The Right Stuff Dept. - Paul Simon

A carousel horse's one trick is to go round and around ...

One Trick Pony didn't sell too well, and there are various theories as to why; a sense of more-of-the-same disappointment after the five year wait since Still Crazy, material not up to par, and a sense of him not keeping up with the times (the eighties! a whole new vital decade in pop!), yadda yadda. All of which is just so much hornswoggling flapdoodle, if you'll pardon the salty vernacular. The lesser status granted the album has nothing to do with the music.

It's the association with the film of the same name, a vanity project seen by nobody but projectionists. But even more toxic than the taint of "side project/not real album" is the cover [left - Ed.], which we need to study before consigning it to the Furnace of Forgetfulness™. An obviously airbrushed shot of the great man pretending to be a young rock star - you know, acting. Imagine him going through the movie stills with the art director; "I like this one. I look young, a street punk, kinda vulnerable. Are you getting a young Pacino vibe from this?" It's an exercise in fakery. We all know Simon doesn't and didn't look like that. The shouting typography and floating silver discs work hard to shift our focus, but we know a sidewalk oyster when we step on one.

The insensate human tragedy of this is it's a quietly wonderful album, one of his better solo outings. It's a band album, and that band is basically the awesome Stuff, who graced Joe Cocker's Stingray. Their subtly virtuosic [is this even a word? - Ed.] funk is the perfect setting for Simon's voice. It's also something of a guitarist's Summit Meeting - Eric Gale, Hugh McCracken, Hiram Bullock, Jeff Mironov, and Joe Beck all strut their very considerable stuff. It's gawjuss, dammit!

The album works perfectly without any references to Simon's misguided fantasy. He should of lissen to me an' forgot his lousy one trick horseshit movie. But dat's his problem. Haw! Too late now, pally!

 

 

This post sponsored in part by Orange-U-Tang© "The real fruit-style drink that's 100% sweetener!"

Zappa Recovered Dept.

 

Wotta guy. Wotta guy. Wotta guy.

Zappa's late 'seventies tri-ology, intended to comprise in part or whole the aborted multi-disc set Lather, was issued as three spiffy standalone albums in disappointing sleeves. There's nothing wrong with Gary Panter's primitive technique, but it's an ill fit for Zappa's music. Cal Schenkel's genius artwork for that early and perfect run of albums was was considered, composed, and always on the money. Panter's punk graphics are immediate, raw (SWIDT), and oddly dislikeable. So I spent some happy hours - nearly three - coming up with replacements I prefer. I've given them a series look and copied a certain photo library's watermark style, as a kind of barely amusing in-joke. One of the images is a composite - guess which! Or not!

You probably already have the albums in some form, but if you don't, ax in a comment! 

 

 

Fascist Theocracy? He got that right. And he was right about it starting with Reagan. Zappa would have been righteously appalled at America's supine embrace of the New Order, the feebleness of its resistance at every level. For fuck's sake, America. It's not like you couldn't see it coming, not like you weren't told.

This post sponsored in part by Al Banian's Bunion Buster - available wherever footcare products are sold! (Butane not included)

 

 

Crawlspace Collectables Dept. - Little Feat

"HEY!! MISTER BUSINESS MAN!! Weather it be that new PAMPHLET, a must-read Windshield Flyer, or afordible Corporate Identity Logo, let th' IoF© Department o' Art™ Art Department Dept. be your one "stop shop" for all your graphic Design solutions! Call for a Portfolio presentation and FREE Holiday Inn-style pocket protector*!"

Adam Weishaupt, Founder IOFDOAADD [Left - Ed.]

 

When this first got posted way back in RSRCH DATE PSE ED [No - Ed.], it got a little lost in a FeatFlurry™. It deserves its own post and something in the way of elucidatory exegesis, seein' as how I left it up to youse bums last time, which was in retrospect a grievous mistake, on account which the subtle irony of the title got lost.

What we have here is a post-Lowell collection most of which could have skidded sideways onto a primo Feat album without causing conniption fits (and all of which is way better than Dog Races). It's subtitled The Best Of The Shaun Murphy Years, see - yet there are no Shaun Murphy songs on it!

*pause* 

She makes a peripheral appearance as a swell back-up singer, but she's otherwise been kicked to the curb to no appreciable detrimental effect. The band needed a fat blues shouter (of any sex or body mass, I'm nothing if not inclusive, so quit yer woke whining) like SUITABLE SIMILE HERE PSE ED. [How about "blow it out yer ass, Farq?" - Ed.], and this one was foisted on the rhythm section without prior discussion or approval. Barrere and Payne just pulled the tarp off and said voilà! Our new singer! Gee whiz.

They didn't need a new singer at all after Lowell registered his dissatisfaction with the band's new direction by being dead. They didn't need dull boy bible-sniffer Craig Fuller either. They should have had confidence in what they had and what they could do, which was ample and beaucoup. Granting Fred Tackett EMBED SUITABLE IMAGE AT LEFT PSE ED [I quit, and fuck you - Ed.] full membership privileges was necessary and right and enough.

If you kind of wandered away to the bar during the all-too brief fifteen years Shaun was onstage, you can wander back. Thrill anew to some First Tier Feat that maybe got lost in the shuffle. I guarantee you won't want to lift the tone arm at any point while this (unfeasibly long) elpee album is spinning on th' Consolette. By turns thrilling, weird, adventurous, beautiful, and funky as a back seat bong water douche, Jackalope Jesus should be part of any serious collection of anything.

 

Or, you know, listen to Shaun Murphy! Nobody cares!

 

 

This post sponsored by Lou's Lousy Louse Lounge, Louisville, KY "Liquor In The Front, Poker In The Back!"

(*WHILE STOCKS LAST)

 

Thirty Minutes Dept. - Cheetah Beat!

There's nothing obscure or unique about any of this, and there's no complicated edits or immersivity or whatever - it's just straight mainstream pop, some massive hits. But there's an overall mood of thumping great beats and giddy optimism, and you might find it a swell soundtrack to the shit/shave/shower trifecta, or Hoovering or whatever token gestures you make toward the housework. Definitely not headphone music - turn it up until the kids complain!

 

This post funded in part by Francene's Frug Factory, Knucklebutter, OH. "Ask for our senior's rebate package!"

Crawlspace Collectables Dept. - John Hartford

 

By request, eight by the late and great J.H.

 

Have a weekend!