Mac Gayden

 

Mac Gayden died last year. There was always something otherworldly about him, and now he's gone there ahead of us. He could bring out the exotic, the otherness, in a banjo. Listen to the opening instrumental, Queen Anne's Lace. In his hands it was the primeval instrument, as natural as birdsong, a long way from the hootenanny. Then it's Rising Sun, haunted by his slide playing, his voice straight from the heart, and the wordless ooohs that shiver your nerve endings. There's textures in Mac's music you don't hear anywhere else, that impossibly yearning guitar, and his distinctive voice, the leap into falsetto that carries you with it.

McGavock Gayden is an insanely rare album. Recorded in Nashville, only released in the UK. They did it proud with a nice and suitably enigmatic gatefold, but it barely made the shelves before being forgotten. I think Mac made it briefly available as a CDROM, but it never got a re-release, somebody lost the tapes. Brilliantly produced - layer upon layer - by Bob Johnston, it sounds like a heavenly host, but it's mostly just him, some help with backing vox, and Kenny Buttrey on drums. Look it up on Allmusic if you want to see the impact it made.

It's been on th' IoF© before, but only in a crackly vinyl rip, the best anybody could find at that point. So when my pal Andy sent me this pristine rip, it was like hearing the album for the first time. It's not lots of things; not Americana, not folk, not country and/or western, not rock or folk-rock, not prog, nor any other file-under. Songs stretch out and wander where they will, regardless of market potential. It's a very long album, fifty minutes, with no hint of a hit single, and not a note wasted.

He'd make two other superb albums in the seventies, before ducking out of whatever spotlight managed to find him, a respected session guitarist and performer. But it's those three albums, McGavock Gayden, Skyboat, and Hymn To The Seeker, that'll find new fans as long as there's music in the air and hearts to hear it.

Pass it around.

Thanks to Andy!

Omen And Illiad - The Zombies

This is a rethink of an album featured here a couple of times. A reshuffle, cuts, and surgical razorblade edits. Voilà. This is as sweet as I can make it. If the mood or the production didn't quite fit, it didn't make the cut. The album runs a little short, eleven songs, but better that than too long, a common failing of this type of exercise. This is consistent quality all the way through, with no compromises in the name of completeness or "authenticity".

You can play this right after Odessey & Oracle and you will not be disappointed!

A note about the title: I mis-spelled Iliad to mirror the mis-spelling of Odyssey

Perfect Pop Now! Dept. - The Lemon Twigs

Cleveland Jeff has a nice write-up of the new Lemon Twigs album, which had mysteriously passed me by. However, after spending a frustrating week-end going blind trying to find a StealthLink© over at Like Dancing About Architecture, I decided to make the album available to th' Four Or Five Guys© in a special edition. Why is it special? Because, like last time, I've gone the extra yard for them and replaced their dull, stoopid cover with something that doesn't look like an Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark album. I like to think the new design [above - Ed.] taps into that whole Saturday Morning TV vibe.

Their previous album [left, whoopsie, I mean, like, above - Ed.] got a drooling review here, which I can't now find. Perhaps I dreamed it? So here it is again, for possibly the first time! They're both absolutely primo First Tier harmony pop albums, with incredibly hooky songs, sparkling production, and I can't recommend them too highly, and now they have great covers, they get the coveted Perfect Ten award!

You certainly won't regret downloading today's Deliverables O' Excellence™!

THIS JUST IN!

From 2020, and surprisingly fun.

And here they are, four guys who aren't the Beach Boys, live, no overdubs, doing the impossible, and doing it well:

This post fluffed and folded by Lucy Lastic's Laundromax de Luxe©, LA

Just Don't Call It A Playlist! Dept. - The Beatles

The Beatles Aloha album includes all the songs they issued in '68 that didn't appear on official Beatles albums. Aloha means both hello and goodbye. It's a complete, cohesive and unissued album from the aching void between Pepper and the White Album.

It doesn't include Magical Mystery Tour ep tracks because that's a Beatles-created side project. It does include tracks from Yellow Submarine and the US Magical Mystery Tour album, because these were label-led marketing projects to which the band only contributed signatures on a contract.

All these songs bundled together make for a perfect 37 minute album, programmed naturally into two sides. Play this after Pepper, and see if you don't agree it's a stronger piece of work. It sounds and flows like it was conceived and recorded as an album. The band at the top of their game (and I'm not the world's greatest Beatles fan). Packed with hits, too, which is more than can be said for the albums to either side of it.

I'm kind of surprised that, as far as I know, this rather obvious project hasn't occurred to anybody else (if it has, I missed it). Imagine it as a vinyl release. It would generate millions and BILLIONS of bucks and rekindle excitement for the band's back catalog, before they're all dead. It could be remixed by Giles Martin, and they could use the contemporary Richard Avedon portraits. Why haven't they? They haven't thought of it. Never occurred to anybody in the Beatles camp that there is a huge fucking 1968-shaped hole in their album discography. Incredible, really, and everybody's loss.

Here's a lo-res back cover, using the Avedon portrait that was thrown away in the gatefold to the crappy 'Love Songs' cash-in. Paul was originally off to the left. I had to beef up the color and contrast to Paul's psychedelic mugshot on the front, because Avedon deliberately bleached it out to have less impact than the others. Not his favorite Beatle!

I've shilled this album before, but perhaps inventing a whimsically humorous story around it did it no favors, so this is for those who missed it or didn't understand what it was. This download is a tad improved on the previous - it's "unbanded" - continuous play, closely edited, and tagged so the individual songs don't get confused with versions you already have. And the very welcome new fade to Hey Jude has been smoothed out. Also included is The Compleat Pepper, so with these two non-existent albums you have a complete Technicolor portrait of them in 67/68, when they wus fab.

The Myra Nussbaum Memorial Lectures Dept. - Why The Blues Music Is Shit

Mrs Nussbaum invites you into her lovely home, yesterday! Note tasteful Siegheil & Roy memorial statue, youthful ward Clynt readying for bikini wax session! 

Editorial note: previously, Mrs Nussbaum has made award-winningly persuasive cases for Why Classical Music Is Shit, and Why Jazz Music Is Shit. Such is her unquestioned authority, a tearful Zubin Mehta of The Los Angeles Philharmonics snapped his baton in half after her takedown, sobbing "I can never wave this stupid stick at a bunch of fiddle-scraping penguins again." After exhaustive research and consultation with the finest musicologists, Mrs Nussbaum now presents her devastating critique of yet another sacrosanct musical genre, The Blues Music.
(Although we are honored by her patronage, Mrs Nussbaum's opinions are her own and do not necessarily represent Fabulous False Memory Foam Island©, its subsidiary companies, shareholders, or creditors. Take it away, Mrs Myra!)

"Thank you, my esteemed friend Farquhar Throckmorton III! Yes, the Blues Music is shit, and I'm here to tell you why! It's just a bunch of old bums complaining and whining, and I had enough of that with my late husband Melvin may he rot in hell bless his soul. My fuggin' bursitis, these fuggin' accountants, those New York fuggin' Mets, your fuggin' charge account, yadda-yadda ... with the kvetching, enough already! So the last thing I want to hear while Clynt attends to a woman's intimate needs is my baby done left me, lawdy I'm broke and drunk, got no shoes grunted over an out-of-tune guitar! Who wants to listen to some self-pitying toothless bum groaning on about how he can't get it up no more?!? Oh, excuse me, boo-fuggin'-hoo! Do you hear me complaining about my life?  My message to you? Cheer up or shut up!

And that just about wraps it up! Any questions? You, at the back, sir?"

This post crowd-funded by Millennial Snowflakes For More Kittens.org