Seven And Seven Is ...

Th' Elevators! Carve dere name wit' pride! An' what better way of celebratin' th' noo year dan countin' down dese swell songs wit' dat broad in yer lap, a drink in yer mitt, an' a tear in yer eye? Why - dere ain't none, you sap!

These are the original mono mixes of both sides of all their singles for United Artists, originally issued in a shitty-looking made-in-China "limited edition" from Charly (*shudder*). Here adorned in sumptuous art what I painted meself on velvet cut from me own loon pants.

Supreme Monster General Bong Pot's Psychedelic Psunday

While inspecting North Korea's border fortifications, Bong Pot sets off security gate alarms in Seoul airport, such is the awesomeness of his medal array. His hat has been used as a helicopter landing pad by Dear Leader Kim Jong Un, for which he was awarded the Mighty Splendor Of Hat Girth And Strength Medal, and an expenses paid stay in military hospital.

But few of his grateful goose-stepping underlings know he is a keen collector of "neo-psych" albums. He contacted FMF© recently to rectify this lack of appreciation.

Salt Lake City's finest, 2017

"False Memory Foam© the choose blog of North Korea Massed Military Force," he said via Google Translate. "It heart wish and direct order more neo-psych albums that feature. For good example, please look to recording of Pansy Band and also The Green Seagulls. Both offer respectfulness to psych tradition. We very enjoy!"

Swingin' That London, 2018

I'm sure his choices will please the Four Or Five Guys, and welcome more contributions from totalitarian states!

These are never going to replace Electric Music For The Mind And Body in my - or probably your - heart, but they're entertaining and stylistically adroit enough for a few listens.

Thomas Jefferson - Airplane

As an interim post, to ease us slowly back into the giddy swing of facetiousness that has been the hallmark of the FalseMemoryFoam© experience, here's the great Thomas Jefferson Kaye (born Kontos) from the obscure '72 non-Wiki'd White Cloud album, through his two solo albums for ABC from the next year, and his last album Not Alone, recorded two years before his death in 1994.

Of all his considerable career achievements, singing an emotional Becker-Fagen original is the most surprising. American Lovers, from First Grade, is that rare thing, a Steely Dan song without a trace of irony - which is maybe why they didn't record it themselves (although they performed it live in 2011). It was covered in 1980 by Blaise Tosti [me neither - Ed.], and is, as they say, a belting good tune.

A pharmaceuticals enthusiast from the moment he touched down in California, he eventually died from overdosing on the painkillers he took to ease the pain of overdosing on all the other drugs he took. Hey ho. But he left a brilliant body of work, both as musician and producer.

Tommy Kontos, top right, wit' Th' Ideals, Noo Joizy, '59

Away From My Desk - Memo

Real life - or a version of it - has kicked in - with steel toe-caps - and I will return to Th' House O'Foam© around Christmas/New Year.

A Foam-Filled Festivus to th' Four or Five Guys!

Quick memo: Your good wishes are more appreciated than you know - thank you very much. I'm fine, but occupied with my Dad for a while.

The Comfy Brothers Album Du Jour

Photo: courtesy Archie Valparaiso

Knitwear enthusiasts The Comfy Brothers [pictured at home, left - Ed.] have a secret passion. Can you guess what it is, readers? No, not that. Everyone knows about that. Give up? It's French chansonniers [Fr. shirt-makers - Ed.] - from France! Let Monty Comfy [seated - Ed.] take up the story:

"Well! It all started on a holiday in la belle France. Neddy [standing - Ed.] and I were scouring the Auvergne for antiquities when we heard the most divine music emanating from a window. Naturally we had to investigate! So-"

That's enough of their shit, I think. Here's a swell collection of Francis Cabrel's swellest tuneage. He's been Foamfeatured© antecedently to rapturous applause from you sophisticates drinking chilled Chablonnais from longstemmed glasses, and this is more of the same excellence in song artistry. I fucking hate this guy. He lived my life. He had the brooding handsomeness, the talent, the savoir fesse that were rightfully mine. The sultry French tomates teetering in and out of his apartment on the fashionable Rive Gaucho. Ahh, fuck him and his fucking Frenchness.

Anyways, this is a swell three disc set called L'Essentiel, which is like French for essential. Which is what it is. The shrillness of sound in the first track is unique to that, so don't worry.

Francis Fucking Cabrel. Bastard.

Brilliant.

Old Rope

"Say! I gots a swell idea! Let's string th' guys up for the album cover! A real necktie party!" Well, someone must have said it. And someone else must have said yes. Crazy guys, crazy times, crazy marketing stragedy. Crazy Horse Roads. What can they all have been thinking? Rhetorical question. This was San Jose, '68.

This deeply disturbing (or hilarious, depending on how stoned you are) cover hides an entertaining pop-rock album by Stained Glass that shoulda-orta but didn't. I wonder why? Allmusic sniffily notes that the "material is ordinary", but what can they mean by that? Rhetorical question. This is the extry tracks version - yay!

Our other rope trick today is the kneetremblingly exquisite Tones by The Gordian Knot. The swell idea behind this cover shoot was, uh, "let's tie dese pussies up and drag'em behind my ride-on lawnmower." Or something. Visually, it kinda works - it's a simple, memorable image. But meaningless (we hope).

Again from '68, this is a kind of grail album for sunshine pop enthusiasts. Japanese fans have been known to wind their bowels out on a stick rather than face life without an original vinyl copy. It really is that good. The Gordian Knot make Harpers Bizarre sound like Slayer. They make Vashti Bunyan sound like Etta James. They make - oh, you get the point. Hey - this is worth copy-pasting:

"The group caught their biggest break after they appeared at a party thrown by Nancy Sinatra, who apparently liked them so much that she asked them to accompany her on a USO trip to Vietnam." 

Their biggest break? Let's hope their bone spurs kicked in.

Three A.M.

Insomnia! I gots it! Who needs it? Why do I wake up worrying about shit I barely give a thought to the rest of the day? Also - I dialog. I play through scenes of stress - both past and future - giving myself the best lines. When I realise I'm "looping", I fumble with my iPod Touch (one great thing about living in the future) and dial up an old radio show on an internet. Jack Benny, Duffy's Tavern, Dragnet - three great things about living in the past. I used to listen to sleepy ambient music, but like any drug it lost its potency.

If I'm still awake I get up, take a piss, pet the house dog - always restorative - have an Old Person's Beverage and check my email and FMF©. Nothing of note accomplished, I shuffle back to bed, the world much as it was.

Everything is nuts when you think about it.

Sunday Extra

I can't get out right now because the Feds are parked across the driveway, so here's a trio of swell live albums from everyone's favorite cosmic cowboy. Dig!

Cody's Sunday Something

"Hi guys! Cody here, taking time out from my Stretchercize© routine to relax poolside with the Reverend Al Green! Gramps used to play his records all the time. I don't know if you know what a record is, but it's this big bit of like plastic? You got it for free inside a picture of the artist. And you had to play it on a big old record player, which was like furniture? Imagine taking that on the subway! Or to the park? LOL!"

"Today of course science has given us ear buds and music's like made of air or something! So when I feel nostalgic I listen to Al Green's Definitely [uh-huh - Ed.] Greatest Hits. Anyway, this is Cody, sayin' ... keep relaxin'!"

Can't disagree with Cody's choice this week. Green was so great a singer he didn't need a song. Class out th' ass.

Sat'dy Slapdown - Return Of Th' Cagefight!

Our Knitwear & Hosiery Correspondent B.B. reminded me in a comment that we haven't had a Saturday Cagefight on a Saturday for ... uh ... I forget. So here's one.

We're pitting ethereal Romany songstress Vashti Bunyan against dwarfish minions from Hades Thę Blüė Ōystër Cúlts in what promises to be a savage bloodbath of balladry!

Vashti Bunyan's debut album Just Another Diamond Day - which I had on white label vinyl back when stuff like that meant something to me - is a jewel-like, gossamer thing, too delicate to cast a shadow. Vashti now lives in Lothlorien, making dreamcatchers from elf ectoplasm.

Cover: FMF© Artistic Dept.

In spite of their restricted growth and Juilliard Conservatory Of Music education [citation needed - Ed.] these nice Catholic boys from Palm Springs [you're just making this shit up, aren't you? - Ed.] made quite the onstage impression with their electric guitars and powerful amplification! Stairway To The Stars AKA Captured Live demonstrates their commitment to the Illuminati agenda.

So - who will emerge the victor from this titanic struggle? Only four or five guys can decide! Some fun, huh?

Smoke And Mirrors

A hit album for Dolly Parton in 2014, and the title track tells you why. That husky voice breaks in over an irresistible beat, and when the fiddle saws up a hoedown you're grinning like a fool. The woman is a star; an epic songwriter and charismatic performer with a recording history second to none. But there's a possibility Blue Smoke may have slipped under your radar, as it did mine for a couple of years. The cheezy Walmart rack-fill cover art [below right - Ed.] said just more Dolly product, file and forget. A mistake. It's as full of spirit and honesty and joy in making music as anything she recorded. Anything anyone recorded.

The Walmart edition had extra tracks - if you gots 'em, I'd be grateful. In the UK, it was bundled with a worthwhile Greatest Hits disc, included here.

Ambientertain Yourself

Antecedently, ambient music has been buzzkill at Th' House O'Foam©, getting pageviews in the minus numbers, which shouldn't theoretically be possible. But that's what you're getting today, except it ain't really ambient. That's the closest I can get as a label. It's thoughtful, calm, harmonious, wordless music. Sometimes a little ethereal, spooky. British dude David Firth is, apparently, as much filmmaker as musician, and there's that soundtrack feel to many of these fifteen tracks he recorded as Locust Toybox.

I wouldn't call Drownscapes pure ambient because there's too much going on for it to be relegated to aural wallpaper. There's enough development and dynamics to repay quiet attention - each "song" has its own mood and - *ulp* - narrative. Some of it is indescribably lovely - if I had any acid this would make brilliant rabbit-hole accompaniment.

Caution: air guitar inappropriate.

Bill Evans - Wild Man Of Jazz

Notorious for performing in a skin-tight pink satin jump-suit, Bill Evans led the house band at Th' Boho Au-Go-Go here in Vegas during the early sixties. His outrageous act was eventually responsible for getting the club closed - many years later it became Th' House O' Foam, an executive massage and wellness facility which in turn became the headquarters of False Memory Foam© so familiar from the iconic image used as our masthead. There's a swell photo of him in the lobby, writhing on his signature neon-lit plexiglass piano. How quickly we forget!

Today, Bill is only remembered for his jazz albums ("I made them for the money," he says. "I'm not proud of that but I had a crack habit like you wouldn't believe.") and among the best of them are today's Jazzbo Jamboree.

You Must Believe In Spring is a late offering from '77, when Evans worked the picturesque Dutch cruise boat lines. "Try the fuckin' herring, ya bums. I'm here til' Tuesday, an' If I ever see another fuckin' windmill I swear I'll puke."

Undercurrent, recorded as a duo with Jim Hall in '62, was produced by Alan Douglas, who also art directed the cover. There is no better album cover in the history of anything.  No better album, really.

Getting Felt Up Today

This makes for a swell Yuletide package to gift yourself! Simply pretend it's from someone else - perhaps the hot Latina at the nailtician, or Mamie Van Doren contacting you from the afterlife. Or if you're a dame, some dreamy guy, maybe Jerry Van Dyke or that barechested guy at the carwash with the do-rag and biker belt. Maybe not him. Point is, here's an opportunity to boost your self-esteem, which if it's like mine, is eminently boostable at this point in time, having been deflated by cruel circumstance and the whims of Dame Fate.

It's ninety - count 'em - tracks of the Doors on stage, real-time and prime. These are the performances that were milked for various releases over the years before being issued as the complete cow in a limited edition box upholstered in vealskin. A small phial of backstage body fluids, authenticated by Ray Manzarek, was included in the initial run.

This has been tagged from track one to track ninety, as one improbable disc, so if you're into the tangible permanence of the physical doodad, you're on your own.

Spirituality

A quick one while I'm away today at my parole board hearing. Damn ankle bracelet slipped off onto a passing train, and they say it's my fault? Excuse me? Anyway, first up is this surprisingly high quality recording of Spirit at Ash Grove in '67. I believe this is both sets. Even if yez gots awready, dis cover will be a improvemink to what yez gots in dat line. Ain't it swell?

Next is the original nine-track vinyl release of Spirit Live from '78, always one of my favorite finger-waggle "live" albums. Randy California sweetened the tapes with overdubs, creating a high-gloss studio album from an assemblage of raw live recordings from different venues, much like Zappa. The difference between this and the sonic mess of the "newly remastered" version recently released is astonishing. This is just so much better. Night and day.

Late Rick

First there was his rock n' roll period, then brief flings with Bakersfield country and pop-psych, then a decent run of more or less successful country rock albums from '70 to '74, peaking with the hit Garden Party, then a brief hiatus.

Could have been his personal life, or diminishing returns, but Intakes in '77 tried a different image in the hopes of a comeback, but it never happened. The album stiffed, and the follow-up, already recorded, was shelved. This version has the outtakes, plus also.

The Memphis Sessions have (has?) over the years limped out in various forms, but this is, I hope, the "compleat" version. A return to his rockabilly roots (the album was going to be called Rockabilly Renaissance), it was recorded by a shit-hot band in a funky little Memphis studio, and it's as great as you'd expect. Hard to say if it would have been the shot in the arm his career needed in '78, but I doubt it.

But the music stayed real. He always had a quietly genius band behind him, and his taste in songs never failed. The Al Kooper-produced Return To Vienna was never, as far as I know, officially released, but its slightly harder rock band edge is nicely judged. Its non-release, after the aborted Rockabilly Renaissance, must have come as a crushing blow. A split with his label, Epic, was inevitable.

He was struggling with the musical changes of the time, as were all veteran performers, but he never quite got the image right. The skinny ties, gold bomber jackets, and coiffed hair were hopelessly dated and un-hip. But he found a home at Capitol for what was to be the last album issued in his lifetime.

See what I mean? In 1981, this was never going to fly. His Ricky fanbase remained loyal, but heartland rock fans, the Bruce Springsteen and Bob Seeger audience he needed to win over, were never going to be seen dead grabbing this from the racks. Dude needed a beard and a plaid shirt. And a smile wouldn't have hurt.

Their loss, Rick's loss, our loss. There's not a track on any of these albums that's not, in the man's quiet way, beautiful. We can ignore the crossover market forces so important at the time, we can forget about the wardrobe wreckage. The thing is, you only have to cue up the first track of any of these albums to get hooked. They play themselves. So many artists and albums I click out of a few songs in, but these ... I want to hear them all the way through. Often ignored or sidelined, they're as good as anything he cut. Late Rick is great Rick.

Siegfried And Roy Give Birth To Baby Tiger, Talk About Obscure Concept Albums

Proud parents!

These guys are neighbors of mine here in fragrant downtown Las Vegas, NV. I knew they'd been trying for the longest time to have a family, but when they gave birth to a baby tiger I was as surprised as they were. 

I kept my distance when I visited the proud new Pop n' Dad down at The Mamie Van Doren Memorial Veterinarian Hospital. Those claws can be sharp! (And I didn't trust the tiger cub, either).

S&R: Well hey there, neighbor!
FMF©: Gee! Dat's some hairy baby youse guys gots! 
S&R: We are truly blessed.
FMF©: I brung yez some pickles.
S&R: And we have a couple of albums for you, sweetcakes! Life Is But A Dream, by Wichita Fall, and Miss Butters, by The Family Tree. They're both from '68, which we've always thought of as Peak Concept. The Family Tree was an early Bob Segarini project, and Wichita Fall was an LA band whose album got the most lavish orchestral arrangements! We thought they'd find a home at Th' House O' Foam©. 
FMF©: Dat's swell. Well, I guess I better be goin'.
S&R: Toodles! Thanks for the pickles!

If you have more information - even made-up shit - on these albums then please do feel free to make a comment. If you have any Siegfried N' Roy stories, also too.

Back To The Future

If there's one album that sums up the spirit of sixties pop - and by extension the sixties - it may be this one. Once Upon A Dream wouldn't be the first choice of many, because it's perceived as a minor Pepper clone, or embarrassingly naive, or pretentious over-reaching, or way past its sell-by date, or simply because it's by The Rascals (seriously?).

Well, yeah. If you want to go that route, you can file it under charming period piece or whatever and move on. Which I did for many years. It seemed all of the above; the sound of a pop group punching over its weight, trying to cover all the bases without reaching one. Enough sporting metaphors already. But for reasons I can't explain, repeated plays have revealed what a gorgeous piece of work this is. Here's a quote from a very informative Allmusic review: "It's an under-celebrated masterpiece of the psychedelic era and belongs next to Pet Sounds and Sgt. Pepper's on the shelf, because it is easily as sophisticated, and once heard in its entirety, can never be forgotten." He's right, and I join the ranks of believers who love this album as much as those sixties benchmarks.

So why is it under-celebrated, under-rated, and under the radar? Why doesn't it ever make the Top Fifty Greatest Pop Albums This Week You Must Hear Before You Die lists? Why am I asking you? Me, I don't have a clue. But I think it may be because of its stylistic range. An entire album could have been recorded in the style of any one of these songs - even the OTT soundtrack swell of My Hawaii - and been a success. There's everything sixties in here, from blue-eyed soul to sitar bliss-outs, and it's all too much. But in a good way, without the slightest taint of irony or cleverness; the album is saturated with the spirit of hope and peace and love, and not without a certain sweet melancholy. Once Upon A Dream - remember? Back when there was one? It's still here - listen.

Da Boids Is Da Woid Part Deux

Check out this seemingly unexceptional cover. Hard to see now what was so unusual about it at the time, but it was the use of empty space above their heads, with the bodies "bleeding off" the bottom edge. This was almost a Blue Note approach to design - almost, because a jazz album would never have featured the musicians sitting on their asses sulking and pouting (probably). And that typography is sensational.

Once again, this is a swell fan-compiled collection of (allegedly) all the tracks associated with the recording of this album. Thirty-eight of 'em. I haven't forensically examined this, and I'm not a Byrds archivist, so if there are omissions and errors, I apologise.

This was the last album Gene Clark was wholly involved in, because the rest of the girls bitched about his greater earnings from his more successful songwriting. David Crosby was throwing hissy fits that his own material and selections weren't being used. And everyone was simply livid about Jim-Roger McGuinn's close relationship with Terry Melcher. Show-biz kids, huh?

Fun With Florida Man!

In internet terms, this, at eight months old, is ancient history, and may be familiar to you. But it was new to me, and seems too False Memory Foam© a thing not to feature. Simply follow the simple instructions in somebody's "tweeter" (me neither) below for instant mirth.

I hit Florida pay dirt with this:

Man run over by lawn mower while trying to kill son with chainsaw.

None More Nara

I was reading a review of Throbbing Gristle's Greatest Hits, and was struck by this: "[they] suffered endless persecution from the British government because of their wild ideas." Oh really? Pardon my mirth. The idea of this privileged bunch of middle-class nuisances toying with the "shocking" edge of the avant-garde being endlessly persecuted by anybody but music lovers is laughable - and not in a funny way. And if they really wanted a "wild idea", how about this? Write a fucking song. But no; the Throbs were/are too busy deconstructing and being ironic and polemical on our asses to debase themselves to show-biz levels of professionalism.

Which brings me to Nara Leão. There's a fantastic story behind this album - about real persecution - that I'm too lazy to paraphrase, and it's too long to copy-paste. Being the in-demand swell that you are, you probably don't have the time to read it, but you can at least listen to the album. It's not Throbbing Gristle, but hey ...

Progressing Backwards In Reverse

The pattern from pop to prog/rock was well established by 1969 - groups seeking peer respect, album sales, and exotic tour riders all made the shift from goofing around to dire prognostication. Case in point: Ford Theatre. Except - uniquely - they went against the grain, fashion, and their best interests by starting out doomy and paranoid on their first album ('68's Trilogy For The Masses) and dialing it all back for the decidedly friskier Time Changes a year later, when this kind of thing was beginning to look sexy.

Trilogy - with a superbly paranoid cover designed by (it says here) Frissi Titsworth - uh-huh - betrays little of the Bosstown roots they were keen to distance themselves from. It could well be a concept album - the concept being who's staring at me? I don't feel so great. But the music is melodic, powerful, haunting, and beautifully constructed. It's over-serious, of course, and the brow-knitting vocals ensured no singles bothered the charts. Produced by Bob Thiele.

The only thing wrong with Time Changes is that it didn't come out in late '67. It would have set the stage nicely for Trilogy. The band's signature preoccupation with existential unease is still apparent in the lyrics, but the softer, almost pop approach makes it seductive rather than depressing. "A New Musical" that never got to Off-Off-Broadway, it was arranged by the sub-editor's nemesis Bill Szymczyk [I got this - Ed.]. Both albums appeared on FoamFavorite© ABC Records.

Frustratingly, a third album was begun but never finished; a shame, because given the reverse trajectory of these guys, it would have been twelve frat-rock stompers recorded in a Van Nuys garage.

Rare Meat

Mel Brown's 1967 Chicken Fat on Impulse (and where else would it be) is a swell soundtrack album to a heist movie that never got made. Go-Go music for Cheetah swingers, blasting from convertibles cruising The Strip. Brown was a pretty wild guitarist, and ate up just about every influence, spitting it out in crazy bursts that are gone before you've had time to realise what he just did. He's a showboater with the chops to pull it off, and a joy to hear. Music to Frug to.

George Benson's Giblet Gravy, from '68, is a very different kettle of meat, getting left on the plate by tedious jazzbo purists even this early in his career. What they didn't understand was Benson was always a bigger star than the academic limitations of jazz could hold. Every album that veered away from what critics considered his roots (the arrogance!) throughout his career got a kicking. Like he cared. A superhumanly talented vocalist, instrumentalist, and a true star, every note he played and sang is in tune with what he wanted to do. Prime cuts.

A Nice Pair

Sitarswami! His name is whispered by windchimes, heard in the beat of a butterfly's wings, grunted into a motel pillow by a five-dollar whore! Yes, wherever afficionados of the outré, the exquisite, and the recondite gather - be it steaming slop-house or cloud-girt lamasery - you'll hear his name uttered like a mantra! Sitarswami! Who knows what he knows? Not I, pally. But the FMF© HQ here in leafy downtown Las Vegas is occasionally blessed by his visits, as it was last night.

Cody interrupted my internet research session (agrarian reform in the Low Countries - something of a passion of mine) with an urgent cry of "Pull yer pants up, doofus! Sitarswami's here!"

Moments later we were relaxing in Th' Conversation Pit O' Sound©. Sitarswami hovered inches above the Fun-Fur upholstery while Cody served her signature Cheez Wiz n' Spearmint Gum cocktails in vintage Huckleberry Hound© beakers.

Sitarswami, yesterday

S: Om shanti, dude. You look flushed.
FMF©: [coughs] Sunlamp.
S: I humbly offer you my latest collection of rare pop-psych that I curated.
FMF©: Compiled. The word is compiled. Fuck's sake.
S: You want it or not?
FMF©: Yeah, yeah. What is it awready?
S: Remember the four-disc fan-made Curt Boettcher singles collection? Trouble is I rarely want to listen to four discs to hear my favorites, so I thought, why not condense those down to one disc and add in a bunch of tracks written by one of Curt's early collaborators, Tandyn Almer?
FMF©: [playing paddle-ball] I give up - why not?
S: I've only included one example of each song - although Shadows & Reflections has a number of fine versions - plus one of the demos from the Almer Sundazed collection. Tracks 1-17 are Boettcher only. I've resisted any impulse to include Ballroom, Sagittarius or Millennium-related material, while #18 is Almer & Boettcher's perfect meeting of the minds. Tracks 18-27 are the Almer-written songs. The only excuse for track 28 being included is it's an Our Productions release that was missed on the Boettcher four-disc comp. That one's for Don Adams fans only. 
FMF©: Let me guess, your Mysticalness - the tracks need tagging and you want me to do some artwork for like, nothing. Again.
S: It will be good karma for you, little grasshopper.
FMF©: I gots karma out th' ass, pally.


 

Cody's Casual Sunday

"Hi! I'm Cody! I'm Executive Outreach Officer here at FalseMemoryFoam©, and Mr III has given me the honor and responsibility of contributing a regular Sunday piece to the blog. Every week, I'll be choosing some music I find entertaining and hope that you do too!

But first, more seriously, I'd like to clear up some confusion about my status here. It seems that some of you have not been paying attention to the comments. Whilst it is true that I recently resigned my position in order to spend more time with my dogs (hi, Snuggles and Poopsie!) I was persuaded to return by popular opinion which Mr III could not ignore. He knows that posts with my picture in them get more page hits than his "funny" posts where he tries to be "funny" and I think he is resentful of this! LOL!

So, without further adieu [yeah, right - Ed.] I am proud to present my first Cody's Casual Sunday! It's an album I really like, called Fifty Hit Dance Hits by the Various Artists. I play it when I do my workouts by the pool, only Mr. III makes me wear earbuds. He's so grouchy! Anyway, that's all from me! See you guys next Sunday! Aaaaand ... keep dancin'!"

Down To The Nitty Gritty

From camping it up with The Teddybear's Picnic to becoming heritage music curators on a par with the Smithsonian is quite a leap, but the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band made it. The earliest line-up, in 1965, included Jackson Browne, who bailed for a solo career before the first album. Chris Darrow passed in and out before Uncle Charlie, which was when perseverance (and talent) started to pay off.

It's impossible to overstate these guys' importance, which is strangely counterbalanced by their relative lack of fame.

They'd passed through the core American music genres; jugband, bluegrass, folk, pop, country, blues, rock n' roll, before curating (and for once, the word is used correctly) the epochal Will The Circle Remain Unbroken; that rare thing, a precious historical document that's also a lot of fun. It was a project that was only possible because the NGDB approached Nashville with respect and humility - qualities that have a bearing on their low showbiz presence.

Since then, a little bland AOR, and a slight return to the roots they never left, but here's their early œuvre [French - egg - Ed.], sounding fresh and timeless and fun and beautiful all at the same time.

Oh - and beautiful album artwork, too.