: The Byrds - Fifth Dimension [*****]

I don't know much about the Byrds other than they are near the top of a very long list of artists who have pulled Bob Dylan's execrable wank out of the u-bend of Mount Effluent and turned them into classics.

The stereo picture of these songs is beautiful.  The 60s trend of left and right panning separate instruments is followed here but whereas in other works you feel like your headphones are broken, an elegant balance is struck widening the sonic experience to heavenly levels.  Over the top of this is a canopy of harmonic cloud, full and fluffy and quite reminiscent of Crosby, Stills and Nash.

So I go look it up on Wikipedia to discover that most of the songs were co-written by David Crosby.  Duh.

I am finding time and again with these albums that the good stuff has variety within a clearly defined style but the Byrds demonstrate a versatility of style ranging between classic folk and almost rockabilly pop.  I don't know how I never listened to these sooner.  It is one of the hopes I had when I began this project that I would discover things that will become a regular part of my listening patterns.  It's this level of songwriting, musicianship and sound engineering that make it worthwhile suffering the worthless guff in between.

Stand out tracks include 5D, Mr Spaceman, Eight Miles High and a version of Hey Joe.  The much-covered Hendrix version was in fact written by a guy called Billy Roberts.  This rendition is almost unrecognisable from the crashing, heavy lead laden classic so familiar to most.  It's fast, a real driving song and not without its own intricate guitar flavours.

And then out of the back of that frenetic tale of murder and abscondment comes Captain Soul.  I'm thinking about doing a cover version of it.  It's bloody fantastic.

The remainder of the album continues to surprise and delight with interesting production ideas and lyrical hooks and basically I can't find fault with it.  I think I've just come in my (not broken) headphones.

#0062: Fred Neil - Fred Neil [*]

Heavy on the tremolo, please and sing it like your dog just died.

It's almost early Pink Floyd-esque how spacey the guitar sounds on this and then his voice comes in.  Deep and resonant, yes, a very good voice but it's incongruous to the sound.  As the album drags on - sorry, did I say drags?  I meant draaaaaags.   As it plods along, they dial back the tremolo and it sounds a lot more like traditional country-folk crossover.  

It sounds like he's trying to write Everybody's Talkin from Midnight Cowboy.  Oh wait, that is actually on here.  Oh so _that's_ who sings that.  Okay.  My bad.

So the guy spends half an album coming up with the best song on there and then doesn't have the imagination to try a different recipe or the sense to recognise that that idea isn't going to get any better.

He's got a really nice voice but for this style of music you've got to like the words and I don't really connect with them or the sound.  There are some great moments: the harp solo on Dadi-da is excellent and certain people would've done well to investigate the existence of actual musicians like this when they recorded their septic cock drippings. Mentioning no names.

Faretheewell is track 5 out of 12.  Oh how I wish it was.  You little bastard.  Still haven't got to Everybody's Talkin yet and already I wanna wipe up the guck on my cooker and drink it down with the bleach it's soaking in.

Oh thank god.  Everybody's Talkin.  Oh no, what's this?  This is a different version. Where's the lovely guitar riff and the skiffle drum beat?  Oh ffs, you utter wanker.  Why _why_ WHY would you fuck up a classic like that?  Ah ok.  Harry Nielson recorded the good version.  Thank you Harry for spotting the potential in this song.  This version is just stick-a-nail-up-your-jacksie boring.

I'm properly fucked off now.  I was really looking forward to hearing that and now I've got to suffer the rest of this twaddle with no hope of reprieve.  

Great harmonica on Sweet Cocaine but the song itself is too reminiscent of Cocaine Blues, which is a far more dextrous exposition of the substance that should've been called Instant Arsehole.

Green Rocky Road is the one track I actually like.  It's got a feel that carries you forward and a tune you want to sing along with.   It's too little too late but maybe it's just one of those albums that gets good at the end.

Nope.  The closing track is an eight minute hot skewer down the urethra called Cynicrustpetefredjohn Raga.  There is the suggestion of a skiffle beat somewhere among the previously redeeming but now directionless harp but it's lost in the cacophony.  Exacerbating the torture are the sitars, which are irritating at their best but in this case appear to have been left out in the sun covered in bird seed and what we're hearing is what happened when the pigeons arrived.  

You see?  This is what happens when you do too much cocaine.  You start thinking this sort of noise is acceptable or in some way constitutes art.  Preach subjectivity all you want but there have to be limits surely?

#0061. The Beach Boys - Pet Sounds [****]

It has not escaped my notice that the Rolling Stone top 5 albums are all from the 60s and 3 of them are by the Beatles.  You trying to tell me it's all been done?  Quirk's Law(*): Nothing is original under the sun.

Pet Sounds.  It was the Sixties people, you'll have to excuse me if I avoided listening to this for a long time because I assumed it was recordings of people's dogs and cats.

Among the great things about this album are the layered harmonies and massive amount of space created between the lead vocal and the other instruments with the use of reverb.  But it is that same reverb that gives me the sense that I'm listening to this band in an empty hall.  It is both pleasant _and_ annoying.  Like when your legs are waking up after you've been on the toilet too long.  

I'm not fond of the falsetto style but the melodies are lovely, memorable things and while the songs are richly detailed with distinct verse, chorus and middle eight sections, they are still kept short with very few of them exceeding even three minutes.  

Like The Who album, each song has its own character but is still characteristic of a distinct sound and as much as a part of me wants to dismiss its foppish, wet schmaltz I know that's the ageing rocker talking.  My inner blond surf Adonis, his tanned pectorals festooned with beads cannot resist these tunes.  He is driving a jeep down the sand of a California beach with a brace of surfy chicks in the back sharing a doob and shaking their hair out in the rushing salty air while Sloop Johnny B blasts out of the primitive stereo.

Aside from the biggies like Wouldn't It Be Nice and God Only Knows, many of the others with future listens I'm sure will become just as familiar.

The title track is not animal noises and for that we can be grateful.  I'm sure I've heard it used as theme music somewhere.  Maybe what I've heard is a 70s travel programme copying the style.  It's nice.  Very Ronnie Hazlehurst, y'no?

It could easily have been the last track which would give the album the same conclusion as Madness Absolutely which ends with The Return of the Los Palmas 7.  Instead, they save Caroline No for that last track giving that anti-climactic wistful end.

But that's not the end.  Just as Caroline No finishes, here comes the barking together with the sound of a train coming thru a crossing.  Does the train run over the dog?  Maybe that's my ageing rocker again.  


(*) - John Quirk, a top flight musical director and composer who gave me my first lesson in songwriting.  He was and I assume still is a very patient man, a great teacher and a multi-instrumentalist of exceptional talent.  Over the few years that I knew him during my time with the West Glamorgan Youth Theatre, he said a number of things that resonated with me and so I compiled them into a list, which in homage to the film Cocktail, I called Quirk's Laws.  Find out more about John Quirk.

Friday, March 07, 2014

#0060: The Beatles - Revolver [*****]

This is Rolling Stone's #3 album of all time.  It's not mine but it's up there somewhere.

Although the first time I heard Taxman, I thought my mate had put the Jam on cuz Start was in the charts at the time and the similarities are undeniable.  Of course, I had myself a bit of an anachronistic, arse-about-face plagiarism paradox.  Though, being a boy of 12 and a soi-disant dickhead to boot, one shouldn't be surprised.

Over the years Taxman has become a favourite as has Eleanor Rigby.  It is quite simply one of the best songs ever written.  The things that can be done with it when you're playing it seem almost limitless.  Check out Stanley Jordan's jazz version for an extreme example of this.  I do my own version on the piano.  It's a wonderfully woven tale lyrically too.  A sad tale of a lonely, unattractive woman.   Well, let's face it, she's probably not a looker is she?  The priest would rather darn his socks than take a punt and she hasn't even got the nouse to offer.  Jokes aside, the strings are the really special thing about the original version.   

Now I want to be careful not to gush uncontrollably over this album cuz it's not without its stinkers.  I'm Not Sleeping is ok I guess but sleeping is usually exactly what I end up doing cuz between that and George Harrison with his fucking sitars twiddling on like a dodgy curry house there's not much to keep my interest other than the promise of better things to come.

And they do come.  I don't want to commit to this but Here There & Everywhere is definitely a contender for my favourite Beatles song ever.  It's just beautiful.  Usually a song like this you would attach to a lost love and it would always remind you of them.  Not so with this.  The song is about nascent love and as such it detaches you from past love and begets you once more into that sickeningly fluffy world of candy floss, mooning and gawping.

From the piano on Good Day Sunshine, the illicit legend of Doctor Robert to the blaring romper stomper Got To Get You Into My Life and the ethereal, cosmic mind bender Tomorrow Never Knows, all presented with the ubiquitous trademark harmonies, this album is just exquisite.

If it wasn't for the weaker dross I'd've given it six.

#0059: The Who - My Generation [****]

Ever since Live-8 a few years ago when Daltrey and Townsend played, I've been referring to them as The Twho.  I've always loved them but I only ever heard the Polydor Story OF The Who compilation, Tommy and to a lesser extent Quadrophenia and Who's Next.  So I'm grateful for the chance to go back to the start and try to listen with fresh ears.

My Generation is their first album and unlike the Stones they've steamed straight on in with original songs from the off, which I dare say was seen as a bold move in those days.

Daltrey's legendary battleaxe vocal sits astride Moon's unbridled drumming while Entwistle, whom I heard Daltrey once describe as a "lead bassist" and the brains of the outfit put the flesh in between.  It's rich and gutsy and each song is distinct from the last.

Listening to the title track reminds me of their farewell gig in 1980.  Some farewell.  It was the first time I'd seen Daltrey sing "why don't you all fuck off".  Good job my parents weren't in.  I was so impressed with All The Swearing tho.

I'm only giving this 4 stars cuz some of the songs are lacking the inventive arrangement ideas seen elsewhere on the album.  The Ox was a bit of a nasty  surprise.  I thought it was going to be a bass feature but it's a thrashing drum-dominated thing with Jerry Lee Lewis-esque piano on it.  So that was a bit shit.  Some people like all that punky cacophony but it leaves me cold.

The lasting feeling I get from this album is the versatility in Daltrey's voice and how the songs manage to stand apart from one another while still being unmistakably Who songs.