The places we walk through or drive past, the sites we visit or that simply fall into our frame of vision, all have a heritage and inner spirit of their own. Even in our familiar everyday world, we are often just steps away from some location rich in hidden history and forgotten associations.
The ideational term “psychogeography” refers to the attainment of deep connections with man-made environments, usually by way of unplanned walks thru cities. It has been described as a “charmingly vague” practice by no less a man the French Situationist philosopher Guy Debord, who coined the phrase himself in 1953. It can also be seen as a more risk-averse cousin of today’s urban explorer subculture, which I’ve written about many times in this blog.
The preserved archway frame of Pier 54, where survivors of the Titanic disembarked from the Carpathia, now serves as the south entrance to New York’s Little Island.
But there is also a very practical side to psychogeography, that would do us all good to be aware of. The theory goes that the distractions and pressures of modern society have caused people to become disconnected from the public realm, leaving the one-percenters to run roughshod over the greater public interest. Understanding and appreciating our common built heritage can lead to thoughtful historic preservation and the design of more livable cities thru greater community involvement.
Winter’s bare trees reveal the vestigial facade of a paternalistic institution on Hawkins Street in Boston.
So while coming to understand the effects of the built environment can lead to a greater good, psychogeography can be both a passive pleasure or a wildcat experience. It’s something almost everyone has experienced, whether consciously or not. It can be the satisfaction of finding a great hole-in-the-wall eatery or tucked-away antique store because you wandered away from a usual walking route. It could mean tiptoeing into an off-limits but unguarded location to do a photo session with friends or discovering a fascinating historical vestige steps away from a throng of selfie-taking tourists, as in my photo below.
This statue of Ethel Barrymore, and of two other former stage icons, evoke an earlier era of Broadway, just a few feet away from the back of a gigantic electronic billboard in Times Square.
In his 2006 book “Psychogeography,” writer Merlin Coverley, traces this concept back to its immediate roots: French Marxists and Situationists. But he also vividly digs back to an earlier era and the “urban gothic” stylings of authors like Charles Baudelaire, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens and Robert Louis Stevenson, showing how their “obsessive drifting (yielded) new insights.” Poe’s 1840 story “The Man of the Crowd” is perhaps the first examination of the mysteries and perplexities of the modern teeming metropolis. In “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” Stevenson shows not only the duality of man’s nature but the stark dichotomy of the different parts of London his split protagonist inhabits. Dickens was a famously keen observer of the same city (often engaging in all-night walks) and had the fame and power to influence social reforms in the darker aspects of the city he witnessed, the exploitation of children, the workhouses, slum conditions etc.
I stumbled on this Dickens landmark during a London walkabout in 1994.
It’s Baudelaire, quoted by Cloverley, who has the most telling description of the psychogeographer, which has as its alpha the Parisian flaneur (or boulevardier). “For the perfect flaneur it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude… to be away from home and yet to find oneself everywhere at home… to be at the center of the world and yet remain hidden from the world.”
Sounds cool? If so, try out some psychogeography yourself. Put away the GPS and get to know your town. Stick up for livable cities and against gentrification. Patronize independent small businesses and out-of-the-way points of interest. Lastly, LOOK UP AND AROUND to see what I call the Museum of the Street, and feel a little of what it means to be “everywhere at home.”
All photos and text by Rick Ouellette. Top Photo is Radio CITY Music Hall, NYC.
More info on my “Placeology” photo series coming soon!
If you ever want to get one of those definitive telephoto pictures of American car culture run amok, there are few places better to trip the shutter than Breezewood, Pennsylvania. Located in the southern central part of the Keystone State, it’s a notorious “choke point” where Interstate 70, the Pennsylvania Turnpike (I-76) and the historic Lincoln Highway (Rte. 30) all meet, sort of.
Breezewood, where the Interstate is also a street.
Because of some arcane law that once proclaimed I-70 could not directly connect to the tolled Turnpike, the Interstate shares a one-mile connector with Rte. 30. This corridor is a densely packed jumble of gas station/convenience stores, fast food joints, chain hotels—all announcing themselves with signs that can reach up to about 70 feet high. There are also two truck washes and plenty of room to park your rig after tear-assing your way thru the six-lane main drag, which seems to be a local sport.
Yes, it’s all very uber-American in a way. There may be no better a democratic leveler than the free breakfast room at the Holiday Inn Express or being in line behind a couple of hunters at Sheetz, the ubiquitous convenience store/coffee shop round these parts. But just beyond the narrow limits of unincorporated Breezewood, it’s a different story. My hotel room had a view of a picturesque farm. And if you head due east, you’ll be driving down the historic and scenic Lincoln Highway as soon as you clear the hill at the end of the strip.
But just before you do, there’s a rutted dirt parking lot next to a paved path you can walk up on. If you do, you’ll be entering one of the state’s strangest and most intriguing points of interest, the Abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike.
Surrender all hope ye who enter….
The Turnpike opened in 1940 and was an engineering marvel at the time, and a precursor to the massive American Interstate system that followed. But by 1968, car culture had long expanded and so had the Pike, except for this 13-mile stretch. It was logistically too difficult to widen it here and was re-routed. It is now an accessible (but unmaintained and unmonitored) public walking and biking trail.
As a devoted (but not hardcore) member of the urban exploring subculture, I had long wanted to visit the APT. I got my first chance a few springtimes ago. I was on foot, and it was almost two miles from the Breezewood parking area to the first of the two tunnels on the trail. The way to Ray’s Hill Tunnel is a bit eerie, and evocative of an age of simpler automobiles and slower driving speeds. It presents as four rather narrow lanes but drops down to two at the tunnel. It was cool to see one of the turnpike’s original scalloped tunnels, not matter how defaced it is with graffiti.
Along with the taggers, curiosity-seekers and photographers, the APT has attracted at least one major film production. The 2009 screen adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy novel “The Road” takes place in the wake of an undefined extinction event (Apocalypse How?) and has many scenes filmed there.
Vito Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee in “The Road.”
It’s curious how highways are such ideal settings for post-apocalypse movies. “The Road” does not feature the fiendishly modified vehicles tearing down outback highways like in the “Mad Max/Road Warrior” series. Things are even worse here, and a key scene is the confrontation between Vito’s protagonist and a wandering member of a violent cannibal gang when the group’s ragtag truck stalls out after emerging from the grim interior of Ray’s Hill Tunnel.
On my second visit to Abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike last fall, I had my new foldable Zizzo Bike and was ready to explore a bigger chunk of the ruined roadway. After pedaling past the strollers and the Goth kids doing Instagram pics at the mouth of the forbidding tunnel, I sailed thru the underpass with a big assist from a nifty little head lamp I bought for the occasion. On the other side, the atmosphere became more desolate in a hurry.
The far end of Ray’s Hill Tunnel.
Surely, not as desolate as the scenario in “The Road,” where the populace seems divided between killer cannibal gangs and those who retain the minimum standards of civilization, hoping to reach a promised safe haven once they follow the bleak highway all the way to the coast. Still, it is interesting to note that central Pennsylvania is on a sort of political fault line. The more liberal (blue) eastern part of the state can stand in stark contrast to the western hinterlands, where people have been warned to not even have a Joe Biden bumper sticker on their car to guard against reprisals from a hard-core MAGA constituency.
In the book “Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways, Transforming American Life,” author Tom Lewis details the passing of the massive legislation that authorized this epic road-building program was initiated by Republican President Dwight Eisenhower and eventually approved by a Democratic-controlled Congress—in an election year, no less! A transcontinental public-benefitting triumph that would “bind the nation.” It would hard to imagine an accomplishment (or agreement) like that with the toxically divided Washington of today.
It was twilight time as I reached the lonely halfway section of the APT (see above), and with little time to make the whole route before dark, I turned the Zizzo back towards the parking lot. Riding into the gloaming is enough to make you conjure your own dystopia—the kind where cars are all but obsolete and the world is hard under the heel of ecocide and/or a disastrous civil conflict.
The next morning I was in the better disposition as I checked out of the Holiday Inn, and said good-bye for now to Breezewood, the Las Vegas of service areas. I hope I can get back again to bike the whole ghostly trail. I topped the hill and drove into the immediate rural area on the Lincoln Highway, the road that kicked off America’s Highway Century (it opened in 1913). But that vague dystopic notion from the twilight of the previous day reentered my head when I thought of the next stop on my road trip: the Gettysburg national park.
Text and all photos by Rick Ouellette, except “The Road” film still and the circa 1940 postcard.
The live album holds a curious place in many discographies of rock bands and solo artists. It can be many things: a peak-career highlight for some (The Who’s Live at Leeds, the Stones’ Get Yer Ya-Yas Out, James Brown’s live-at-the-Apollo recording) and a career maker for others (Frampton Comes Alive). Many others are seen as placeholders between studio albums or as a de facto souvenir for fans who have seen their favorites in concert.
Sometimes though, an official live release can end up being a millstone in the canon of even the best musical artists, scoffed at by both critics and fans alike. It could be a case of shoddy production, sloppy performance, a group in career downturn or even an excess of success. Creem magazine was once so put off by the rank triumphalism Quenn’s Live Killers they compared it to the sound of “someone peeing on your grave.”
Over time I have gathered up a list these bad-rep concert documents and re-visited them, wondering if they really deserved all those one-star reviews. In some cases, time has been kinder, initial victims of a hot-take hostility in a tougher age of music criticism. Others are still big-time stinkers.
Who’s Last—The Who (1984)
I’ve always wondered about this one. Dismissed and derided at the time, Who’s Last was a document of the band’s at-the-time Farewell tour back in 1982. I mean it couldn’t be as bad as all that, right? Yes and no. On one hand it is the Who and there are gobs of great tunes that are played well enough. But on the other hand, don’t expect anything transformative. The galvanizing versions of “Magic Bus” and “My Generation” on the celebrated Live at Leeds put the ones here to shame, not to mention how poorly this “See Me, Feel Me/Listening to You” stacks up to victorious version on the Woodstock soundtrack. True, people thought it was a swan song back then and a release was justified (though it only hit #81 in America) but after Pete and the boys resumed touring in 1989 it seemed irrelevant, esp. after the sublime Leeds was expanded from 6 to 14 tracks in the CD era. Grade: C-
Take No Prisoners—Lou Reed (1978)
“What do I look like, Henny Youngman up here?” Yeah, kinda. This smart-ass double album was reportedly Lou’s answer to those who said he never talked on stage. True to Reed’s incorrigible nature he goes too far in the other direction, ad-libbing over opener “Sweet Jane” until the song is just an afterthought. True, he does get out a few good lines (“Give me an issue, I’ll give you a tissue”) and a sick burn on Patti Smith (“Fuck Radio Ethiopia, this is Radio Brooklyn!”) but it sets the tone for what is really a punk novelty record.
The music, such as it is, starts at 2:20
The crowd at the Bottom Line nightclub in NYC seem to be there as much for the cult of personality as for the music, and “Walk on the Wild Side” becomes a rambling 16-minute monologue a la Lenny Bruce. When Lou does manage to get thru a whole song without ragging on rock critics or his old Factory friends the results can be pretty good, as on “Coney Island Baby” and “Satellite of Love,” but they add up to a relatively small fraction of the album’s long 98-minute run time. Grade: C
Coast to Coast: Overture and Beginners—Rod Stewart/Faces (1974)
The Faces were on borrowed time when this concert record came out, maybe accounting for the poor press it got. Some saw it as a quick cash-out before Rod Stewart finally split to commit full-time to his burgeoning solo career. Key contributor Ronnie Lane had already left, replaced by Japanese bassist Tetsu Yamauchi. Coast to Coast is an enjoyable (if slapdash) mix of Rod solo numbers, a couple of Faces songs and clutch of covers. Most successful is a top-shelf take on the Motown lament “I Wish it Would Rain,” featuring an impassioned vocal by Rod and a great blues guitar solo from Ronnie Wood. Grade: B-
On the Road—Traffic (1973)
Traffic were another stalwart British group who were heading down the home stretch when this leisurely live double hit the shops. They released one more studio album before disbanding the following year. This was the end of their expanded-lineup era, with the core trio of Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi and Chris Wood were joined by percussionist Rebop and three Muscle Shoals session men. This period was marked by a certain languid jam-band sound and most of the material here was drawn from the previous two studio sets, Low Spark of the High-Heeled Boys and Shoot Out at Fantasy Factory. The only nod to the “old” Traffic was a 21-minute medley of “Glad/Freedom Rider.” The band may have set themselves up for rock-mag ridicule by including the recent “(Sometimes I Feel So) Uninspired.” But that one turns out to be a highlight, with some electrifying lead guitar from Winwood, so go figure. Grade: B-
David Live—David Bowie (1974)
This is a textbook case of a concert album being recorded at precisely the wrong time. Bowie’s ’74 show started off as the “Diamond Dogs” tour and ended as the start of his “plastic soul” era. (His next album would be Young Americans). The album is unfocused and lacking in true energy, his vocals careless and strained. Hard drugs were an issue. It tends to sound better if you don’t know the studio version and have nothing to compare it against (I rather like his version of the Ohio Players “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow”). But the only one of his many famous songs here that maybe outdoes the original is a strong version of “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide,” that closes this misbegotten release. Grade: D+
T.V. Eye Live—Iggy Pop (1977)
Speaking of Mr. Bowie, the year 1977 brought him renewed recognition not only for two of his classic Berlin-era albums (Heroes and Low) but also reviving the career of a certain James Osterberg, who was at loose ends after the dissolution of his proto-punk band the Stooges. Iggy Pop, as he was better known, joined Bowie at his digs hard by the Berlin Wall, both trying to kick long-standing drug habits and get new inspiration in their bleak Cold War surroundings.
Iggy also released two great albums in ’77 (The Idiot and Lust for Life), both produced and largely co-written by his pal Dave. This single live album also got a release but was panned across the board (one meager star at AllMusic) but nowadays it’s hard to see why. It’s a pretty strong set, some of it from an American tour where Bowie supported him on keyboards and backing vocals. The sound quality is not so hot, probably because RCA gave him a $90,000 advance to produce the album (he owed them one more LP) but then spent five grand on it and pocketed the rest. That alone bumps it up half a grade. B+
Bob Dylan at Budokan—Bob Dylan (I think) 1978
Perhaps we will never know just what compelled Zimmy to release this album of his revolutionary repertoire performed as a vacuous Vegas lounge act (and presented as such). On the heels of his divorce and the epic flop that was his “Renaldo and Clara” movie, maybe he thought he could release a quicky double live album and recoup his losses before anyone noticed, it did hit #13 in America.
It did have a few critical defenders and of course if you go by the YouTube fanboys, Budokan ranks right up there with the Sistine Chapel at the apex of Western Civilization. But unless it’s enjoyed as a perverse form of performance art, I don’t know how anyone can like the Wayne Newton arrangements, the cloying back-up singers, the overwrought saxophone and Dylan singing his visionary back catalogue as if it were the collected works of Tony Orlando and Dawn. Just take this encore version of “The Times They are A-Changing” (please) and listen to the fake sincerity of the spoken intro and then Dylan actually telling the crowd “We’re here for four more nights” as if he really were at a casino cocktail lounge and not one of the world’s most revered concert halls. Wow. Grade: D
Still Life—The Rolling Stones (1982)
The era of the true mega concert tour, complete with corporate sponsorship, was under way in the early 80s and naturally the Stones were on the leading edge. That means fans packed in like 80,000 sardines at a place like Arizona’s Sun Devil Stadium and the band trying to fill it with sound and vision no matter how impersonal the setting. (You can see some of that scene in the Hal Ashby-directed tour film, “Let’s Spend the Night Together”). The stage is so big that Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts seem to be in different zip codes). This dynamic comes thru in the unfortunately- titled Still Life.
Like Who’s Last, there are lots of great songs here and the notes are all in the right place (mostly). Yet, it comes down to a business model that just doesn’t work—for me, anyway. I’ve never been to a football stadium concert, and this shows me why. Sure, it’s quite possible to have a good time at this kind of show (many have) but to me the possibility of a good aesthetic return on your monetary investment seems low. I can’t see the band and they can’t reach me; that dubious dynamic carries over to the album. Like David Live, this album sounds OK when you don’t have any previous recording to compare it to, so I chose their new cover of Smokey Robinson’s “Going to a Go-Go” as the best of the lot. Grade: C
Live ‘n’ Kicking—West, Bruce and Laing (1974)
Twin Peaks—Mountain (1974)
When you apply the contemporary phrase “Go big or go home” to the classic rock era, it’s hard not to think of Leslie West. He was a “mountain” of a man (his girth inspired the band’s name), his bellowing vocals and scorched-earth guitar solos known far and wide since the band made a big splash at Woodstock. By 1972, Mountain were on hiatus and West and Mountain drummer Corky Laing joined ex-Cream bassist/singer Jack Bruce to form a blooze-rock supergroup that released two studio albums and this single live set, released just after announcing their break-up in early ’74.
As a group, Mountain, as heavy as they were, also had a melodic sign, seen in deft compositions like “For Yasgur’s Farm” and “Nantucket Sleighride.” WBL cast away most of that. To start off Live ‘n’ Kicking, they turn the Stones’ refined and brooding ballad “Play With Fire” into a 13-minute marauding metal warhorse, complete with drum solo. The “96-decibel freaks” in the audience eat it up. Jack Bruce, replacing the more refined Felix Pappalardi as West’s frontline partner, was rougher-edged. He fills the space between songs with arena-rock bravado and his bass is turned up to overload levels nearly as loud as West’s guitar, if that’s even possible. True, there is some nimble trip interplay on the WBL original “The Doctor” but things go happily off the rails with closer “Powerhouse Sod” which turns into a Bruce showcase, because everyone knows the best way to end a 70s live album is with a bass solo!
Around the same time that West, Bruce and Laing were dissolving due to internal dissension and hard-drug abuse, West was and Pappalardi were re-uniting with a new lineup. Corky Laing, for whom the drug issues were hitting esp. hard, was replaced this time by Alan Schwartzberg. Original keyboardist Steve Knight was subbed off in favor of Bob Mann, who also doubled on second guitar for added sonic impact. My roommate at the time called the Japan-recorded Twin Peaks “the album with the biggest tits in the world” (riffing on Monty Python) and it did seem like the band was out to prove scale new heights of heavyosity.
Twin Peaks, with its confident air attractive artwork (see banner image at top of this post) did fare a little better in the critical arena than Live ‘n’ Kicking, which got an E+ (?) in the Village Voice. However, many scribes headed for the exits at the prospect of a 32-minute “Nantucket Sleighride.” Of course, fans, in this age of bong hits and good stereo systems, loved every long minute of it and didn’t mind having to get up and flip the record halfway thru. The glorious noise continues right through to side four, as the band run over the “Mississippi Queen” with a Mack truck and play “Roll Over Beethoven” at such volume that it would have made ol’ Ludwig van deaf all over again. Best of all is West’s signature “Guitar Solo,” where he gets free reign to indulge himself for five uninterrupted minutes, to the point where he injects a bit of “Jingle Bells” even though it’s August in Osaka. The Seventies, they were a thing, man.
Grades: Live ‘n’ Kicking: B-, Twin Peaks: A (fight me).
And speaking of “Jingle Bells,” Happy Holidays, everyone!
“He took the road to heaven in the morning.” RIP to Shane MacGowan, principal singer and songwriter for the Pogues, and the poet laureate for the modern Irish diaspora. Though he was born and (mostly) lived in and around London, his childhood experiences in Tipperary seemed to inhabit him as profoundly and completely as did Dublin to James Joyce, who left Ireland as a young man.
With a super-talented group of players behind him, Shane wrote dozens of beautiful and incorrigible booze-infused songs on themes of wanderlust, bittersweet romance, camaraderie, Irish social history, political indignation and London street life. His songwriting compromised a universe unto itself: this was a guy who could make the demolition of an old greyhound racetrack (“White City”) sound mythic (Oh, the torn-up ticket stubs of a hundred thousand mugs/Now washed away like dead dreams in the rain”).
The same goes for “Sally MacLennane” which covers an entire lifetime in 2:40. MacGowan sings the tale of Jimmy, who “played harmonica in the pub where I was born” (brilliant) and goes off to America to make his fortune while the narrator grows up to tend the same bar. Jimmy eventually returns to a very changed homeland and you come to realize that the fateful walk to the train station is in fact a funeral procession.
So let’s sing Shane “a song of times long gone” and remember him well, as he remembered the world around him in a way that touched so many so deeply.
“Those English boys, they want to play the blues so bad. And they do play it so bad,” Sonny Boy Williamson once said, looking back in humor to the times he went to tour in Europe in the early Sixties, sometimes supported by the Yardbirds or the Animals. It’s a classic quote and a bit unfair (the Yardbirds were just starting out) but it does point up the fact that most of the bands that made up the epochal British rock explosion of the later Sixties were steeped in reverence to the blues, despite the geographical and experiential distance from their heroes.
But nobody could question their sincerity and when the English blues-rock thing really took off a meeting of the minds was bound to happen. The legendary blues (and early rock ‘n’ roll) performers found their commercial fortunes fading, overtaken by R&B, Motown and funk. For the Brits, the legitimacy conferred and the fun to be had jamming with these legends was a no-brainer. When a Chess Records producer, after watching a Cream concert at the old Fillmore West, asked Eric Clapton if he would like to do an album with Howlin’ Wolf the die was cast. Although the record would not get recorded for another couple of years, it would set the pace for a notable mini-genre of “London Sessions” projects that would hit the market in the early Seventies.
The London Howlin’ Wolf Sessions (1971)
So the Wolf album would be the first of these, the Chess label would follow with three others, listed chronologically below. It could be argued that this is the best of them; it certainly had the best cover art (see banner image. Chess followed the formula of having illustrated covers showing their subject in London-themed settings. While the other three are a bit cartoonish, this one has a handsome drawing of the Big Guy surveying the Piccadilly Circus scene while seated with his guitar case under the Eros statue, while a chap who looks like Clapton plays on a lower step.
Eric certainly wasn’t going to waste an opportunity like this and he brings his A-game, pealing off any number of torrid solos on his trusty Stratocaster. Wolf brought along right-hand man Hubert Sumlin to set the pace on rhythm guitar, while Rolling Stones’ Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman laid the foundation for an energetic set of blues classics. The devotion to this Chicago blues legend was undeniable: the Stones’ insisted on Wolf as a guest when they appeared on the American TV music show “Shindig,” while Slowhand had been tapping the Wolf songbook for years (all but two of these twelve songs are credited to him—Chester Burnett—or his go-to guy Willie Dixon) and Cream’s 16-minute version of “Spoonful” is the stuff of acid-rock lore.
With the bedrock of Sumlin and this trio, plus either Steve Winwood or “sixth Stone” Ian Stewart on keyboards, Wolf fronts a strong collection of his well-known 12-bar tunes, in great voice and seemingly high spirits. You get “I Ain’t Superstitious,” “Sitting on Top of the World,” “Built for Comfort,” “Do the Do” and trademark numbers, all expertly played and well produced by Chicago bluesologist Norman Dayron. And if their was any question as to who was in charge here, listen to the practice take of “Little Red Rooster.” The imperious Wolf is showing the young guns how the intro should be done by playing it on his acoustic when Clapton tries to get him to play on the final: “Nah, man, come on!” The album was well-reviewed and made a respectable chart showing, leading the way for what was to come. Grade: A-
The London Muddy Waters Sessions (1972)
The mighty Muddy Waters was the next to get the UK treatment and this was another well-done effort. Already a pattern was established. There was the illustrated cover, though this one looked like a half-finished Peter Max reject (though Waters wearing a bobby’s helmet was kinda funny). There was the trusty wing man brought over from the Windy City (Muddy’s harmonica player Carey Bell). Again, the roll call at the London studio proved impressive (Rory Gallagher, Ric Grech, Georgie Fame, Steve Winwood again, and former Hendrix drummer Mitch Mitchell).
Gallagher, the revered Irish blues guitarist, and Bell really stand out here, trading solos on several tracks. And while Waters is in fine fettle, the album is held back at times by the Americans’ unfamiliarity with the surroundings and the Brits reverence. In other words, good but not off-the-hook good. Like on the Howlin’ Wolf album, the material consists mostly of artist originals and Willie Dixon standards, including a new MW version of his immortal “I’m Ready,” (“I’m drinking TNT/I’m smoking dynamite/I hope some screwball starts a fight”). Grade: B
The London Chuck Berry Sessions (1972)
I think it’s safe to say that Chuck’s UK album was the most financially successful of this lot, even if it was for all the wrong reasons. That is because it included the execrable novelty song “My Ding-a-Ling,” which, believe it or not was Berry’s only #1 single in America. But at least the 45 edit was only about four minutes, the juvenile singalong goes on for eleven minutes on the album’s live second side. It is sandwiched between this record’s highlights. Helped along by two future members of the Average White Band, he treats the Lancaster festival crowd to a frisky rave-up on “Reeling and Rocking” and then sends them into a frenzy with “Johnny B. Goode” (probably because they are secretly relieved that “Ding-a-Ling” is finally over). Chaos ensues at the end when the crowd belligerently demand an encore while a flustered MC begs the crowd to leave so they can make way for a show by “The Pink Floyd.”
The studio side has little of value, despite the presence of Kenney Jones and Ian McLagan from the Faces. Chuck sounds uninspired and the only real bright spot is “I Love You” which shows a more contemporary spin on his trademark sound. Grade: C
The London Bo Diddley Sessions (1973)
The pioneering rock ‘n’ roller born Ellis McDaniel was not one to rest on his laurels. Bo had spent the late 60s and early 70s updating his sound to fit in with the more contemporary funk style. It never really caught on and he was still making most of his income on the oldies circuit where his patented hambone “Bo Diddley beat” was ever popular. His London sojourn was bound to be a colorful affair and the old pro didn’t disappoint, even if it did nothing to help his flagging record sales.
There’s a great funk workout (“Get Out of My Life),” a couple of cheeky numbers written by his former Chess label mate Sam Dees (“Husband-in-Law” and “Sneakers on a Rooster”) featuring singer and female foil Cookie Vee, and a good version of his “Bo Diddley” signature song. There is less overt star power here, but Diddley is well served by a tight and sympathetic supporting cast centered around Spencer Davis Group alumni Eddie Hardin on organ and guitarist Ray Fenwick, while ELO founder Roy Wood contributes some supple bass work. Bo’s stature, if not his commercial standing, continued into the next rock generation and by 1979 he was knocking ‘em dead as a supporting act on the Clash’s first American tour. Grade: B+
B.B. King in London (1971)
King recorded this LP at London’s famed Olympic Studios in June of 1971 and it was released in November of that year, just prior to a tour of England. It’s a decent outing by the Blues Boy, though not much here that you haven’t heard before from him. He’s supported by a staunch roster of classic-rock supporting players and regulars from the British blues club/festival circuit. Drumming is by the Jims (Gordon and Keltner), the bass work is supplied by the ever-reliable (and ever-available Klaus Voorman), and the second guitar spot (backing up King and his famous Gibson ES-355 named Lucille) rotates between Fleetwood Mac founder Peter Green, John Uribe and Dr. John.
There are a couple of changes of pace which help a lot. The instrumental “Alexis’ Blues” has both Mr. Korner and BB on acoustic guitar while Steve Marriott blows some mean harp. Guest keyboardist Gary Wright gets to do his piano shuffle with King adding some of his piquant picking on this platter (sorry). He also does some fine singing and soloing on his own “Ghetto Woman,” the best of the straight blues number. The tasty string arrangement shows that a lot of care went into the making of the, even if the results are less than revelatory. Grade: B-
Jerry Lee Lewis: The Session…Recorded in London (1973)
As mentioned before, some of these London recordings are held in check by the double dynamic of the headliner’s unfamiliar surroundings and the kid-glove tendencies of the admiring supporting players. In one sense, this was also the case when Jerry Lee Lewis made his way across the pond in 1973. Although only in his late thirties, Jerry Lee was on the cusp of his elder statesman years and initially felt ill-at-ease during the sessions. He had rarely recorded outside of Memphis or Nashville and here he was surrounded by long-haired whipper snappers.
But this was still the same Lewis who was the incorrigible wild man of rock ‘n’ roll and he let it loose with a sprawling, freewheeling, braggadocious double album that yielded his last hit song on the pop charts (“Drinking Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee”) and cemented his status as an early rock ‘n’ roll icon. The album kicks off with “Drinking Wine,” setting the stage for what’s to come. It’s a great ol’ roadhouse boogie with Jerry leading the charge, singing enthusiastically of hedonistic pursuits and pounding away at his piano in that familiar staccato style. Alvin Lee of Ten Years After, the first of many hotshot guitarists to heed the star’s command to “Pick it, son,” gives some 70s firepower to a 50s-style solo. These “sons” are generally only 5-10 younger than “The Killer” but none of them would dare complain. His offspring include and impressive collection of guitarists (Rory Gallagher, Albert Lee, Peter Frampton, Delaney Bramlett and future Foreigner Mick Jones) and keyboardists (Gary Wright, Tony Ashton and Procol Harum’s Matthew Fisher) and Brian Parrish (then vocalist with Badger) on harmonica. Several of Lewis’ usual band also appear.
When these disparate elements come together the record can be great fun, with the accompanists’ amped-up backing giving Lewis a solid platform to hit his attitudinal sweet spot halfway between blasé and berserk. It’s a rush to hear Gallagher and Frampton trading solos as the man bulls his way thru “Johnny B. Goode” and to have pro’s pro Albert Lee move the crew full-steam-ahead on “Sea Cruise” as Captain Killer runs thru his paces of piano razzle-dazzle, esp. in those sweeping glissandos that flash by like Zorro’s sword. Country and blues numbers are also present as are a couple of more contemporary songs (CCR’s “Bad Moon Rising” and Gordon Lightfoot’s “Early Morning Rain”).
It comes all together for the concluding “Rock & Roll Medley” as the Killer whiplashes thru four Little Richard classics before climaxing with his immortal “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On.”Jerry Lee whoops it up like it’s 1957 and attacks his piano keys with karate-chop comping while Alvin Lee flies off into Woodstock guitar-hero land. It’s a satisfying ending to an entertaining, loosey-goosey record and will be a fun time no matter which of the four sides you drop the needle on. Grade: B+
The familiar turns fantastical as “sleep voyager” Swain roams through fractured cities and societies, falling in with a group of utopian separatists.
“Chthonic Days” is a 20-page, magazine-size short story comic that is culled from two pivotal chapters of the graphic-novel-in-progress “In a Dream of Strange Cities”. The title of the story indicates the underground quest to find a space large enough to construct a prototype independent sub-city, envisioned by an idealistic group called the Homelanders. Lady Domine, their charismatic and overstanding leader, lays out their vision in the speech that opens the story.
At first, Swain has no idea about how and why he has been drawn into this “Second World” or that it is even a different plane of existence. But his flair for urban exploring and psychogeographic observation make him an ideal recruit for Domine and the forces of “love, logic and learning” at existential odds with a late autocratic leader. Kept alive by a haranguing electronic video-audio loop, he encourages his followers to continue to follow his lead and meet every act of social empathy with scorn and even violence, with no end in sight.
Swain, at the conscripted call-up from the now autonomous “World Subconscious” will find out if there is “a way forward in peace” against the abusive cult of personality that pervades half the citizens of the story’s city-state.
The price of $5 includes mailing within the U.S. and will be so helpful and artist Ipan and I continue work of the first volume of a proposed trilogy. And you can keep up with our progress by Liking the In a Dream of Strange Cities Facebook page. Thanks! –Rick Ouellette
“Chthonic Days”
A short-story comic taken from the upcoming series “In a Dream of Strang Cities.”
When it comes to signifying images of 20th century pop culture, the screaming girls of Beatlemania are right up there. Of course, the siren-pitch of their collective hysteria is also unforgettable to those who watched the Fab Four on television or especially for those who saw them in person, where the din was so epic one could barely hear what they were playing.
This kind of hysterical fan reaction was not limited to the Beatles. A lot of other British Invasion bands got a similar reception in concert. A look back at the legendary “T.A.M.I. Show” filmed in late 1964 shows the young Los Angeles audience (about 75% female) going completely bonkers over everyone from Lesley Gore to Jan & Dean to James Brown. But for this post, let’s concentrate on four titles that were recorded in those exuberant days of the mid-Sixties, while also noting that the Beatles entry was not released until 1977.
Over time, it became de rigeuer that every major rock group post-1964 would eventually release at least one live album. The problem with the early ones was that the amplification and recording equipment had not caught up yet with what the bands were doing. As the 60s progressed, the technology dovetailed with the heaviness of the sound and the kids had grown up and gotten past their Shrieking Stage.
Got Live If You Want It? Nowadays, all but the most hardcore Stones’ fans would say “no thanks, I’m good” to their first live album, released in the fall of 1966. It’s an interesting artifact in its way but these renditions of hits like “19th Nervous Breakdown,” “Under My Thumb” and “Get Off My Cloud” will have you running back to the studio originals. Andrew Loog Oldham’s production is woefully tinny (sometimes it seems like Charlie Watts’ cymbals are the lead instrument) and at times it can barely compete with the audience cacophony.
Considering that Stones’ concerts often ended in riots back then, it’s remarkable that a quieter number like “Lady Jane” comes off reasonably well. The same could be said of Mick Jagger’s take on Otis Redding’s “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” although it turns out that song and “Fortune Teller” were studio tracks with crowd sounds added on. See below for a nice up-close glimpse of an early Stones show looked like.
The post-Pet Sounds Beach Boys were most noted for the creative dominance of Brian Wilson’s songwriting and studio wizardry. Later touring editions of the band often did not include Brian but did feature everyone from Glen Campbell to Blondie Chaplin, Daryl “Capt. and Tennille” Dragon and even Ricky Fataar, later of the Rutles.
So it is interesting to get a live taste of the original quintet, the three Wilson brothers, cousin Mike Love and neighborhood pal Al Jardine. This period piece stems from an enthusiastic 1964 show at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium, with some post-production touching up to follow. The gatefold liner notes claims that unlike other live albums where they pump up the crowd sounds to add excitement, here they had tone it down. Such bragging! If so, I wonder what the decibel level was really like in the hall when fan fave Dennis Wilson stepped out from behind the kit to sing Dion’s “The Wanderer.” Shriek City, man!
All in all, this is a fun throwaway album, a mix of amped-up hits of their own (“I Get Around,” “Little Deuce Coupe” etc.) and a batch of covers, some well considered (Jan & Dean’s “Little Old Lady from Pasadena,” Dick Dale’s “Let’s Go Tripping,” a lead guitar showcase for Carl Wilson) and some just silly (Mike Love doing “Monster Mash”??). Beach Boys Concert was the first pop live album to top the charts, the guys’ only #1 LP aside from the 1974 compilation Endless Summer.
By the time The Kinks Live at Kelvin Hall came out in 1967, the band were already in the midst of a run of classic albums that were known for an introspective approach that was a marked progression from the teen-beat appeal of their early sound (their wistful masterpiece “Waterloo Sunset” was recorded the same month, April ’67, as this LP was released in the US as The Live Kinks). But at Glasgow’s Kelvin Hall it was all “this-one-goes-to-eleven” frenzy. The group don’t seem to mind: the audience was give one full channel on the 4-track recording and Ray and Dave Davies often egged on the screamers, as they do here before launching into “Dandy,” their astute ditty about an aging Casanova that teen-idols Herman Hermits would take to #5 on the Billboard charts.
The Kinks never turned their back on those early ravers: they open here with “Til the End of the Day” and encore with the world-beating “You Really Got Me” after a bizarre but entertaining medley of “Milk Cow Blues/Batman Theme/Tired of Waiting for You.”
Even the Beatles could not lay total claim for initiating this kind of hormonally-induced musical insanity. Frank Sinatra inspired similar reactions in the Forties, as did Elvis in the Fifties. But the Fabs really went level up when they broke in America, and the wild scenes of them playing the Ed Sullivan Show and at Shea Stadium are the stuff of legend.
Two of their more high-profile gigs on the West Coast were their appearances at the Hollywood Bowl in August, 1964 and in the same month the next year. Both were recorded but for various licensing reasons did not see the light of day until 1977 when highlights from both shows were combined for a 13-song, 33-minute album in what added up to a complete Beatles concert back then. Naturally, the screaming is super-intense and you got to give the lads credit for their energy level and musical precision (and good humor) given that they could hardly hear themselves.
On certain songs, like this 1965 take on “Ticket to Ride,” the girls seem to be taking a collective breather from the really crazy stuff and instead give the impression of a distant plague of locusts. Here, the band’s sound booms around the venue’s natural amphitheater. Elsewhere, they tinker with arrangements, like adding a pumped-up middle section to the pensive “Things We Said Today.” But nothing could negate the fact that this was not an optimal arrangement, especially with their growing musical sophistication in the studio. The Beatles last paying concert was the next August, at Candlestick Park on 8/29/1966, three weeks after releasing the game-changing Revolver.
That last factoid points up perfectly how rock and roll was quickly being transformed from a teen-scream sensation into a more cerebral, counter-culture art form. All four of these iconic bands were gearing themselves to the new studio-as-instrument ethos (esp. the Beatles and Beach Boys) while the Stones and Kinks had roadblocks to touring in the late Sixties: the former due to Brian Jones drug-bust-induced visa restrictions, the Kinks via a 4-year ban after a punch-up with officials from the American Federation of Musicians.
By the time they returned, the technology and amplification had caught up with the heavier sound of the new decade (see the Who’s thunderous Live at Leedsand the Stones’ own Get Yer Ya-Yas Out). The Kinks did a series of theater-rock presentations before making their own arena-rock move in the late 70s. Of course, the teen-hysteria thing never really went away and can be seen at shows by acts like Taylor Swift and the boy band of the moment. For us fans of the more classic rock type, the distractions at today’s show run more to people talking during the performance and impulsively holding up their smartphones. But that’s a story for another day.
In the annals of rock history, many bands are liable to be remembered only for their biggest hit. And so it is with Bloodrock, the Fort Worth-based outfit that graced the American Top 40 but one time. That single, of course, was the infamous “D.O.A.,” an exceptionally graphic dirge that depicted the immediate aftermath of a plane crash—told from the point of view of one of its soon-to-expire victims!
Against a morbid musical backdrop of funeral organ and blaring sirens, Bloodrock vocalist Jim Rutledge spares us no detail, whether it’s his missing limbs or the blood-soaked sheets applied by a paramedic who is overheard saying, “There’s no chance for me.” The song ends with Rutledge’s over-the-top cry of “God in heaven, teach me how to die!” before the final chorus yields to the sound of multi-tracked sirens sounding off on route to the morgue.
Brilliant stuff, to be sure. Just enough of us twisted teenagers bought the 45 (the full LP version ran past 8 minutes) to enable “D.O.A.” to claw its way to #36 in early 1971. I still have my copy. The b-side (“Children’s Heritage”) was more typical of the band’s output, a righteous if plodding boogie typical of the era. While the band’s signature song may not have been intended as a novelty (their guitarist Lee Pickens had witnessed a small aircraft crash), Bloodrock were to be identified with “D.O.A.” as closely as the Baha Men will be stuck forevermore with “Who Let the Dogs Out.”
For their first three albums, Bloodrock were under the clientage of both John Nitzinger, the sketchy kingpin of Texas blooze-rock who penned many of their songs, and manager/producer Terry Knight, who was also the combative Machiavelli behind Grand Funk Railroad. But by 1972, Rutledge and Pickens had left the band and Bloodrock had a new frontman in the person of fresh-faced Warren Ham. Ham was the lead singer and quite handy with the flute, saxophone and harmonica.
In late ’72, two years after recording “DOA,” came their fourth album, Passage. Gone was Terry Knight and his brainchild that their every LP sleeve design had to have dripping blood somewhere. Instead, the cover was a cryptical woodcut-like illustration of a clipper ship passing an underground cave, a nice touch. Similarly, the new Bloodrock sound was imaginative, and suggestive of the era’s preeminent progressive-rock sound.
The biggest and best surprise being the second track, “Scotsman,” an outright ringer and tribute to Jethro Tull leader Ian Anderson. With its scootering flute riff, weighty Hammond organ accompaniment (by key band holdover, Stevie Hill) and jaunty jig-rock arrangement, it could have been slotted into a Tull album like War Child or Songs from the Wood, if not for the singing accent.
While this edition of the band would never be mistaken for Yes or Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, other artful touches spice up this record. The buoyant opener “Help is on the Way” has a deft instrumental coda and “Life Blood” has some nimble dynamics and fresh splashes of synth that can stand up there with the best proggers of the day and contains some still-relevant lyrics (“I have seen a picture of hate, formed in a thousand ways/People say it’s all too late, talk of numbered days”).
The 8-minute semi-epic “Days and Nights” is a nice slab of organ-led heavyosity that should appeal to anyone who’s ever enjoyed a Uriah Heep album. There’s even a topical number, a nifty blues shuffle called “Thank you, Daniel Ellsberg,” giving props to the man behind the “Pentagon Papers” expose. Despite this new lease of life, Passage did not catch on and Bloodrock would only be around for one more studio album.
Since this “For the Records” series focuses on the obtaining of records as well as the listening to them, here are the somewhat odd circumstances of how I got my copy of Passage. After a night on the town, I pulled up in front of a used record store in North Cambridge, Mass. The owner of the Blue Bag Records store sometimes puts a pile of free discarded albums outside the door after hours. There was no pile this time, but the place was open despite the late hour (I think the guy was doing his accounts). Since I was likely going to be the only customer at that time, I had to be supportive and buy something. Nothing interested me until I saw this baby for eight bucks. I love the covert art (reminiscent of nautical mysteries like “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” or Poe’s novel “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket”) and I had heard a few of its tunes online. So it came that I bought my second Bloodrock record, some 52 years after purchasing the “D.O.A.” single.
Although Bloodrock were not long for the world by the time that this album was released but Warren Ham went on to a long and successful career (still ongoing) as session and touring saxophonist for everyone from Kansas and Toto to Olivia Newton-John to Donna Summer. He has also been in several iterations of Ringo Starr’s All Starr Band (see above). In fact, I saw him on one of these tours and of course never made the connection then. Too bad. If I ever had the chance to meet him I would love to see his reaction when I told him: “Hey, I loved that “Scotsman” song you did way back when.”
A sort of food-court dystopia takes hold in and around a super-mall on the outer edges of metropolitan London in J.G. Ballard’s incisive last novel, published in 2006, three years before his death. The English author was a foremost chronicler of speculative societal fracturing in works such as Concrete Island, High Rise and Crash. The kind of high concept dissolution of those books are also featured here in the story of Richard Pearson, a recently let-go advertising man who goes to investigate how his estranged father came to be one of victims of mass shooting in the main atrium of the Metro-Centre, a sprawling modern shopping center buffeted by hotels, offices and several sports stadiums that are regularly packed with enthusiastic and sometimes volatile fans.
Pearson gives up his trendy flat in Central London to immerse himself in the strange, semi-fictionalized world of the “motorway towns” in the vicinity of Heathrow Airport. Despite this area being only 15-20 miles from Trafalgar Square, it is a place apart in Ballard’s vision. A terse, maze-like psychogeography takes hold. The Metro-Centre presents itself as an optimistic unifying force, in contrast to the “alienating” effect of modernism found in “heritage London.” Underneath its enormous central dome, Pearson is met by the mall’s PR man: “he was smiling, friendly and crushingly earnest, with the pale skin and overly clear eyes of a cult recruiter.” He assures Pearson that the denizens of Brooklands (the town is fictitious but named after the former racing circuit nearby and seen below) have “pulled together” after the tragedy and that retail business there suffered only a minor setback.
Pearson moves into the condo of a dead father he barely knew and soon becomes all too aware of a regressive “pocket revolution” in his midst. Organized groups of sporting clubs, most wearing shirts emblazoned with England’s St. James’ insignia, have rallies that quickly turn into racial attacks on Asian and Eastern European immigrants. Of course, these dark energies are quick to be harnessed. Shades of Brexit and Trumpism rise to the surface, though the book predates them by a decade. Ballard could be masterful at trenchant observation as when describing the shadowy figures behind this grim initiative. They are trafficking in “a violence of the mind, where aggression and cruelty were part of a radical code that denied good and evil in favor of an embraced pathology.” Nowadays, that sounds all too familiar.
A popular and ubiquitous TV host of the complex’ in-house cable channel, with the blithe name of David Cruise, is put up as the nominal, would-be head of state. As a man who is “authentic in his insincerity” he seems just the ticket. Pearson even takes a new stab at his old occupation, becoming his ad man, even reusing a pitch (“Mad is Bad, Bad is Good”) that kinda got him fired in his old job. But he takes the role to infiltrate the movement and find out who’s behind the killings—a case that has become clouded in deception—while also becoming curious as to what the true end game of his chosen profession might be. After all, he spent a career cultivating a suburban mindset where people identify themselves through their purchases. But this domain of “Consumerism Uber Alles” is soon embroiled in a proxy war as the militias who profess to protect the shoppers are besieged by government forces who have had enough of this Banana Republic banana republic.
Kingdom Come is not a perfect book. It feels padded at time with catchphrases and dialogue that seem more like panel discussions, while character motivations often seem confused. But as a speculative look into a world where mob violence is described as “local pride” and an undervalued population ready to shade into madness, Ballard’s book is vivid and alarming. In a way we are all ensnared in this world. It’s esp. true here in America, where 70% of the economy is tied up in consumer spending and where there were two mass shootings in shopping areas the day I started this post.
It may be easy to think of Kingdom Come as an overwrought fever dream, and it does slip into that at times. But Ballard was uncanny in a lot of his prognostications (High Rise mirrored the current folly of the practically unlivable supertalls on New York’s “Billionaire’s Row”) and I’ll never look at a shopping mall in quite the same way ever again.
For many of us music-loving boomers who grew up in a culture of habitual record buying, the purchase of physical music media is a habit not easily left behind. In an age commercially dominated by Instagram pop, this means digging deeper to discover newer bands to support and looking back to fill gaps in a collection with albums that escaped notice the first time around.
In the first of this two-part series, I will be doing the latter. In the annals of rock history, the 60s and 70s are the gifts that keep on giving. The below selections focus on British acts that did not make a huge impact in the States—groups like T. Rex and the Small Faces had only one U.S. hit single. Though I do like to go rummaging around in used record stores for a rare find, for the purposes of this post, most of the below selections I bought as two-CD deluxe reissues.
Odessey & Oracle—the Zombies (1968)
Of all the recognized classic albums of the Sixties, few have had such a delayed recognition as the Zombies swan song long-player, now widely regarded as a masterwork of baroque rock. In fact, the group, who had a handful of pop hits in the mid-60s, had fallen out of favor and split up shortly before the release of Odessey (a misspelling by the cover artist). Without much in the way of tour dates, the group had convened at Abbey Road studios to concoct a unified sounding song cycle that had a regal, autumnal atmosphere that would become beloved to legions of fans—later on down the line. Even its most famous track, “Time of the Season,” wasn’t a hit until 18 months after it was recorded.
I finally got myself a CD of it a few years back and it is remarkably fresh-sounding and relatable in a timeless way: tracks like “Hung Up on a Dream,” “Beechwood Park,” and “This Will Be our Year” have an almost literary universality (the latter song closed an episode of “Mad Men”). The bonus tracks on my edition features only one song not on the original album. As is often the case with these re-issues most of them are re-mixes or alternate takes. But they still managed to fit it onto one CD, so kudos.
Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake—The Small Faces (1968)
This is another semi-concept album classic that was a retro-fitted favorite for savvy U.S. rock fans who grew up knowing the name Small Faces for their solitary stateside hit “Itchykoo Park.” Frontman Steve Marriott became the singer in Humble Pie and the other Small Faces (Ronnie Lane, Ian MacLagan and Kenney Jones) joined forces with Ronnie Wood and Rod Stewart and dropped the word “small.” Like Odessey, Ogden’s Nut shows the growing sophistication of pop music in the wake of Sgt. Pepper and Pet Sounds. The first side is flawless eclectic British rock that includes Marriott’s soulful “Afterglow,” Ronnie Lane’s folkloric “Song of a Baker” and the music hall romp “Lazy Sunday.” The second side features a suite centering around a character called “Happiness Stan,” the songs linked by a whimsical narrator played by comic actor Stanley Urwin. The 2-CD set that I was obliged to purchase is a beautifully packaged keepsake with a great booklet, however the second disc are just alternate takes of the songs; interesting but only just.
McDonald and Giles (1970)
King Crimson were well known for their numerous lineup changes back in the day, and two of the first to go, charter members Michael Giles on drums and sax/flute man Ian McDonald, teamed up for this quite engaging album. McDonald and Giles sound a bit like early Crimson minus most of the jarring parts, which makes for a pleasing throwback prog experience. Giles expert style of skittering drum fills sets the pace along with the prominent bass work of brother Peter (ex of the pre-KC group Giles, Giles and Fripp) while McDonald, aside from his woodwinds, fills in on keyboards and occasional lead guitar. Highlights include the ballad “Flight of the Ibis” (a close cousin of Crimson’s “Cadence and Cascade”) and the buoyant rocker “Tomorrow’s People” which features one of a handful of adventurous mid-song jazz jams which keeps the album on its toes. But this duo was destined to be a one-off effort and by mid-decade McDonald was sailing in far less adventurous waters as a charter member of Foreigner.
Phantasmagoria—Curved Air (1972)
Curved Air were one of the few bands in the original progressive-rock era to have a female lead singer. Sonja Kristina had a great voice and an un-showy charisma and the guys behind her were virtuosic but team-oriented in approach. Phantasmagoria was their third album and generally considered their best. It opens with two lush but emphatic showcases for Kristina: “Marie Antoinette” and “Melinda (More or Less”). The group generally stick with this compact approach (the whirlwind title track is another highlight) but they also have an experimental side. There is the appropriately titled instrumental “Ultra-Vivaldi” led by the warp-speed violin of Daryl Way and a rabbit-hole number that was the reportedly the first ever to use a voice vocoder. Gratifyingly, the second disc is a DVD featuring several live TV performances from Belgium and Austria (Curved Air were big on the Continent). The group is spot-on and Sonja Kristina shows the Instagram pop divas of today how to be sexy without being sexualized.
The Slider—T. Rex (1972)
The Slider was the highwater mark in the career of glam-rock icon (and punk/new wave influencer) Marc Bolan and his band T. Rex. It was the vivid follow-up to their other acknowledged classic album (Electric Warrior) and featured their last two #1 U.K. hit singles, “Telegram Sam” and “Metal Guru.” Bolan and his mates had perfected their formula of glittering pop hooks, compact lead guitar, and fanciful lyrics full of decadent characters (this LP features the twins “Baby Boomerang” and “Baby Strange”). The backlash was underway in the fickle British music press, that he was merely an image conscious go-getter full of empty words, in love with the idea of his own stardom. But as is usually the case, time will show the wiser. As Bolan biographer Mark Paytress notes in this edition’s booklet, Bolan’s rock poetry holds up very well nowadays: “Marc’s fast, snatched images are remarkably in tune with the zap-and-you’ll-miss-it nature of contemporary culture.”
Yet there is real emotion and yearning in the slower songs like “Mystic Lady,” “Ballrooms of Mars” and the affecting “Spaceball Ricochet” where Bolan posits “Deep in my heart there’s a house that can hold just about all of you.” All the more poignant knowing now that he would die in a car crash in 1977, two weeks short of his 30th birthday. The second disc presents as an alternative album (“Rabbit Fighter”) that is an intermittently interesting batch of acoustic demos and early band takes in the same running order as the proper album. There are also four non-LP B side songs.
Parachute—Pretty Things (1970)
The Pretty Things are another one of those exemplary British Invasion-era bands that never got to storm the beaches in America. Even in Old Blighty they were a bit of a cult band, having had only two Top 20 singles in their homeland. But like many of their contemporaries, the group make remarkable creative strides between their circa 1964 debuts and the end of the decade. Starting out as a gritty, R&B-influenced act the Pretties had by 1968 come out with one of the first rock operas (S.F.Sorrow) and two years later, followed up with this remarkable song cycle that only in long retrospect stands out as one of the great albums of 1970.
Side one plays out a lot like side two of 1969’s Abbey Road: a seamlessly connected series of short songs that speak to the complexities of contemporary urban life. An implied escape to the country in Parachute’s second side (esp. on the trenchant “Sickle Clowns”) doesn’t necessarily bring existential relief. It’s a rigorous and rock-steady album, the first without founding guitarist Dick Taylor, though new member Vic Unitt shreds admirably. Singer Phil May and bassist Wally Waller did most of the writing here and on the 40th anniversary release I have, the pair reunited to do several unplugged versions of Parachute numbers. On the other half of that bonus disc is a half-dozen singles and B-sides, a couple of which (“Summertime” and “Blue Serge Blues”) rival anything on the album.
Greenslade (1973)
In the online, “suggested for you” age we live in, it’s easier than ever to discover defunct bands of your fave genre that flew under your radar in younger days. For prog fans, a thumbnail image of a Roger Dean album cover is sometimes all it takes. The renowned artist did covers and logos for Yes, Uriah Heep, Budgie and many others. His illustration for Greenslade’s first album is a typically handsome fantasy vision: a four-armed wizard in a sun-streaked cavern. David Greenslade had been keyboardist for the adventurous fusion jam band Colosseum but took a more fanciful approach when fronting his own outfit.
If you’re a fan of Seventies keyboard wizardry, but maybe have had a lot of Messrs. Wakeman and Emerson, this group will be a fun find as Greenslade uses a two keyboard-bass-drums lineup. Dave Lawson sings from the piano and adds some synth while the head Dave leads the way on Hammond organ and also utilizes the mighty Mellotron. The group alternate vibrant, tonally rich instrumentals (such as “English Western”) with droll vocal numbers like “Feathered Friends” and “Drowning Man.” Unlike many of their contemporaries, Greenslade never succumb to bombast, unless you count a couple of portentous blasts of Mellotron. The double gatefold edition that I bought was beautifully packaged with a nice booklet to get you up to speed on what you missed first time around. The second CD contain slightly different versions played at a BBC studio session and at a live show.
Garden Shed—England (1977)
Alas, poor England. No, I don’t mean the Brexit debacle or that it had to survive Liz Truss being Prime Minister for six weeks. I’m talking about the prog-rock group England, whose excellent debut album Garden Shed was released in 1977, just as punk rock was taking the country by storm. Led by keyboardist-singer Robert Webb, England prove themselves skilled purveyors of an ornate art-rock that is not far off from what Yes were doing around the same time (Going for the One, etc.). They excel at quiet ballads (“Yellow” and “All Alone”) and fable-like rockers (“Midnight Madness”) and can get epic as well: “Three-Piece Suite” has 12 verses!
And kudos to the band for doing up the 30th anniversary rerelease in the best way possible. The second disc shows a reconfigured band staking their claim with cheeky new originals (“Fags, Booze and Lottery”) an imaginative cover (Dylan’s “Masters of War” set to Gershwin’s “Summertime”) and a couple of b-sides and live tracks. Garden Shed is a lovingly packaged with Webb adding illustrations of each song to the lyric sheet, an idea that was shelved in ’77. Although they didn’t last long in their original incarnation, England are a band well worth (re)discovering. Also, check out their 1975 EP “Imperial Hotel” on YouTube, it’s actually one 24-minute piece and is prog heaven.
Well, that’s it for now. In the hopefully near future, I will be back with Part 2. That will focus on later-life discovery of newer bands. But it’s all relative—by newer I mean groups that have formed after 1990, more than 30 years ago!
Reel and Rock 