Scritti Politti “Cupid & Psyche 85”

I remember this band from the Eighties—it’s likely that when I worked in the record store (Kent, Ohio, 1983), one or two of their early singles came through—we used to get import orders of UK stuff—a huge variety. We’d sample everything, sometimes not for more than a few minutes—and something like this wouldn’t make it very long. We’d say, “Another one of THOSE bands.” Meaning in this case, synth pop, with an emphasis on JAUNTY. I’ve since become a lot more accepting of a much wider variety of music, particularly pop music—whereas, if I find something catchy, I find it catchy. There seems to be some R&B and funk influences here—at least on some songs—that win me over a bit. Apparently, the band is still out there, playing, possibly at a venue near you—perhaps with very few original members. I’m not delving into the lyrics this time around, no lyric sheet, and I’m tired. This is, I guess, their second and most successful LP. I used to live with a black cat named Psyche, so I’ll always like that name. Cupid, however, is a mixed bag. 1985 is the year I first moved to NYC, so that’s a memorable year for me, but I don’t have much fondness for most of the music coming out of that decade. I scoured the internet tirelessly to find out something about the album art—it’s credited to “Art-O-Matic”—could that be a distant cousin to the MAMA art movement’s Art-O-Fuck? On the back cover, there’s what looks like a loaf of bread wrapped in white cloth that has three gold stars pinned to it. A butterfly has landed on it, as well. Somebody knows what this means. The front cover has a couple of round ink stamps that might almost say “Scritti Politti”—but the funny thing is, as this album was kicking around my “on deck” area, I kept thinking they were clocks. Why two? I thought. And if you live in Milwaukee, like I do, you can’t but help think of the George Webb restaurants who famously display two clocks. The story goes, at one time it was illegal for a place to be open 24 hours, so this “we never close” establishment set one clock a minute apart from the other, so they could officially close one minute a day. Yes, that sounds like bullshit to me, but then so are their hash-browns.

Frank Sinatra “Moonlight Sinatra”

Nice that my random system picked a moon-themed record on this weekend of the “Sturgeon Moon”—but you’ve got to wonder. This one is from 1966—and it’s a pretty good Sinatra, with the Nelson Riddle orchestra. The only negative is the cover—not one of his better ones (there are some really inspired Sinatra covers, so, a lot of competition). I mean, it’s an okay artist’s rendering—just his face—and it looks like they tried to replicate moonlight shining on a person, which isn’t easy. He mostly looks an odd shade of purple, and a little seasick. I get it—I slept, like, not at all, last night. Ten songs with “Moon” in the title—I’m not going to list them all—but they’re all good. It was probably hard to resist the temptation to make a double album. My favorite is “Moon Love”—a song I particularly like because some friends and I named a band after it, back in the 80s. Other favorites here are: “Moonlight Becomes You” and “I Wished On The Moon”—and there are also some that I’m a little less familiar with, which is nice. There are brief but stellar liner notes, on back—by Stan Cornyn—who was an exec with Warner Bros—who the internet tells me won some Grammys for liner notes! I didn’t even know there was such a thing, but that makes me happy. This odd sentence caught my eye: “In a world whose people seldom look for love any farther than their own palms…” Whoa. And that was decades before the “Smartphone” was invented. Good liner notes! So I’m gonna excerpt an entire paragraph—I don’t think Stan Cornyn would mind: “The Moon: who is our Earth’s constant lover, who comes alive only in darkness, who comes back to us as inevitably as nightfall. To sing of the Moon, and not of missiles, of romance and not of fudge, of love and not lollipops, is old-fashioned. Something out of Grandma’s day. Out of date, like the stars. Non-chic, like Valentines. Corny, like your own heart’s beat.” Thank you, Stan Cornyn! And thank you Frank and Nelson… and thanks for nothin’ Sturgeon Moon. Nice Sinatra record. That last bit was mine, which is why, I guess, DJ Farraginous isn’t wining any Grammys.

Gene Ammons “Brother Jug!”

I’m not sure where I came upon this record, but it’s another one from 1970! I hadn’t listened to much Gene Ammons, a Chicago jazz tenor sax player, and my impression of him was a bit off, and putting this on was one of those happy surprises. The first song, “Son of a Preacher Man,” is high energy and pretty funky, heavy on organ (Sonny Phillips) and wah-wah guitar (Billy Butler). The next song is more what I expected, a kind of tenor sax heavy, slower number—but it sounds very familiar, and I realized it’s “Didn’t We,” by Jimmy Webb—which a lot of people have covered (most notably, for me, one of my favorites, Richard Harris). Six songs, all really good—two by Gene Ammons. They alternate, fast slow, fast slow—the second slow one is a very nice version of “Blue Velvet.” It’s kind of pointless to categorize the music by name—I suppose Soul works best. A few of the songs—or all of them, really—sound like they would work well in Seventies movies—though they might overshadow all but a great movie. Bernard Purdie plays drums on most of the songs—excellent, of course, as is Bob Bushnell on bass. The final song has a different lineup, and includes Junior Mance, piano, and Candido, congas. Looking at my internet, there’s a bit about Gene Ammons—he died fairly young, and was imprisoned twice, for narcotics (the second time for seven years), yet he released a ton of records—I’m not even going to count (no less than six have “Jug” in the title). Also, he was known as “The Boss,” so that makes at least three “The Boss’s” (if you include yours truly). I am definitely going to keep my eye out for more Gene Ammons records—if any are half as good as this, I’d be happy.

Gordon Jenkins “Manhattan Tower”

If you haven’t seen this record in a thrift store by now, you haven’t been looking hard enough. I suppose that indicates they pressed a lot, it’s not collectable, and it’s possibly too corny to listen to more than once. Not that it’s not a lot of fun. The work of composer and arranger Gordon Jenkins, it’s kind of a mini Broadway show, with orchestra, spoken word, and songs—all compressed into the groves of a long-playing LP. There are enough versions of this record to make your head spin. Someone out there has probably tracked its history, and to that fan, you might stop reading this now—I’m not going to add anything enlightening here. It actually has a history going back to the Forties, and then this new version came out in 1956. I don’t know… according to the liner notes, this is a greatly expanded version of the original. (Expanded to reflect the insane optimism of the early-Fifties?) To give you an example, there’s a song called “Happiness Cocktail,” and it’s not ironic (unless I’m missing something—and I’m always missing something—but probably not this time).

The overall theme, of course, is New York City. It’s the kind of work that one is tempted to call a “love letter” to The City—meaning, of course, an advertisement for the city. The other major theme, of course, is heterosexual wealthy person love—meaning a horny guy landing a beautiful woman like an exhausted mackerel. I’m sorry if I sound cynical—I’m sure this kind of thing makes me vomit a lot less than most people—I can enjoy it—or least to a point. Okay— but it just keeps going and going. It’s only the end of Side A and “Steven” is wailing “Never leave me, never leave me!” My advice would be: for the love of God, stop wailing, “Never leave me.” I’m going to have to save Side B for a rainy day. It’s now a week later, and that rainy day is today. More of the same—though I swear I heard someone moaning about the humidity. Maybe that was me. Then, more: “Please don’t leave me!” Did it ever occur to these people that the whole problem is people wanting to “own” things—from women to skyscrapers? The internet tells me yet another version came out in 2007—no doubt on CD—so it’s even longer. By that time, of course, Manhattan towers have come and gone, but the one thing you can count on is some slob wailing, “Never leave me…”