ZZ Top - Everything You Want PLUS! Nothing You Need Dept.

Is this you?

The CD Era was a time of wonders. I disposed of most of my disposable income buying CD duplicates of my vinyl collection, which had already disposed of most of my disposable income. Why? Because I was a damn fool, in retrospect. But I wasn't alone in being duped into stacking up the nasty, sharp-edged items of office equipment with their stupid "jewel boxes" and flimsy illegible "inserts" and functionally ugly "label designs". I think I hated the damn things from the start but went on buying them because I was earning stupid money and had a Hugo Boss suit and a company Peugeot 1.9 GTI. Make stupid money, buy stupid stuff! I never felt so alive! New albums became obligatory CD purchases as vinyl dried up. And then the music industry suckered us into buying CD duplicates of music we already had on CD. Remastered with extra tracks! Limited edition miniature card sleeves! Oboyoboyoboy! TAKE MY MONEY!! Never mind that the vast majority of the "bonus" tracks were demo, live and alternate versions that did nothing to enhance the album, I wanted them! BOX SETS!! Gimme two, so I can keep one sealed!

Airbrush, cursed forerunner of AI

Talking of box sets, what we have here is one of the worst examples of Sucker CD ever issued, a remixed set of the first six ZZ Top albums [left - Ed.]. This might - just - have been a valid exercise if the remixes hadn't replaced the original mixes, which you couldn't buy anymore. It got a righteous kicking from those sharp-eared enough to notice it deserved it. As egregious as Zappa's '84 butchery of Money/Lumpy, the remix was an attempt to sound contemporary. In that, it's entirely successful, because in '87 contemporary music sounded like shit. Inevitably, there's now a critical reassessment along the lines of "it's just different". Er ... so was Zappa's '84 Money/Lumpy twofer.

Kustom sleeve, only at IoF©!

Rhino (we're supposed to type "the good people at" in front of that, but I refuse, because I'm a rebel, me) eventually made up for it with a box of original mixes, Chrome, Smoke & BBQ in '03. The Four Or Five Guys© are encouraged to make their own minds up as to which they prefer. I'd suggest comparing the two versions of Tush initially, and if you think the Six Pack version is better, that's fine. All opinions are equally respected and welcome, and we are nothing if not a broad church. Just never, never, paddle your coracle over to th' IoF© ever, ever again.

This post scrimshawed on a narwhal's tusk by a Esquimeau as part of th' IoF©'s cultural diversity outreach program. Write for details.

The Swellest Band In The Whole Darn World Dept.

Show me a more perfecter group shot. You can't.

Little Feat's first album was inspired by Exile On Main Street, and best listened to with that in mind. Incredible to think that it was recorded just two years before the Stones' masterpiece. It's had a frankly fahbulous dahling makeover, which you need more than groceries right now. There's a remastered version, because of course there is, but the second disc holds the juicy stuff. A steaming slewage of alternate versions and outtakes, and thank the Baby Jesus no live tracks. They constitute a genuine alternative album, in no way inferior (except in the sense of not being quite as good). And a shitload of guitar!

See? They're, like, rocking winter duds? But it's summer in LA! HAW! Joke's on them, right?

 

It's been a real pleasure revisiting this album - it tends to be less played than their other Lowell era records, and it shouldn't be. File under: much better than I remembered it. Included in today's Deliverable O' Excellence™ at no extra cost is the band's previous incarnation as The Factory, their unreleased album Demonstration Not For Sale on Uni with the original cover. Everything @ a sparkling 193mHz for total audio satisfaction! What a time to be alive!

This post hewn from the living rock with a fork.

Great British Tenor Players, Nope, You Read That Right Dept. Part Deux

Well, great in this case is a little bit of a stretch. Let's settle for pretty damn good. Johnny Almond was no Tubby Hayes, but he was no slouch, either. Plus, he could play a bunch of other stuff, keys, flute, vibes, whatever. The first JAMM album, Patent Pending, was bought by many hippies in '69 tempted by jazz but knowing fuck all about it. Like me. It's a brilliantly entertaining album, too pop to be jazz, too jazz to be pop. There's some sweet psych touches, a little Mexican samba, a bit of free jazz (for which the listener pays, like always), some groovy funk, and a lot of it sounds like the soundtrack to a Swingin' London movie, which is no bad thing. Think black turtlenecks, dolly birds in miniskirts ... 

The followup in the following year was recorded in the US and A with an entirely different lineup, including Joe Pass. All the pop influences and experimentation are gone, but it's a fine straight jazz album, although does anybody need to hear (or play) Perdido again? I seem to remember Ralph Gleason writing some snootily patronising sleeve notes along the lines of "can't cut it with the big boys, maybe next time", but as he could only play a Remington portable he can shut his yap, right? Again, a nice illustration on the cover, very Pop Art. You'll dig it.

Almond moved on to John Mayall for The Turning Point album, and thence [grammar - Ed.] to Mark-Almond. Interesting guy, shame there aren't more like him.

Somethin' Fer Sunday Dept. - Charlie Rouse

Let Foam-O-Graph© live your life for you!

Back when th' IoF© was the hip place to hang, Sundays were the time to rock the Daks, a pastel cardigan, Penny Loafers, and kick back on the patio with a Daiquiri and some cocktail jazz on th' Consolette™. Like, Populuxe, daddy-o!

Today we honor that tradition by featuring a fine album by Charlie Rouse, who played sax with Thelonious Monk but here falls back into his Sunday slacks and delivers nine smuthely swingin' sides, ably abetted by [discogs rsrch musicians pse ed]. 

This album, recorded in [ed?] goes some way to disproving the commonly-held notion that all jazz is shit. It's swell, and you'll dig it! Also, it'll make a change from Davis and John.

 

Free! With every download - this swell Art cover! Yours to keep whatever you decide!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First Cut Is The Deepest Dept. - Television, Ramones, Patti Smith

Noo Yawk, 1975. Yikes?

A recent flurry of page hits for the first in this series [here - Ed.] inspired me - too strong a word - to pen this sequel, late at night though it be. The wind howled through the shadowed stones, banging the moldering shutters, as if in warning. I lit a guttering tallow candle and made my way to my study, high in the ruined tower of this age-old house above the Miskatonic. Shiveringly, I cut a new quill, uncorked the inkwell, and arranged a blotter on the escritoire. As I bent to my task the rats chattered hideously in the rotten wainscotting, as if mocking my literary pretension. The cursed rats! Ever louder! Ever closer! Must ... finish ...  must ... *bonk*.

Television's first album was a stunning achievement on release, and remains, along with epic presingle Johnny Jewel, some kind of apogee [is this the right word? - Ed.] of guitar rock. Yayy! It's a Perfect Ten, with no evident failings anywhere. There are those who defend Adventure, the second album (as I once did), but it's really a stance that requires clinical denial and results in a cognitively dissonant stress head. It's okay, I guess, and that's truthfully the best we can say about it. The third album? I bought it, along with a few other hopeless punters, and tried to convince myself it was worth listening to again. Just different, right? But also duller and weaker, even less interesting than Adventure. Meh. They should have stopped after the first, and the world would be a better place.

The Ramones got universally ecstatic reviews for the first album, because it's a genius-level zeitgeist statement, a work of art, a fantastically perfect idea manifested in a perfect way. Whatever you think of the music (it always sounded a bit thin to me) it established Th' Brudders as a global brand. How could they follow that? Who cares? They needn't have bothered, but the formula was good for more sales across a series of rinse-and-repeat albums. And t-shirts. You're going to tell me yebbut Rocket To Russia is pretty good, thinking that I'm interested in your opinion, a mistake. They should have quit after the first, or become a jam band.

Patti Smith, darling of NY Loft Society, shook things up in an entirely good way with Horses, but insisted on hanging around for a ballsaching series of "challenging" albums that are used to illustrate the concept of diminishing returns at music biz conferences. Yes, Easter had the hit Because I Stole This From Bruce Springsteen, but she could have locked the stable door after Horses bolted. To give her her due, she's nearly as good a poet as Rod McKuen, although not as accomplished as Jim Carroll, another alumnus of the New York School Of Scag, or Elliott Murphy. But Horses has kept its impact untouched by the passing decades - true bottled lightning.

This post funded in part by IANYTYWU "It's A New York Thing, You Wouldn't Understand", a non-profit organisation.