And Bands: Glide / Living With God

Gandalf Murphy & the Slambovian Circus of Dreams: Glide

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Gandalf Murphy & the Slambovian Circus of Dreams: Living With God (live, WXPN)

[unpurchaseable]

At least four of our regular contributors have heard Gandalf Murphy & the Slambovian Circus of Dreams, the upstate NY-based Pink Floyd-meets-The Allman Brothers hillbilly psychedelic folk rock band which takes over the dance and main stages at our fave folk festival each summer for successive evenings of total mayhem and their infamous extended ecstatic jams. I know, because you can hear it from every distant tentsite - and for three years running, the energy has brought me out of my own camp circle like a will-o-the-wisp to dance in the moonlight with the young'uns, umbrella at the ready, already festooned with lightsticks for the journey.

The band members, several of whom are related by blood or marriage, but not one of whom is named Gandalf Murphy, style themselves as the sonic spirit guides to a mythical state of being somewhere between nirvana and Atlantis, where kindness and love reign supreme. Their leather-and-lace costumes are outlandish and cosplay-retro-fantasy, as befits their ridiculous backstory, but the mythos works: their followers are legion, known for travelling hundreds of miles to attend one of their pre-Halloween Grand Slambovian Hillbilly Pirate Balls, and I'm fast becoming one of them, thanks to those few precious nights of uncontrolled wantonness which they provide for me every summer.

Like the Grateful Dead before them, studio recordings from the Grand Slambovian camp offer but a faint hint of what their live performances provide, and so much of their recorded output is in fact live recordings released officially; appropriately, then, I've included not one but two tunes above, the first from their 2003 sophomore studio release, the second a truncated teaser from a live radio show the following year, so you can hear the difference. But really, travel the hundred miles if you can. We'll make a Slambovian of you yet.

And Bands: I Could Be So Good To You

Don and The Goodtimes: I Could Be So Good To You

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Portland's Don Gallucci is the one man link between The Kingsmen and The Stooges and it's quite a story. As a high school kid, he played those memorable electric piano riffs on The Kingsmen's 1963 hit "Louie Louie" but was too young to go on tour when the single went nationwide. Down but not out, he got some buddies together and formed Don and the Goodtimes.

They toured the Northwest circuit in top hats-- filling a gap left by the now LA-based hit making machine Paul Revere and the Raiders. In 1966, Don and the Goodtimes became the house band on Dick Clark's TV show "Where The Action Is". They got signed to Epic and, with the help of studio musicians, recorded and  released "I Could Be So Good To You" in 1967. The single went #1 in the Northwest, but failed to claw its way into the Billboard Top 40.

    After an album produced by the prolific Jack Nitzsche and a  few more singles, Don and the Goodtimes  broke up and Gallucci started a legendary progressive rock band called Touch. Alas their self titled album went nowhere and Don lent his studio wizardry to Elektra. His best known producing effort is the one Don says he just tried not to "screw up": The Stooges's Fun House, arguably rock's first punk record.

And Bands: So You Think You’re In Love

Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians: So You Think You‘re In Love

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You probably have never heard of Dennis and the Experts. I certainly hadn’t until I did research for this post. Formed in 1976, they soon changed their name to The Soft Boys. The Soft Boys included Robyn Hitchcock, Morris Windsor, and Andy Metcalfe, plus one of three guitarists, depending on when you asked. It was only in the last year the band was together that Metcalfe left, to be replaced by Matthew Selligman. The band broke up, having released two albums, and Hitchcock started his solo career. But when Hitchcock decided that he wanted to work with a band again, Metcalfe and Windsor were back on board. There was also a keyboard player, but he was only there for a year. The “new” band was Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians. By the time the band recorded the album Perspex Island, the lineup was augmented by guest musicians, including Michael Stipe and Peter Buck from REM. So You Think You’re In Love comes from that album, and it finds the band coming as close as they ever did to pop music. Earlier, the band featured Hitchcock’s surreal lyrics, backed by edgy music that could slip into an odd time signature without warning. But here, Hitchcock sounds like he has returned from his journey to the farthest reaches of the galaxy, and is becoming reaclimated to life on earth. I love both the earlier and this later sound, but I thought this would be a better starting point for anyone discovering Hitchcock’s music for the first time.

Tarot Cards (The Moon): I Can’t Understand the Moon

Andrew McKnight: I Can‘t Understand the Moon

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I collect Tarot cards, as much for the artistry as anything else. Tarot seems to inspire some amazing artwork at times, although it can also bring out the corniest side of some people as well. But the decks I like bring out all of the mystery and power of the Tarot. The Moon card I have chosen for this post is by Salvador Dali, and it comes from a complete deck that he painted. The card represents dreams. These can be the source of inspirations for great endeavors. But the Moon can also represent nightmares, or even insanity. To me, that is the aspect of the card the Dali captured best.

In my Halloween post on Oliver di Place, I promised that I would be posting another Andrew McKnight song here. McKnight captures another aspect of the Moon card. His narrator is lamenting the loss of a lover who was unattainable in the first place. He identifies her with the moon. But maybe he is literally referring to the moon, and maybe the rest is just his fevered imagination. To me, the song allows for either interpretation, and therefore is a perfect song to go with the card.

Tarot Cards (Justice): Justice

Alan Price: Justice

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We all want justice but you got to have the money to buy it/
You'd have to be a fool to close your eyes and deny it.

A cynical sentiment from former Animal Alan Price, "Justice" is one of the minor cuts on his O Lucky Man! soundtrack. (So you can imagine how great the major cuts are.) Price appears in the Lindsay Anderson film in the same Greek Chorus role as Jonathan Richman in "There's Something About Mary" and Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye in "Cat Ballou". In the film our hero, played by Malcolm MacDowell, must abandon his principles to succeed in capitalist society. Will he succeed and at what cost? The hairstyles and clothes may be dated but, in light of the Occupy Wall Street movement, the film's message has never been more relevant.

Tarot Cards (The Hanged Man): The Hanged Man

Mr. Fox - The Hanged Man

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The Hanged Man or Le Pendu (XII) is the twelfth trump or Major Arcana card in most traditional Tarot decks, and amongst others signifies suspension, rebirth, sacrifice, and transformation. Now I'm not sure of course, but I've got a hunch that the early seventies British folkers of Mr. Fox were well aware of this when they wrote the rather spooky The Hanged Man. "Walking a valley that never saw the sun, step by the stones where the icy waters run, stand in a church where the village choir once sang, and run along the pathway where the dead man used to hang..."