Where did I get this record? I’m guessing it strolled in while I was sleeping, like my dreams of imaginary cities. I never heard of this band, and the cover (close-up of a male-model-looking astronaut likely floating in space, looking back at Earth—a poetic visual representation of the title) most likely didn’t compel me to fork out record store dollars. I’m not even crazy about owning contemporary (2016) vinyl—on the shelf, it takes up twice the space as old records, and when moving-time comes, that mega-gram stuff adds up. If anyone wants this, and would like to stop by, it’s yours. I figured it would be one of those records I’d listen to once and write something amusing about (it’s a lot easier to be funny when you’re writing a negative review), but alas, I like the record—I like the production, and the playing, and the singing, and in particular, I really like some of the catchy, even intriguing, pop songs. They remind me of someone/something, but I can’t put my finger on it—not surprising, in that I’m pretty ignorant of the last quarter-century-plus of “indie” music. On the other hand, the music is about fifty-percent someone else’s cup of tea. There’s a website with slightly less info than the minimalist album cover—it opens up, revealing the most basic credits on one side, and on the other side, under what looks like a full solar eclipse, a poem. Or it could lyrics, which, by the way, I can understand as sung—but nothing reaches out and grabs me (which is fine, even good)—and I’m too lazy to dwell on them. That brings me around to the name of the band. What does it mean? I’m not going to make a dumb guess because it might be a fairly obvious literary allusion I’m not getting. Or it might simply be two rather good words that, when placed one after another, it’s safe to assume have not been used anytime recently to describe French fries, sell SUVs, on a fascism promoting hat, or as a fucking online game.
Archive for the 'Other People’s Records' Category
It’s hard for me to write anything about Patsy Cline because I was such a huge fan of her at one time and now, I barely listen to her anymore. Not that I mind listening to her, as I am right now, writing this—it’s just that I don’t normally put on a Patsy Cline record when I’m in the mood for country music, or love songs, or sad songs, or introspection. At one time, I suppose, my love for her had to do with being in the vicinity of “discovering” her—around the time this 1980 LP came out, when I was around 20 years old. It’s a two-record retrospective—one of about a million Patsy Cline compilation releases since her tragic death, at the age of 30, in 1963. I had not been a fan of country and western, in my youth, but my appreciation for it more or less coincided with me becoming a punk rocker (if that makes sense), and also learning about jazz, and also discovering a lot of older music I didn’t know existed.
Quite fascinating to me (and probably no one else) is that at this time (a little hard to believe it was 40-some years ago), I was an enormous fan of The Clash, James Brown, and Patsy Cline—and now I barely listen to those three. It’s not that I don’t have an appreciation of them, on paper so to speak, even love for them—but I’m just not feeling it. Well, The Clash is most confusing to me. It’s almost like I’ve turned against them. (I know, it’s silly.) If someone put on a good James Brown record right now, I’d probably be into it—it’s just that I never choose, these days, to put on James Brown. And I’m listening to Patsy Cline right now, enjoying the music thoroughly, but I don’t feel it the way I once did—so I guess that’s the point. Sad but true.
It’s interesting—when a song comes on that I don’t know that well, such as, “Imagine That,” I appreciate that one a lot more than all the usuals—the big ones that everyone knows—which I don’t need to mention. I suppose that I’ve just heard some of them way too many times—and just wore out the parts of my brain where they reside. Partly to blame, I guess, are movies and TV shows—who will, on occasion, allow one of these songs to do way too much work. “Back in Baby’s Arms” is a good example. I wouldn’t mind never hearing that song again. “She’s Got You,” however, I still feel a fondness for—I liked that one so much I learned to play it, and did (for myself, only) quite often. I can still remember the revelation of “Leavin’ on Your Mind”—my first hearing that—even if I can’t feel it in the same way. “Crazy” is undeniable, but I’ve just heard it too many times. “Sweet Dreams” was always my favorite, and I guess I can’t forget that. It’s still got a little furnished cottage in the nostalgia region of my brain. And… to end on a positive note, there’s the song, “Why Can’t He Be You”—that one’s a killer, lyric-wise, and the way she sings it sure is fine. That might be my favorite at this point. And maybe, if I’m lucky, and some years pass, brain cells under the bridge, just maybe I can come around to all of them again.
It’s vacation time and once again I’m staying in a remote cabin in the “North Woods,” far from the heat of the city and the oppression of the internet. No sports scores, no race results. There’s a deck of cards, which can function as a prayer book, or a deck of cards, and there’s a bottle opener screwed into the wood above the sink. There’s an old record player which is probably the most newfangled thing there, and there are a few LPs. First, I get hung up on Patsy Cline and my memories (of Patsy Cline), but then I see this old, odd album I know nothing about stuck in with the all-too-familiar Mitch Millers and Herb Alperts. Its cover has seen better days and the liner notes are entirely in German! Yet it plays great—it seems to be some really sturdy German pressed vinyl—or maybe it was only played once—that’s what it looks like, and it’s been protected in a high quality, Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft (that’s the label) paper and plastic sleeve.
The glossy orange cover is topped by four bands of increasingly lighter, yellow orange. It’s nice. There’s a blue dot that I, at first, think is part of the design (it’s quite pleasing, compositionally), but then I see it’s a hand-marked price sticker (1.50—not sure if that’s dollars, euros, or Deutschemarks). There’s what looks like a “coffee cup ring,” also nice compositionally, clever—yet, I think it’s “real”—someone used this cover as a coaster. Under the label logo, upper righthand corner, in heavy black letters it says: avant garde—its placement leads me to think it’s a series. Though… there’s no indication of that on the label, itself—where it does say GEMA—which should be a word, in English, but is not. Then, as a “title,” there are six lines of text, all lower case, some of it names, and some in German, and what seems to me far more punctuation than could possibly be necessary. The only real clue to what’s here comes from the label itself. Side A is: Mauricio Kagel performing “Phantasie für Orgel mit obbligati,” and Juan Allende-Blin doin’ “Sonorités.” It also says, “Gerd Zacher, Orgel,” but in smaller letters, like it’s an afterthought. Side B, then, has György Ligeti “Volumina,” and “Étude Nr. 1 (‘Harmonies’).” Once again, Gerd Zacher, Orgel, so maybe it is important. Mulling this over… for some reason I remember to take one of my prescription antacids (one a day). Isn’t Zacher a kind of pastry? Now I’m hungry.
So, now, for the record. It’s primarily organ, but scary organ, horror movie stuff, though more scary than that—like the scariest movie ever? Could “Orgel” be a mashup of organ and ogre? And might Gerd Zacher be the German Zacherley? There are other sounds, too, like sound effects, occasionally, somewhat disturbing. A lot of silence, too—really quiet parts, along with some stretches of near silence, which I find quite effective. I make the mistake of checking out the back cover again and to my dismay, I notice that the liner notes have been translated! Could this have happened since I looked at it last, or did I just think it was German, at first? I haven’t been drinking. Oh, maybe it’s both—the problem is, the font is so miniscule, in the low light in this cabin (drafty oil lamp, and so forth) it’s really hard to read. It’s a smaller font than some of my early zines, which everyone complained about. But I have to do my duty and try to make sense of this. The text is by Dieter Schnebel, and the first thing I see mentioned is musique concrète, so now it’s beginning to make more sense, as there are some tape-recorded things—it sounds like some voices (can’t make out what they’re saying), and now it sounds like we’re on a transit system. Then back to the organ. One organ note, held for a really, really, really long time. The second side, then, more of the same. Some really loud organ, like one chord held until it hurts. I don’t want to say something dumb like, “I could play that,” well, because I couldn’t. I have neighbors. I mean, they’re like a mile down the road, but I’m going to take a wild guess that they have guns. Now dude’s rockin’ out (I’m assuming it’s a dude). I’m thinking about those rock stars in the Seventies who would pretend to “fuck” their organ, which got old. Or, like Keith Emerson—I remember him pulling that big, old Hammond organ over on himself, like it was crushing him. Am I misremembering that?—because that would crush you. Now we’re to the point where it sounds like nothing so much as that part in 2001: A Space Odyssey when it gets all psychedelic—deep space, I guess. I miss the recorded sounds from the first side. I want to listen to that over again—Schnebel mentioned a toilet flushing (I probably thought it was mine, except there isn’t one here) and an egg timer—which is what, exactly?
This 45, from 1969, is the most expensive record I ever bought. $5000. Which is kind of pathetic considering I don’t much like it anymore—and nice copies go for next to nothing, 50 years later. But it was my favorite record at the time—I’m guessing I was about 10 years old—and so I bought it from David G. No money actually had to change hands, since he owed me $5000. What did he owe me for? I don’t remember now, but I think it was about a bet. We used to bet hefty amounts over minor disagreements, but no one ever seemed to settle up. Actually, I do still feel a faint glimmer of that involuntary spine tingling you get from a musical hook—in this case, I think it’s merely the drums at the beginning of the verse—and to some degree the bass line (which was more hidden back in the days when my “hi-fi” was a cheap, plastic “Show ’n Tell” player). Also, I was captivated by the lyrics mentioning “Windy”—and I wondered if it was the same Windy immortalized in The Association hit a couple years earlier. I knew no Windy, but I did know a Wendy, and I might have had a crush on her.
That the song was offensive didn’t occur to me at the time. The term “Indian Giver,” of course, is useful to describe someone who gives you something and then takes it back—maybe someone could popularize a different term for that phenomenon that isn’t a negative stereotype of a group of people—say, “Reverse Gifter” (I realize that has no ring to it). That the song is also using the term to complain about a woman who “no longer puts out” is doubly offensive. And that the musical motif is based on a stereotyped version of a recognizable Native American music makes it triply offense. Still, maybe the whole thing is harmless enough, just kind of dumb. And certainly not worth five grand.
It’s amazing my copy still plays, seeing how I played it to death. It’s on the most psychedelic looking Buddah (sic) label. And it’s cracked all the way through, too, but I put a piece of scotch tape on the “B” side—so the “A” side still plays fine. Unfortunately, I was never able to play the “B” side, that I remember, and I would have remembered, I think. It’s called “Pow Wow,” but instead of another inane and offensive cultural rip-off, this song (I only know this since it’s on YouTube) is entirely pressed backwards! Apparently, the record company had some reason to do this—involving airplay—that seemed to make sense to them. The song that’s played backwards is called “Bring Back Howdy Doody”—that’s kind of a goofy pop number (I know because it’s on YouTube). Howdy Doody was a puppet—a cowboy character—who was on TV. So if you think about it, it’s kind of a brilliant move putting a backwards version of that song on the B-side of “Indian Giver.” I’m just now realizing this—that it’s somewhat clever, not just annoying. I really can’t remember if I listened to “Pow Wow” as a lad, and what I thought about it. I must have, but maybe I was just confused—but then, “confusion” was pretty much the baseline state of my entire childhood.
I found this 1979 K-Tel radio love songs hits collection somewhere, and kept it, and even listen to it occasionally—even though it plays like it’s been wedged in someone’s couch cushions for a few decades. Call me Krazy—I still enjoy it. Maybe it’s all the “K’s”—lately—watching that Blade Runner sequel, reading Kafka and Kurt Vonnegut. Also, I based a character on Calvin (K Records) for something I’m writing (it’s a secret), and I saw a box of GF Rice Krispies for $14 and said, “this marks the end.” I always thought K-Tel was affiliated with Kmart—kind of understandable to think that—but not so. I recently found the K-Tel children’s songs collection unlistenable, in spite of the best cover ever. For this one, I have no cover, but I oddly find it quite listenable. (I found the cover online—kind of creepy—single rose on white, silk sheets—no loss there.) I guess I have a soft spot for the odd collection records (especially ones advertised on TV in the Seventies). These songs are from the musically weaker, latter half of the Seventies—stuff I heard on the radio during the end of high school—and, for the most part, either ignored or actively despised. Now, believe it or else, on this well-worn vinyl, most of these songs sound really pretty good. If I had to match the songs to the bands, however, I would have scored a pathetically weak 1 out of 15 (I knew Commodore’s did “Three Times a Lady”). Since I don’t have an album cover to follow along with, it’s hard to comment on each song—so I’ll just say, some do sound as insipid as ever, but even so, I’m finding them as a whole… kind of nice. I’d say this was nostalgia talking, but I was never nostalgic for music I didn’t like—this is kind of reverse nostalgia, if that makes any sense (it doesn’t). Anyway, I’m just feeling a bit of warmth and luv for once, for the Little River Band, England Dan & John Ford Coley, Heatwave, Dr. Hook, Peaches & Herb, Bobby Caldwell (surprisingly good, but then I’ve gone smooth-jazz lately), Gene Cotton & Kim Carnes, Rita Coolidge, Ann Murray, Commodores, Melissa Manchester, Ambrosia (that “How Much I Feel” song—not bad), Eric Carmen, Firefall, and the real shocker, Gino Vannelli—in that I had one of his albums in high school and it was definitively not for me. But this “I Just Wanna Stop” song sounds kind of great to me right now.
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.
James Taylor “Sweet Baby James”
I’ve always been a big fan of James Taylor—or at least the idea of him—I don’t actually go out of my way to see him live, or pay tons of money for his records—though I think you can find this one pretty easily—I suppose they pressed a lot of them. As I’ve mentioned before, the song “Fire and Rain” was one of my favorites when I was eleven or twelve, when I heard it on my “Superstars of the Seventies” collection—and it’s still a song that gives me goose bumps—a least until the end (which they should have maybe faded out before it goes into the rinse cycle). I know that might sound overly critical, but you still hear that song regularly on the radio—I’ve probably heard it 3 million times over the years—and so you develop an opinion. That kind of airplay could be blessing for an artist (if there’s some kind of royalty compensation)—or a curse (no escape)! Overall, it’s an okay record—there’s some gospel, some blues, some country, some folk, some rock’n’roll, you name it. Put it all together, I guess, and you get “singer-songwriter.” I feel like a lot of people are kind of negative about that concept, lately (or maybe for decades)—which isn’t really fair—but I suppose it’s human nature to pick on something—it almost doesn’t matter what it is—as long as the cowards have backup. James Taylor is about as singer-songwriter as you can get—but, even more, he’s James Taylor—as in, kind of legendary. It didn’t hurt that he was in Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), one of the best movies ever, which he’s great in—even if he does look about as comfortable as a civilian trying to land a plane after the pilot has died. Which is one of many things great about that movie. “Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone.” All the songs are fine, they’re good—but that “Fire and Rain”—I’m gonna listen to it again.
There were quite a few of these “101 Strings” records sold, probably more than Big Macs. If you go over to someone’s house—especially an old person who has one of those record players built into a credenza—and they have like two dozen LPs—they’ll likely have a Herb Alpert and one of these. They are considered “Easy Listening,” I guess, though “easy” is a slippery word, to be sure. You could never make these records these days, because you’d have to pay the musicians real money, and there are a lot of paychecks. 101—plus the conductor, the recording engineer, etc. I guess there might have actually been MORE than 101 in the orchestra, but 101 is a nice number. And if you’re counting individual strings—watch out. It’s fun to look at their complete catalog because, while most of it is typical and boring, there are some bizarre selections (“Astro-Sounds from Beyond the Year 2000,” “Superman and Other Great Themes from Space,” “The Activity and Excitement of an Actual Big Game Hunt!”—and a few more good ones) that I wouldn’t mind picnicking on for a dollar or two. Unfortunately, the covers, that I’ve seen, are not like those “Music for…” records. These are kind of boring. This one, in fact is ALL TEXT—about 17 different fonts, as if that’s going to make it interesting. I do like their slogan: “The Sound of Magnificence”—which I might steal for my own band. Anyway, the reason I picked this one up is because I love Burt Bacharach and Jimmy Webb—two of my favorite songwriters. And there are string orchestra versions of some great songs: “The Look of Love,” “MacArthur Park,” “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” and “This Guy’s In Love with You.” Those are the best four. What’s strange is, for all the songs those guys have written, two of the nine songs on this record aren’t by them. Weird. And the worst thing—one of those is “House of the Rising Sun.” That song just seems to follow you around like dog shit on your shoes. I’m sorry if it’s your favorite song—and I don’t really have anything against it—it’s just after you hear a song ONE MILLION TIMES, it gets a little weak. If I never heard it again in my life, it wouldn’t be the thing I missed.
Wild Cherry “Wild Cherry”
I remember this record all too well from when I was 16 because the hit, “Play That Funky Music,” was a number one hit single, on the radio, in the store, at parties—it would show up in places that you wouldn’t even imagine a song making its way to—the beach, the dentist, church. Well, we went to the Unitarian church by then, but that might be an exaggeration. The song’s chorus goes: “Play that funky music white boy”—which I guess illustrates that point the band are all white guys playing Black music. I found it annoying, at the time, mostly because of its ubiquity and repetition. We wanted to play punk rock, at parties, not this, and whenever we went to beer drinking, pot smoking parties, around that time, you would always see that distinctive album cover. It’s one of the classics—a white woman’s mouth biting on a very red cherry. It takes up the whole cover. The art department did their job. The cherry is way too maraschino, and way too big for a cherry—yet it’s obviously what it is: sex. The crucial thing, though, is that that lipstick is probably the world’s reddest lipstick—it’s most likely not even legal, at this point. A couple of the songs have a nice groove, but it’s mostly lukewarm—and I’d be happy to never hear the title track again. There’s a cover of “Nowhere to Run” that sounds more like Cherry and the Vanillas than Martha and the Vandellas. I may or may not have known, in 1976, that Wild Cherry was an Ohio band. Principal songwriter and lead singer Robert Parissi is from Mingo Junction, Ohio (I love that name)—river town, steel mill town—I bet there was a good diner there. And some serious drinking establishments where a funky white boy could get his ass kicked for no reason at all. How that leads to this—that’s what makes life interesting
DJ Farraginous 
Recent Comments