In Memoriam: Dan Hicks

Above: I Scare Myself
PS: Stick with it until the violin solo
purchase [ Striking It Rich ]

As Andy La Ray Gun said, the stage is (sadly for us down here/ happy for them up there) getting pretty crowded, but I guess they would find a place on that stage for Dan Hicks (d. Feb 6, 2016).

Hicks hit the music scene as far back as the late 50s, worked his way though the 60s and around the 70s gained some recognition.

Striking It Rich is my favorite of his albums (probably because I listened to it the most). It includes a number of tunes that epitomize the man's style and ought to get you to at least tap your foot to the beat. Several of the songs have stuck with me over the 30 or more years:
<I Scare Myself>, <Canned Music> - all essentially of the same Dan Hicks style - a little country,a little jazz, a little folk and ... a little quirky, with an element of humour - of sorts. As in <O'Reilly At the Bar>:

Wasn't that beer there one of mine
Stealin' my beer is a sin
Stealin' my drink has caused me to think
Think about the rat that you are
Whoever you are, you pushed me too far
Now I'm gonna smash your face

In Memoriam: Some Overshadowed 2016 Losses

In a year in which we lost David Bowie, Prince, Merle Haggard, two thirds of ELP, Paul Kantner, George Michael, Leonard Cohen, Maurice White, George Martin, Glenn Frey, Sharon Jones, and Mose Allison, to name just a very few (most of whom are still available as subjects for this theme, hint, hint), it is not surprising that some deaths during 2016 were overshadowed by bigger names. Here are a few that you may have missed:

Fred Tomlinson: Tomlinson wrote much of the music that added to the lunacy of Monty Python’s Flying Circus and other British shows, and as leader of the Fred Tomlinson singers, performed a good deal of it. If he did nothing else but write the music for “The Lumberjack Song” and lead the Vikings in singing “Spam,” he’d deserve lionization, but he did much more.

[purchase the complete Monty Python series]

Dave Swarbrick and Pete Zorn: I was introduced to both of these musicians due to their connection to Richard Thompson. Swarbrick was best known as a fiddler, and was a member of Fairport Convention, remaining as a member after Thompson left, playing numerous instruments, singing and writing songs. He also contributed to many albums by Thompson and other members of the extended Fairport circle and performed as a solo artist and in various combinations. Check out this footage of him wailing on the fiddle, and singing, with Fairport Convention live in 1970.


Pete Zorn was an American multi-instrumentalist who played with Thompson live and on record, as well as other bands, often in the same English folk world as Swarbrick, and it does seem that they crossed paths. Zorn was Gerry Rafferty’s first choice to play the sax solo in “Baker Street,” but was unavailable; instead Raphael Ravenscroft got the gig. I remember seeing Zorn play with Thompson and handling many stringed and woodwind instruments, including the bass flute. Here he is, singing and playing sax on Thompson’s “Tear Stained Letter.”

[purchase Richard Thompson’s Hand of Kindness, featuring Zorn]
[purchase Fairport Convention’s Liege & Lief]

Gilli Smyth: The co-founder of Gong, with her partner and collaborator Daevid Allen (who died last year), Smyth was a musician, poet, writer and activist. Her contributions to Gong (where she was sometimes billed as Shakti Yoni), and the spin off collections that sprung up over the years, were eccentric, provocative and always interesting. You can get a sense of her "space whispering" performing style, and that of Gong, in this performance from 1973 of “Witch's Song, I Am Your Pussy.”

[purchase Gong’s Flying Teapot]

Bernie Worrell: O.K., enough with the Brits. Worrell, a New Jersey native, was a classically trained pianist who gained fame (and entry to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame) playing funk with Parliament/Funkadelic in the 1970s. I really began to appreciate Worrell when he joined the expanded Talking Heads. After that, he continued to play with a wide variety of musicians, and as a leader of his own group. Here he is, featured in the introduction and throughout the live performance of “Life During Wartime” from Stop Making Sense.

[purchase the DVD of Stop Making Sense]

In Memoriam : Merle Haggard

In Memoriam: Merle Haggard
Purchase: Mama Tried 

It’s hard to keep track of all the shitty things that went down in 2016, including remembering all the musical luminaries we lost. Prince, Bowie, Cohen—hard to get past that, but it almost seems like everyone forgot Merle Haggard took the long journey home, too. Haggard passed away right before Prince, so I suppose the news got a little lost.
And, whose casting aspersions? Not me—so much bad went down in 2016 it’s hard to remember it all, let alone remember anything with a light shining on it…

What to say about The Hag? He’s classic country, as responsible for the sound of “real” country as Jennings, Owens, Williams, or Cash. I include Buck Owen’s name in that list of luminaries for two reasons: one, Buck has always been one of my favorites, and two, he and Haggard share equal responsibility for creating the “Bakersfield” sound, otherwise known as honky-tonk.

The meaning of honky tonk is disputed, with lots of disambiguation about the origins of the word, but essentially: it’s chunky, rhythm based hillbilly tunes, spun with a certain verve, rollicking, good time choruses which must be crooned – not sung - and whole lot of dirt and sawdust and love of things run down, of bourbon shot - not sipped - and beer cold and in a can.

I always found Haggard to be kind of square, as before I realized the cultural treasure of country and western music, all I knew of him was “Okie from Muskogee”, which was featured on the Platoon soundtrack and was used as the musical symbol representing the idea of establishment in the platoon itself. There are two great musical scenes in that movie: in the doper’s den, we get a wild party scene accompanied by Smokey Robinson’s “Tracks of My Tears”—sweetness and light, despite the darkness. And Haggard’s anti-hippie screed, “Okie From Muskogee” accompanies the scene where we spend time with the hardcore, non-dope smoking, hippie hating soldiers under Barnse’s command…two versions of hell, made much more tolerable with music, probably both songs inserted as an aural joke…What's ironic about Haggard's straight-laced stance that he took in "Muskogee" is how it directly opposes his own lifestyle, meaning his well-documented drug and alcohol problems. But C&W music is often more about the story and the real life that is reflects than the sterling souls of those who deliver it all. Fiction, or in this case, song, doesn't need to be the truth, at least not so much as it reflects the reality of the one who writes it. It's the emotional truth that matters, not the actual truth that inspires the story...

As I got older, I started to recognize Haggard’s greatness through the influence he had on younger, modern artists. That’s a long list, but his fingerprints can be found everywhere, from Dwight Yoakam to Eric Church, to Reckless Kelly and a lot in between. When he died, the Washington Post wrote how "Respect for the Hag [Haggard] as an icon, both for his musical status and his personal views, is a common theme in country music.” His Wikipedia page goes on to say part of his ubiquity in country songs is the fact that ‘Merle’ rhymes with ‘girl’ and is therefore an easy phonic device to use in four chord, verse-chorus-verse country tunes—you know, the kind you love to sing along to ‘cause they sit so easy in the part of you that feels so good when you hear a pop song…that’s probably a whole post in itself, too.

The Hag—often imitated, rarely equaled (though, I think of all his disciples, Sturgill Simpson, with his grave, beautiful baritone and poet’s soul, is his best successor). There’s a hell of a band up in heaven this year, you know? I don’t want to be there, not yet, but, it bet things sound great right about now. My selection from The Hag is one of my faves, not necessarily his best, but then, that kind of subjectivity could be a whole other post…

I'm using "Mama Tried” for my song to accompany this post, which plays on the best of the outlaw country image that is almost it’s own metaphor with these old troubadours, and never, ever gets old…

IN MEMORIAM: BLACK (COLIN VEARNCOMBE)

Again I seek a lesser known name to celebrate, part of the tragedy being the unnatural cause of his death, following a road traffic accident, in which he sustained ultimately fatal head injuries. He was 53.

Best known, possibly only known for 1987 UK number 8 single, 'Wonderful Life', an intentionally sarcastic summation of how he then saw his life. However, coupled with his gloriously lugubrious baritone, it struck a chord and took off, albeit only within Europe and Australia Sadly nothing else ever made the same impact, although I feel I prefer some of the other songs on his initial and eponymous LP, so, because I can, I will include them in this piece.

                                                                      (Sweetest Smile)

A little known fact is that he was a touring member of the Thompson Twins ahead of his solo career, which continued, in kicks and starts until his untimely death.

                                                      (Everything's Coming Up Roses)

Sure, the never more 80s production values have dated, but still wonderful songs. Enjoy and explore.

Here

In memoriam: Paul Kantner

purchase [Jefferson Airplane Volunteers]

By about the time that <Blows Against the Empire> came out, I had moved on. That said, I had a copy of <Takes Off> and <Volunteers> more or less as soon as they came out. Certainly, their Woodstock performance was critical to my appreciation of Jefferson Airplane. The view they espoused or symbolized was equally formative to my perception of music and the world in general. But somehow, about the time of the switch to Starship in place of Airplane, they lost me. Might have been my developing musical tastes, the offer of so much more in that realm than what they were into. But it never took away from my sense and recognition that they were seminal.

When I think Airplane, I call up Kantner, Slick, Balin, Casady, Kaukonen. I likewise call up Hot Tuna.
I cant say that Paul Kantner stood out for me - except that he was in it all along. Co-founder. It's not like I studied his guitar chops or anything. But that is from a perspective somewhat not too focused on who's who - I just knew that he was critical to the band.

There was certainly something unusual about the band at the time of <Takes Off>. Partly it was their sound - kind of raw but still harmonic. Partly it was the message they seemed to represent (singing "Our generation's got soul" - in whatever connotations you wish to ascribe - and the message/vision became even better defined with <Volunteers/We Can Be Together> ...  "we are all outlaws in the eyes of America ... to find a better time .. Up against the wall mother fu**er .. tear down the wall". Woah . Hold on a minute (shades of Nixon or someone else), . Part of the West Coast/SF scene but more driven than the Dead in their sound and their message. Friends... we are talking 1969 - that's almost 50 years ago... and look where we are now.

Maybe even more poignant and serendipitous in a sad way: the fact that Signe Anderson (the voice on <Takes Off>) happened to die on exactly the same day that Paul Kantner did. Anniversary coming up in a week or so: Jan 28.

 

IN MEMORIAM: MARTIN STONE

Phew, 2017..... I felt I had to wait for this piece, mindful how sharp the scythe has seemed to be in this year just gone, culling indiscriminately from the ranks of musicians I have chosen to fill my ears with these last 40 odd years. I guess none of this should be a surprise, these are individuals in, usually, late middle age with lives often, um, well lived, shall we say, strangers not to the occasional pick-me-up in their primes. And some not. Indeed, some of the best livers, to follow the metaphor, clearly have superlative livers and still live on, maybe to give us cause for rumination. And copy for future years.....

Spoilt for choice, my subject may not be or ever have been a household name. That is, unless you lived with me in the early 1970s. I was at boarding school, that peculiar english idea of bettering the child by removing the parents, and, stranger still, l was loving it. Clearly, and as stated here before, I was an odd boy, and I enjoyed to distance myself from the Floyd, Sabbath and Purple of my peers, diving, in preference, into the splendour of folk and country influences, Fairport Convention and the Flying Burrito Brothers, studiously devouring the inkies for ever new and arcane bands. So when I heard of Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers, my interest was immediately tickled.

An unwieldy mix of hippy redneck culture, filtered through a peculiarly anglocentric prism, to incorporate 20s pastiche, blues and bluegrass, the Willis were in the frontline of pub-rock, the pre-punk evanescence of a simpler music to the prog and pomp of that time. I was hooked. I think they were perhaps the 2nd band I ever saw live, at Hove Town Hall, mesmerised by the stick-thin guitarist,  with what looked like a woollen tea-cosy on his head, peeling off staccato bursts of notes, each droplet lithe and discrete, quite different from the searing screech de rigeur back then, and indeed even now. Retrospectively more of a jazzy stylisation, though the notes were determinably blues in origin. The rest of the band were no slouches either, later Resident "Snakefinger" Phil Lithman, on guitars, fiddle and lap steel, later Attraction Pete Thomas, on drums and the 2 Pauls, "Bassman" Riley on, um, bass, and "Dice Man" Bailey on guitar, sax and banjo.
Bongos over Balham I bought on release, later to discover this was their 2nd album, there being an earlier, nominally duo album, Kings of the Robot Rhythm, featuring just Stone and Lithman and some cameos from assorted guests. Of course I bought it, along with the various compilations that appeared later, the lifespan of the band being distinctly short. Stone continued to drift about the pub-rock circuit, for a time a member of the 101-ers, Joe Strummer's pre-Clash band and, my last live sighting of him, the memorably named Jivebombers. And then zilch. He disappeared.
Being the geek I am I had to look backwards to get my fix, unearthing quite a few of his back pages, starting with Mod group, The Action, later morphing into psychedelic kaftan and yakskin afghan coat botherers, Mighty Baby. I think it was here that he defined and individualised his trademark guitar sound, not least as extended guitar wig-outs were the order of the day. Actually quite a challenging listen, attuned ears always expecting the aforementioned screech of his contemporaries, but worth it. Spells with various other bands, Savoy Brown and famed Ladbroke Grove mavericks/crazies, the Pink Fairies, appear in his c.v., never being quite in the right place at the right time for fame and fortune.
But where did he go to when the music ended? Intriguingly, a 2nd career beckoned and into which he became a far greater legend, disappearing into the little known sub-culture of bookrunning or bookscouting, the apparently cut-throat world of 2nd hand books, whereby fortunes could be made or lost by finding the right first editions in dusty bookshops and library collections. Stone's reputation was of the best, being described as having an uncanny knack of knowing exactly what was there, by smell or intuition, on entry through the door of a bookshop seemingly identical to the one next door. This is described way better here, or by reading White Chapell, Scarlett Tracings, a novel by Iain Sinclair, wherein the chief character, a Nicholas Lane, is unmistakably a thinly disguised Stone. I had become aware of this second life through my purchase of a re-released Mighty Baby LP, with extensive sleevenotes and an interview with Stone, but I always wonder how many of his book people were ever aware of his musical past. And vice versa. Certainly his music fans found it difficult to keep up with him, so it was quite a shock to me to hear and read of his death.
R.I.P. with a burst of their nearly, in my imagination, hit single......

Buy Bongos

Top Posts of 2016

We briefly interrupt our annual In Memoriam theme for our second annual highlighting of the 10 most viewed posts of the previous year.  This year, 9 of the 10 most viewed pieces are from two themes from last summer, "Roads/Streets" and "The Number 4."

Through our (usually) two-week long themes, our international roster of writers address many different kinds of music, and bring different perspectives to their pieces. In our top 10, there are personal memories, political and social discussions, covers, remembrances of those who have passed, both famous and personally important, and even just posts about songs, music and musicians. This list includes discussions of folk, rock, prog, power pop and other genres.

So, in case you missed them, here are the most viewed posts from the last calendar year. But they are only a small sampling of what you will find in our archives, which we invite you to explore.  Also, we invite you to like us on Facebook, so that you won't miss anything.

1. Roads/Streets-Tenemos Roads

2. Girl-Girl Of My Dreams

3. The Number 4-Positively Fourth Street

4. The Number 4-4 Days of Rain

5. Roads/Streets-Bleecker Street

6. The Number 4-Four Sticks

7. Roads/Streets-Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley

8. The Number 4-Four Seasons In One Day

9. Roads/Streets-Shakedown Street

10. The Number 4-409

And there is much more to come in 2017.

In Memoriam: Naná Vasconcelos

Pat Metheny Group: Are You Going With Me (live)
[purchase]

As we all know, 2016 seems to have been the worst year ever for high profile losses in the musical world (and the acting world, and the writing world….). Chuck Prophet released a song from his forthcoming album called “Bad Year For Rock and Roll,” and who would disagree? Every year here at SMM, we look at some of those who we lost this year, the famous, the lesser known, and some in between.

In March, Naná Vasconcelos died of lung cancer in Brazil. Vasconcelos was an incredible musician, and although he was a vocalist and performed on a number of different Brazilian instruments, including the berimbau, he became renowned as a percussionist. As a bad drummer myself, I recognize that percussion is often where you stick the bad musicians, and in my days in the Princeton Band, we had a large “trash percussion” section, which was the home for a bunch of people who wanted to be in the band, but who didn’t actually play an instrument. But much like how right field is where you put the bad baseball player in Little League, while in the majors, right fielders are often stars (like, you know, Babe Ruth or Hank Aaron), Vasconcelos was an all-star percussionist. (Question—is that metaphor too attenuated?). Vasconcelos played with many great jazz and Brazilian artists, as well as some titans of rock while also releasing a number of albums as a leader.

I first became aware of Vasconcelos when he collaborated with Pat Metheny and Lyle Mays on As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls, and then became a member of the Pat Metheny Group. (I know that this is the third Pat Metheny related post that I have written this year (all since September), but I went a whole bunch of years without writing about him, so just bear with me).

As I have previously mentioned, my strongest memory of Vasconcelos was when he deservedly embarrassed me. In 1981, I got to see the Pat Metheny Group, with Vasconcelos, at Princeton, in venerable Alexander Hall. If I recall correctly, the band was to play two sets, and I arranged to interview Metheny between sets for WPRB. Unfortunately, I couldn’t arrange to get in for free, so I paid for the first show, did my interview, and simply never left, allowing me to see the second set.

I remember seeing Vasconcelos playing a strange instrument that appeared to be a gourd, with a long neck and a metal string, played with a bow (see the picture above). I had no clue what it was, and because the Internet wasn’t invented yet, I couldn’t Google it. After the first show, I went into the bowels of Alexander Hall to interview Metheny, who couldn’t have been nicer, and at some point approached Vasconcelos. With the arrogance and ignorance of youth, I asked him, “What was that thing that you were playing?” He looked at me with disgust, and with disdain in his voice, he replied, “that musical instrument is a berimbau.” I immediately realized that I had insulted him, and probably his culture, with my question, mumbled a response and fled. As you can see here, he was truly a master of the berimbau. And I was an idiot.

The lesson that I learned that day, and which I have tried to follow since, is that if you are unprepared, you will get embarrassed. And while that wasn’t the last time that happened to me (unfortunately), it hasn’t happened all that often.

One of the highlights of that show was their performance of “Are You Going With Me,” a song with a strong samba feel which must have been influenced by Vasconcelos. The song, which is often referred to as a “fusion ballad” builds from a quiet start to an intense climax, and the crew had rigged lights so that Alexander Hall’s stained glass windows gradually lit up as the song built, a relatively subtle and clever way of tying the visuals to the sound.

The version above is from Travels, a live album recorded in 1982 at a number of venues, so it is likely be pretty close to what I heard that night in 1981.

Strange (Weird) Holidays: John Fahey

purchase [The New Possibilitiy]

I'm not at all sure what constitutes a "Weird/Strange" holiday (holiday most likely = Xmas for this post). My sense of weird/strange, my understanding of holiday could likely be strange to you: I live in a Moslem-predominate environment, where Xmas means little, but the New Year is celebrated more or less the same (big turkey dinner ... gifts all around) We've also got all sorts of other holidays here, like the one where we slaughter sheep.

Regardless of the holiday, there are some givens: we hope to be together with the family (as best as possible); there are often gifts- and at this time of year we aim for green, red and white lights on a tree... Most anything that goes against these given traditions probably constitutes strange or weird.

It was on <The Dance of Death and Other Plantation Favorites> that I first heard the man and his guitar. The year would have been about '73, although the album by then was close to a decade old. It being the 70s, it must have been the droning, repetitious curiously off-note style that captured me.
I confess it has been several decades since I though much about the man and his music, but a pre-holiday post I ran across the other day noted a Christmas album called <The New Possibility> that he did way back in 1968. It is filled with your classic Xmas tunes - in the Fahey style.

As the reviewer/primary source I came across notes: you can almost hum along to his versions. They are certainly recognizable, even if they arent quite right. There's always a note or beat that shouldnt be there, but works just fine all the same. In the Fahey style.

 

 

Strange (Weird) Holidays: Light That Menorah

Phofo: Light That Menorah
[Here’s Phofo’s website where you can hire him to write music for your TV show, film or commercial]

We’ve occasionally dipped our toes into the shallow pool that is Hanukkah music here at SMM, in part, because as I noted last year, it hasn’t really inspired much good music. Confronting our new theme of Strange or Weird Holiday music, though, I found a contender, “Light That Menorah,” by Phofo, which fits the theme, even if it still isn’t a great holiday song.

In fact, other than the title, it is kind of difficult to tell that it is a Hanukkah song at all. It starts out as an electronic instrumental tune that sort of chugs along, until about a minute or so in, when some distorted vocals, buried in the mix, may be saying “light that menorah.” Or maybe not. At almost 2 minutes in, we get a bit of klezmer sounding music, and some more of the distorted vocals. A snatch more klezmer follows. It then rocks for a little while and then sort of peters out, like a dreidel before it stops spinning. It is, to my ears, more than a little weird.

But certainly interesting. There’s no “album cover” to use as the featured picture for this post, so, instead, in keeping with our theme, I used a picture of a Strange and Weird Menorah.

The song is credited to Phofo, and using my strong Google skills, I determined that Phofo is a composer who has written the score for Disney's Club Penguin, Sushi Pack (a Saturday morning cartoon on CBS), the animated feature film, Los Campeones de La Lucha Libre and Shep & Tiffany Watch TV (which was on Bravo). He is also a producer, has written for McSweeney’s and was a music consultant to PRI's This American Life.

But who is Phofo? That took a bit more work on the Google Machine. Turns out, he is a lawyer named Adam Weitz. Some of you may know that I, J. David, am also a lawyer, and that I blog as a creative outlet. Weitz also has a creative sidelight to his lawyer work, but he gets paid for it (presumably).

And that makes me jealous.

STRANGE (WEIRD) HOLIDAYS : Santa Claus has got the AIDS this year/Tiny Tim

There, it is done. I have posted perhaps the worst, the least defensible holiday song ever. And, until this piece, I was the lucky one. I had never heard it. Don't get me wrong, it isn't so much the lyric, execrable though it is in its splendour of  political incorrectness, or even the tune, macabrely festive, more rather the vocal, grating by even the singers usual standards. And they were usually pretty low. I dare you to get through it all in one go.

In Tim's defence, he claimed it was about Santa eating an Ayds bar, a then available diet snack, becoming unwell thereafter, stating also it was nothing to do with recently outed, subsequently deceased film star Rock Hudson. Yeah, right. As if those 2 sentences might make the one rule out the other, rather than underline each other. (O, and Ayds, at least, had the prescience to change their name soon after.)

Mind you, the thrice married singer proved he was no homophobe, with the hilarious b-side, misogyny being also well within his gift. Bless! But, gallingly, maybe it is his very innocence in how Ds can be STed that is after all the key. Witness the lines about the cat then contracting herpes from the chair he had sat on. (Phew, that's a relief, just a simple misunderstanding then.)

Poor Tim, born Herbert Khoury, in 1932, he was always destined to be on the wrong side of public opinion, his brief window of fame coming more as the audience laughed at, rather than with him. So, by contrast, here is his high water mark. See which you prefer.

Don't bother!

LEFTOVERS: STE: STEREOLAB: TRANSIENT RANDOM NOISE OUTBURSTS WITH ANNOUNCEMENTS

Buy  (Transient Random Noise Bursts with Announcements)

With a title like this, you’d expect doodling and experimentation, a sonic interpretation of a dude named Barry in his attic, hunched over with all the contents of a mail order Acme kit spread over a table: Barry is trying to tune into alien messages.

On 1993's TRNBWA, outer-body contact is communicated through swirling, colorful epic songs. On their 3^rd and most conceptual album, Stereolab crosses the Velvet Underground and shoe gaze with the nod to Krautrock.  They flaunt their influences and yet come up with something so original. Almost all songs are long journeys characterized by simple, repetitive chords and a drenching flood of Moog and droning vocals, which are often distorted or suddenly cut off at the end.

On subsequent and weaker albums, Stereolab continued to develop a sound that has been dubbed “Space Age Bachelor Pad Music”. On Dots and Loops, which has a couple excellent summer singles and Mars Audiac Quintet with its sing along gem “Ping Pong” and on the more complex Cobra and Phases which features some dazzling bass lines, vocals are cleaner and chic. They are the center of the songs much more than on TRNBWA, where vocals are more like an instrument. They can be grotesque, or they can ride the crest of a sonic wave, playing beauty to the instrumentation’s beast.

leftovers: another STE*

purchase [ I'm Losing You]

JDavid's latest post got me thinking: the STE* posts were mostly (Steve***) based. So... what about the  *** STE variation. As in Rod STE****.

Being of a certain age, I confess that I wore out the (vinyl) grooves on my legally-purchased copy (there really weren't (m)any other options back then) of  the "Every Picture Tells A Story" album - Stewart's best ever?  Methinks that '70, '71 and '72 were likely  Rod's best years. Every Picture (in the very middle of these years) is likely the best: it includes the songs you know: Maggie May,  Reason to Believe and Mandolin Wind.

Stewart's eclectic/convoluted past includes stints in The Jeff Beck Group, followed by the Small Faces, followed by the Faces. In fact, at the time of Every Picture, Stewart was still maintaining a connection to The Faces, and they appear on <I'm Losing You> - one of the better of several solid tracks on the album. It's not the tightest production - pieces of the timing are slightly off, but what matters much, much more is the feeling put into the work: one of their best IMHO: Ronnie Lane & Ronnie Wood! And there's Kenny Jones (later of Who fame) on the drums here as well. Whew! if you make it to the end of the clip - out of breath!

LEFTOVERS: HARVEST/FALL - Harvest Records

There was a time when it mattered what label a band was actually on. I guess this was because you actually knew, there was the inescapable logo on the centre of the large spinning disc, seen whenever you placed the needle onto the outside groove. CDs never seemed to have that vibe and, hell, downloads? How would you know? Plus, record companies each seemed to have separate entities, rather than just merely being sub-divisions of the same corporate monster. Even if they were. Different genres seemed to fit better with some labels than others, a fact duly noted by the MDs of same. A nobody on a hip label could often sell more than a somebody on more of a loser label.
In the 60s the 2 labels that kicked my record buying pleasure off were Island and Harvest, both nominally still in existence, but, sold off and passed on so many times between majors as to have no relevance to the times I write of. And, given the theme of this piece, Island will have to wait another day.

Astonishingly, Harvest were named, or so it goes, around the UK mellotron heavy "poor mans Moody Blues", Barclay James Harvest, the label being formed, within E.M.I. as a competitor with, amongst others, the aforementioned Island. (The verity of these seems actually a little stretched, as the label opened for business  in 1969, the debut from BJH not arriving until the following year, but, hey!) With the lava lamp design in greens, this was aimed directly as the "Underground" scene of the day, the first release being Deep Purple's Book of Taliesyn, with other debutants being Edgar Broughton, Michael Chapman, Kevin Ayers and Pink Floyd, so a pretty heavy roster.

                                                             Edgar Broughton Band

                                                                       Kevin Ayers
Into the 70s and the focus shifted into a post-punk ethos with Wire and, for the U.S. imprint, Duran Duran. They lost Floyd and Deep Purple during this time, but, much to their undoubted delight, after the release of Dark Side of the Moon, gifting them one of the biggest ever returns ever, 3rd largest sales ever, after Thriller (Michael Jackson) and, astonishingly, Back in Black (AC/DC), even if some of these sales included later transfer of rights to other labels.

For the next 20 odd years it appears to have been a bit of  mess, as the imprint was passed from hand to hand, even having a brief re-launch as Harvest Heritage, for reissues of both the original artists and, bizarrely, others never included.

In 2013 it seems to have had another relaunch, primarily for a number of U.S.bands I am unfamiliar with, bar TV on the Radio, and this chap, who seems to have later fallen out spectacularly with them.

I miss the days when the label had a brand. As a child of the 50s, I grew up in the heyday of both vinyl and of record companies able to throw big bucks at all, hoping some would eventually deliver some return on the investment. I still have a stack of Harvest titles on my shelves, playing them still.

But, as a final thought, who remembers the guy in the clip below?

 

 Norman "Hurricane" Smith was one of the original founders of the label in 1969. Studio engineer for all the Beatles' early releases, up until Rubber Soul, he then hooked up with Pink Floyd, producing several of their early releases, thus unsurprising that they came to join his fledgling label. He also produced the aforementioned Barclay James Harvest and the 1st rock concept album, S.F. Sorrow, by the Pretty Things, the psychedelicised R'n'B contemporaries of the early Rolling Stones. Astonishingly, in 1971, he began an unlikely solo career, despite, at best, a voice shorn of most of the usual expectations in popular music, a public warming to him, largely totally unaware of his legacy of earlier involvements. Well done, that man!

Here is the entire catalogue of original Harvest releases.

Leftovers: Ste*--Prog Rock Guitarists Steve Howe, Steve Hackett and Steve Hillage

Yes: Mood For A Day  
[purchase Fragile by Yes]

Steve Hackett: Ace Of Wands
[purchase Voyage of the Acolyte by Steve Hackett]

Steve Hillage: Castle In The Clouds/Hurdy Gurdy Man (Live)
[purchase Live Herald by Steve Hillage]

Ste* was one of the odder themes we had in 2016, and in response, I wrote about brilliant guitarist Steve Tibbetts, a relatively obscure musician whose music, as I said, “exists somewhere in the never particularly commercial intersection of jazz fusion, world music and ambient music.” Thinking about our Leftovers theme, I realized that I was aware of three more guitar virtuosi whose first name is Steve. So, I figured, why not write a little about each of them, in reverse order of their fame.

Despite the fact that all three of them are remarkable guitarists, and have continued to make music for years, I pretty much stopped following their careers years ago. Whether it was a change in their music, or changes in my tastes, or, more likely, a combination of both, I’m really not knowledgeable about their work from after the 1980s, which may well be very good. I do still enjoy the music that they made back in the day.

Steve Howe (who was already the subject of a Ste* post), of course, is best known for his work with Yes. Born in 1947 in North London, he made his first recording, a cover of Chuck Berry’s “Maybelline” in 1964 with the Syndicats, and played in a number of other bands, including Tomorrow and Bodast. Check out this Bodast tune, “Nether Street,” part of which was later used in Yes’ “Starship Trooper.” After passing on the chance to join the Nice and Jethro Tull, once it was clear that Bodast was not going to get a deal, he agreed to join Yes, replacing Peter Banks. Howe’s eclectic influences, including classical, jazz, and rock helped to create the distinctive Yes sound during their best and most iconic period.

He left Yes when it broke up in 1981, wasn’t asked back for the reformation of the band (so, he didn’t play on “Owner of a Lonely Heart”), and reunited with most of the “classic” Yes lineup in Anderson Bruford Wakeman and Howe. He has participated in some, but not all, of the various Yes lineups over the years. I really stopped listening to Howe after he left Yes the first time. I never really paid much attention to his solo albums (including the ones he made while still in the band), or any of the later Yes efforts that he appeared on. There were a few good songs on the first Asia album, but I felt that the band was less than the sum of its parts, and his project with Steve Hackett, GTR, also failed to interest me. Howe continues to record with Yes and in a jazz trio featuring his son on drums, and to perform.

Steve Hackett, Howe’s GTR bandmate, is best known for his work with Genesis. Born in 1950 in central London, he was a self-taught guitarist. After gigging with a few bands, in 1970, he joined Quiet World with his brother John, a flutist, and appeared on their only album, before leaving the band. Hackett put an ad in Melody Maker magazine for musicians "determined to strive beyond existing stagnant music forms." Peter Gabriel answered the ad because his band, Genesis, had lost their original guitarist, Anthony Phillips. Like Howe, Hackett wasn’t the first guitarist in the band which made him famous, but was part of the band’s best, and best known, lineup.

Over time, Hackett began to feel marginalized by Genesis which gradually put less of his music on its albums. After the tour supporting the Wind And Wuthering album in 1977, Hackett left the band. I followed Hackett’s solo work for a while. His first solo album, Voyage of the Acolyte, recorded while he was still in Genesis, featured the band's drummer Phil Collins, who also sang on one song (before he was the lead singer of Genesis), and bassist Mike Rutherford, along with John Hackett, and is probably a minor prog rock classic. I was also a big fan of 1979’s Spectral Mornings, and continued to listen to, and enjoy Hackett’s solo work, to a somewhat diminishing degree, through the mid-1980s.

One of Hackett’s big problems is that he is a great guitarist and a bad singer. So, when he writes songs with lyrics, he either has to bring in outside vocalists with varying success, or sings himself, usually with the assistance of significant processing, and mostly unsuccessfully. After that, I again pretty much lost track of Hackett’s career—occasionally listening to some of his studio and live Genesis “revisited” work, but ignoring most of his varied output, which has ranged from classical, to world music, to blues, to prog and rock. Hackett also continues to record, as a solo artist and with others, and to tour as a solo act, and with a mostly Genesis-based show.

Steve Hillage, the youngest and least well-known of the trio of Steves, was born in 1951 in northeast London. Hillage played in a number of bands as a teenager, a couple of which even recorded and released albums. While attending university in the Canterbury area starting in 1969, Hillage began to play with other musicians and bands in the Canterbury scene. In 1971, he formed Khan, which released one album of psychedelic prog, before breaking up. Hillage then joined Kevin Ayers’ band before becoming a member of Gong in 1973, as the band was starting work in its “Radio Gnome” trilogy. But when Gong inevitably disintegrated, Hillage began a solo career.

I was introduced to Hillage while at WPRB, almost certainly from hearing his great live, spacy cover of Donovan’s “Hurdy Gurdy Man,” from the 1979 album Live Herald, which led me to the rest of his solo work. I will admit that my immersion into the Gong world focused mostly on the later, Pierre Moerlen-led albums which were almost entirely Hillage-free, and it was only much later that I spent any time listening to the bizarre Daevid Allen era band’s eclectic psychedelia that featured Hillage.

Just as I was getting into Hillage’s music, he began to move away from the prog rock guitar heroics that I liked, and into ambient dance music, which I didn’t, so I basically stopped paying attention to his career after the late 70’s. Over the years, Hillage produced albums for a variety of acts, including Simple Minds (pre-Breakfast Club fame) and continues to focus on performing and recording dance music under the name System 7 and Mirror System with his long time musical and personal partner, Miquette Giraudy. He also occasionally participates in Gong reunions. And, for some reason, he appeared on this Elton John cover “sung” by William Shatner.

I’d love to be able to tie this up with some clever ending, but like a post-Thanksgiving turkey, cranberry and stuffing sandwich, it is sometimes better just to be happy that things work together, without overthinking why.

LEFTOVERS: GIRL

purchase Edwyn Collins (Gorgeous George)

The older I get, the less frequently I feel cool. I imagine this is pretty normal. Cool is walking with rhythm after a good haircut. Cool is feeling wet on a dry day. Cool is feeling like you are separate from your environment and still glowing. Cool is fluid. Cool is the buzz and insight that comes after a couple beers at darkness. Cool is the walk to the meeting point where you’ll meet the girl who sees limitless potential in you. Cool is seeing and hearing all and getting it.

Edwyn Collins “Girl Like You” glistens with coolness and nudges you to have a smoke and take a long walk. Drums that recall Noir nights in Morrocco, a xylophone part as neat as a Martini and a big fat guitar lick that simply erects. The song is chill within its own danceability. It is the soundtrack for a ferocious pool party in a David Lynch film.

Edwyn’s story for the last 10 years has been touching more than cool. In 2005 he suffered two strokes in two days, rendering his right arm numb. I didn’t know this prior to his show four years ago in Istanbul. For all songs, he sat down on an amplifier, sometimes tapping his cane to the music. His son, James, sang on one new song and did two neat spins during the chorus. Then Edwyn stood for “Girl Like You”, as if there was no option. He hammered his cane to the lyrics “too many protest singers/not enough protest songs”, eventually limping away to let the band finish for three more minutes. You could sense his band revered him. The guitarist revered that solo. And the audience-merely 75 people-were struck by the sincerity of the evening: no excuses made. The energy was dumbfounding intense.

If you’re feeling tepid and flakey, listen to “Girl Like You” now and head out for a walk with your favorite shirt and pants on. See if any cool overcomes you.

Leftovers: Leftover Beatles

purchase [some Beatles ]

As the most recent notice to SMM bloggers said, the traditional leftovers theme could be interpreted several ways:  missed opportunity songs you might have posted during the past 12 months' themes, or perhaps something you can relate to leftovers of another sort.

Myself, I confess that I have to push to meet the bi-weekly output of SMM, and although I have discarded a number of posts over the past 12 months, there are none that I am driven to return to as leftovers that need re-working and then posting.

On the other hand, there are various Beatles songs that didn't make the official cut, and I guess they qualify as a kind of leftover. While you can find out-takes and un-published studio sessions for most every musician, a look back 50 or so years in and of itself amounts to a leftover of sorts. Yes, it was more or less "50 years ago today ..."

There is an extensive Wiki article about bootlegs of Beatles recordings: considering the number of performances - both in semi-private venues as well as over the airwaves, it is no surprise that there exist unofficial copies of performances (despite the limitations of the days' technology - If you are younger than 50, you ought to take the time to research what it was like to make a copy of live/radio ... music before the 90s.)

A decade or so ago, I ran across the original Beatles Complete on Ukulele project at which time they were providing a download link to each of the songs. The songs are still online but not longer easy to download. The site notes that they have a version that includes a ukulele of each of the 185 officially released Beatles songs.

Lennon/McCartney were prolific composers, and there are a number of songs that weren't distributed by their various recording companies: kind of left overs. Two in particular here from different eras of their careers The Palace of the King of the Birds from about the Magical Mystery Tour days, and then Bad to Me from 1963:

IT'S OVER/THE END:

KILLING JOKE "ASTEROID"

purchase Killing Joke "Killing Joke" 

“The worst is not. So long as we can say, ‘This is the worst’”, said Edgar, who along with Kent was the most noble and optimistic of the characters in King Lear.

Spare his plethora of Mad King Ludwig gold-rimmed chairs and gaudy baroque paintings, there is nothing that is outwardly noble and nothing to suggest that there is anything inwardly noble about Trump. Obviously, there is a whole lot of bad. With the victory evening itself and the Bannon and Sessions announcements, the last week has been frightening. But can it get worse? Let’s hope this is the end of the worst and the guy’s damage is frozen like a daiquiri.

But for the nihilists and those comforted by oncoming apocalypses, we have Killing Joke’s, “Asteroid.”

I’m a ball of fire

Fire from heaven

Terror from nowhere

You’ll never shoot me down

Days turn to minutes

Five seconds till it hits

Three seconds to ground

One second to

Asteroid!

Coming in from the void

Vocalist Jaz Coleman, guitarist Geordie Walker and bassist Raven (and Youth shortly afterward) gave birth to Killing Joke in a smoking crater of apocalyptic theory and even though the majority of its fan base probably dismisses Coleman’s beliefs as dark humor, they’ll go along for the ride because Coleman’s soothsaying brings a healthy stream of boiling blood to Killing Joke’s music.

“Asteroid” is a stunning tune, the bonfire exploding early with Coleman’s screams (“And a 3^rd Angel  sounded! And a star fell from heaven!”), punctuated by sonic drum smashes. Apparently--contrary to typical recording methods--the drums were recorded last on the album according to Dave Grohl who guested on drums on this self-titled release, Killing Joke’s 11^th in their 23^rd year. Killing Joke recently released Pylon, another massive slab of epic alternative-rock that belies their age and shows no sign of the band hitting any creative funk. They’re one of a few bands I am still holding out hope to see live, despite living in Turkey.

Coleman actually moved to Iceland early in the band’s career to avoid the apocalypse, moving back shortly afterward without a peep, not even ‘whoops, wrong day’. Plenty of superstars in the U.S. have plans of hightailing themselves out of America during the ensuing four-year apocalypse. Most will make their way back before the end without a peep.