Hushed Jazz Applause Is The Loudest Sound In The World

Our earlier That's Jaaazz posts drew an internet-straining response! My diagnostics consultant Kandi Kreampie tells me that up to four readers participated in the swell debate! Hoo boy! Skimming the crest of this tsunami of enthusiasm today are a couple of albums with nothing in common other than the initials of the musicians and a cherished place in th' FalseMemoryFoam Vault O' Sound©, so quality is assured! Only this time the quality is hi-, as in hi-fi! So say hi! to fine music and high times!

When you want your jaaazz to be smooth on the draw with no harsh aftertaste, when the mood is mellow and the lights are low, you'll reach for these sophisticated selections with confidence! Say yes to no harsh atonality! Say yes to "no free jazz here, buddy! We's paying customers!" When you got a dame draped in your lap, last thing you need is some boho overblowing his reed in a challenging attempt to raise your consciousness! That's why we here at th' Foam like our jaaazz stirred, not shaken!

Gabor Szabo - crazy name, crazy guy! - had fusion out the ass before the term was invented. The album most jazz toe-dippers know is Sorcerer, but Dreams, from '68, gets my vote, for the absence of jazz club applause, the vodka-clear production, the subtle air of hookah smoke, and a finger-snapping version of Donovan's Ferris Wheel. And, boy, is that some swell sleeve! If your squeeze ain't swaying her hips to Galatea's Guitar, then brother, get another broad! Reference point for psychonauts: Kaleidoscope.

George Shearing - boring name, boring guy! - is better known for his bespectacled piano stylings than this one-of-a-kind chamber jazz offering. It got kicked to death by every beret-wearing bluenose who knew True Jazz when he heard it, and he certainly wasn't hearing it on '64's Out Of The Woods. But, candidly, who gives a fuck, right? This is composed and arranged to the last hemi-demi-quaver. No blowing, just an unclassifiable selection of exquisitely lovely tunes. I'm told there's counterpoint a-plenty, but don't let that put you off. Reference point for psychonauts: Zappa's melodic interludes.

How An Obscure Psychedelic Album Led To The Creation Of The Internet As We Know It

The transition of embarrassment, from psychedelia to whatever came next, led to some interesting changes. The major-league players had the talent and momentum to carry them through, but less successful acts (of the kind covered with great affection and respect here) were often reduced to extreme re-invention and a name change, in the hope of getting gigs and a recording contract.

The Travel Agency were never going to be a headline act; the needle flickers into the red on the Obscurometer© at their very mention. The anonimity of the musicians on the sleeve led me to think - back in the early seventies, when I picked this up - that it was a psychploitation exercise, an impression strengthened by the sketchy Viva label and the high-visibility branding of label owner Snuff Garrett (who gave a fuck?). Back then, I had no way of finding out more. It was frustrating, because the album was pretty good - if not quite as good as John Van Hamersveld's insanely thrilling sleeve promised.

So Tim [Berners-Lee - Ed.] and I were chatting about this over a daiquiri in Harry's Bar, and he decided to invent the World Wide Web so we could solve the Travel Agency puzzle. The first thing we turned up - I will never forget his cry of triumph! - was a single release, but I still have doubts this was the same group. A few short years later (pre-Discogs) we managed to establish a surprising connection with the '71 Shanti album on Atlantic. Turns out that the Travel Agency guys re-invented themselves as one of the first fusion acts. Far from ditching the Indian influence, they amped it up to eleven, bringing in two respected classically-trained Indian musicians (Discogs is your friend for the details). The result is fascinating, but it wasn't the money-earner it might have been. Audiences weren't ready for more Indian instruments, perhaps associating them with a long-dead trend, or with Indian restaurants more than Eastern Wisdom. The Indo-fusion movement made more headway in jazz (particularly John McLaughlin's Shakti ... sayyy ... That name reminds me of something.)

What interests me is how these guys appeared out of nowhere, made an album, disappeared for a few years, and came back with a major label contract and a couple of classical heavyweights in the lineup. Anybody? Hoo hah?

With thanks to Tim Berners-Lee, who still maintains the single - included - is the work of the same band.

Somethin' For Sunday

Is Sunday still "a thing" - as today's hip teens would say - with you? If your cot is located under the roof of a Correctional Facility, perhaps one day is pretty much as another. But here at FalseMemoryFoam©, Sundays are something special. Cody presses my Angel'sFlight®© slacks (if I'm lucky while I'm still wearing them), Pepé, my devoted houseboy, grinds a handful of costly Laotian coffee beans between his teeth, and I settle back with the funny papers, the troubles of the world forgotten. But what, I hear you cry in that anxious whine of yours, what is spinning on th' Foam Victrola? Perhaps an étude by Fauré? A rare chamber piece by Buxtehude? Why, no, you scamp! Today it is our old friend Hoagland Carmichael, in a very special session from '56, arranged by Johnny Mandel (a personal friend). Ask the Warden to play it over the PA system!

Pcinemadelic (Part Two)

Both these movies cunningly exploited a combination of sex and hippie culture, with mixed success. Candy had an A-list cast (Richard Burton, Marlon Brando, Walter Matthau ... Ringo Starr ...) edgy script (Buck Henry, from Terry Southern's novel), and made a shitload of money so it could lose it already. This is Tinseltown, Jack. Not much celebrated among the #metoos, its IMDB plot keywords are telling: naive girl, female nudity, attempted rape, breasts, female rear nudity. It's the soundtrack which concerns us here, though, and it's a doozy.

The Big Names are The Byrds (really just Roger McGuinn) and Steppenwolf, but it's Dave Grusin who spikes the Kool-Aid. In addition to co-writing the lovely Child Of The Universe with McByrd, he froths up a very superior psychedelic cocktail of mind-expanding mood music. It's not campy, corny, or clichéd - this is the real McCoy, written and produced by a real musician taking the whole thing seriously for a change.

3 In The Attic is something else, man. Let's list those IMDB plot keywords: female rapist, female on male rape, female rapes male ... you get the picture. You'd think that this controversial and womyn-empowering stance would attract the #metoos, but I'm guessing not much. It was AIP's highest-grossing movie of the decade, in spite of - perhaps because of - its undemanding and grateful C-list cast. The soundtrack is surprising - whoever got Chad And Jeremy on board should get a retroactive bonus. This was their Left Coast psych period, when they were recording Of Cabbages And Kings and The Ark; 3 In The Attic completes a nice trilogy. There's even a side-long suite - all thirteen minutes of it - modestly titled Background Music, which shows beaucoups of composing and arranging chops.

Both these quality items are from '68, the Golden Year of Things Like This.

Been There, Done That

Back in the day, I used to pore over Pete Frame's Family Trees like an Egyptologist studying hieroglyphs in a newly-discovered tomb. Tracing the connections and progress of band members through shifting combinations was revelatory, and addictive. I met Pete a couple of times at his cottage deep in Merrie Olde Englande (no, really - this isn't a spoof piece). I bowed in respect before his album collection (Safe As Milk with the bumper sticker!!), genuflected before his drawing board and Rotring pens, and listened to an apparently endless stream of anecdotes - his description of Linda Ronstadt is unforgettable - with a bunch of scary-eyed, like-minded obsessives who'd found sanctuary under his thatched roof.

Pete Frame, yesterday

I no longer have his books, but a chance discovery today makes me wish I had. I was spinning the Fine Wine album in the Conversation Pit Of Sound© while Cody trimmed my ear hair, and was struck by what a first-class piece of work it is. Now if you're half the fan of The Moby Grapes that I am, then I like 'em twice as much as you, but you will also be aware that this is a Grape album in all but name, albeit with only Jerry Miller and Bob Mosley from the original line-up on board. As such, it's mistakenly been relegated to the interesting, but not essential pile. The same pile you'd find the Lovecraft album in [see Give the Drummer Some More - Ed.].

It was recorded in '76, in Germany, with the loathsome Matthew Katz still

Mmm! Ear hair!

making life hell for the band and preventing them from using their own name. Don't let's get started on Katz. Anyway, given that context you'd expect them to be working with a pick-up band, with ho-hum results. And here's where it gets interesting. At least to me it does, pally. Because that "pick-up band" includes the unfeasibly talented Michael Been. Who he? He was in Lovecraft for the wonderful Valley Of The Moon album, and later, in Aorta for their equally neglected and equally terrific second album (Aorta will have their own piece soon). Wiki is your friend, and his page is well worth reading. Wotta guy!

So here's Fine Wine, and what a glorious vintage it is. Been is entirely worthy of induction into the Grape ranks, and his participation is inspired. And check out the Lovecraft album, if you haven't already.

Michael Been died in 2010, age sixty, from a heart attack while he was working as sound man for Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. Hey, all right.

She Went Of Her Own Accord

The Harder They Come and Catch A Fire were the gateway reggae drugs for many who'd failed to be hooked by ska and rock steady. The Marley album, with its clever Chris Blackwell sweetening, opened up a whole world of music that was at once exotic and yet somehow familiar. It just sounded right. Natural. It made no demands on the listener - you didn't have to get up and dance (if you're listening to ska you're missing the point), you didn't have to analyze the lyrics, struggle with difficult progressions - this was at the height of prog - or do anything other than lie back and let it massage you up. It helped to have an interest in home bakery - in the sense of getting baked at home - but this deep-heat groove got you lightly cooked on its own.

When Culture released the epochal Two Sevens Clash everyone who heard it became an evangelist, if not for its entertainingly eccentric Rastafarianism, then for its transportational power to beam you up. Roots became the favored term, to distinguish the righteous from the cash-in pop party sing-along singles.

Today's sumptuous Cornucopia Of Sound© consists of five slabs of original vinyl rootier than a field of hemp, in their rare (-ish - this is the internet) original Jamaican pressings, complete with original crackles and scuffed cover art. Culture's Africa Stand Alone, Bunny Wailer's Blackheart Man, Heart Of The Congos, Burning Spear's Marcus Garvey and Studio One Presents. These pressings often differ significantly from later editions, and are guaranteed to impress any swivel-eyed collector scrolling through your iTunes content. Sigh "I had that on vinyl" in a tone of infinite regret to complete the effect.

Ze Musique! Eet Eez Laife Eetself!

Ze Frainch, eh? What a nation of rascals! But brilliant at so many things - self-promotion based on boundless arrogance among them. No, they didn't invent cheese, and no, they don't make the best wine in the world. Or the best anything. And yet ... they can charm your socks off your feet when they're in the mood. And they have a genuine respect for the arts, unequalled by any other country. So why is their music so ... what's the word? Merde?

There are exceptions (Django being the greatest), and today's offering is one of them - an album so breezily relaxed and perfectly tuned to a summer's day picnic, to the pop of Champagne corks and the gentle lapping of the surf, that you come back to your miserable existence with a bump after listening to it.

Enzo Enzo has the effrontery to sing in French, but she sounds so goose-bumpy gorgeous you have to forgive her. Her musical accompaniment is silky cocktail jazz with a subtle Gallic swing, and it'll impress the merde out of your friends when played at those dinner-parties you give, with the paper plates of snacks set out and you in your white slacks and a rogueish gleam in your eye for your best friend's wife. E-hon, e-hon, e-hon!

EDIT: I've listened to this for the first time in a while, in writing this piece, and I'm struck by how shiveringly wonderful it is. Songs that sound like standards the first time you hear them, variety that doesn't compromise consistency, instrumental dexterity, and her husky, adorable delivery. It's fucking sublime, is what it is.

From Burning Incense To Burning Kaftans

When groups got hip to the fact that psychedelic music was not so hip no more, they ditched the effects that had made everything so much fun like they were infected. The rattle of love beads and headbands being fed into garbage disposal units was heard the length of the Left Coast. Windchimes were savagely torn down. Discarded finger-cymbals littered the streets. Kaftans and Afghan coats were cremated in secret backyard ceremonies. Frustratingly, incense could not be burned, but fishermen in the San Francisco bay were injured in the storm of sticks hurled from the bridge. A similar ethnic cleansing occurred in the studio; phasers and wah-wah pedals got kicked into the closet. Sitars and tablas were shipped to Goodwill stores in numbers too great to cope with.

The Great Psychedelic Purge of Psixty-Nine© heralded a back-to-basics movement that saw the momentarily Beautiful People struggling into Amish work-clothes like there was no tomorrow. The Beatles were as usual quick to spot the trend - never the originators they are claimed to be, they acted as a cultural weathervane for those at street level - and the dreary (well, it is) White Album is a bellwether of sorts, although its desperate lack of direction influenced no-one (well, it didn't).

Other bands accomplished the transition with a clarity of purpose the Fab Four had lost, taking Bob as their guide. Dylan was about as lysergic as a square dance, but in retrospect Nashville Skyline represents the sea-change as well as anything.

One of the many minor-league acts making the transition with grace and creativity was Bo Grumpus. Kudos if you've heard of them. Their Before The War from '68 is one of the treasures psychonauts bring from their expeditions into the dark, fetid hinterlands of old vinyl stores. It's a genuinely great album, and I'm not going to qualify that with the usual patronizing critical prefix of "little". It has a swimmy, almost-but-not-quite melancholia to it, a dreamy consistency that encapsulates the highs of the times and hints at the lows. Sales could not have been helped by a combination of shit name and shit cover, though. I mean ... bleeeuuugh.

Realizing they'd made a grievous marketing mistake, they cannily changed their old, shit, name to a new shit name (Jolliver Arkansaw - that banging sound you hear is my head on the desk) and got a new shit album cover for their second album from the following year, Home. It's every bit as good, but with no lingering aftertaste of psychedelia, and thus nicely represents the theme of this piece, visually - check out their threads - as well as musically. The superfine, excellent, blisteringly good rhythm section is heard to advantage without the effects, and as on the first album, Felix Pappalardi's skills are an asset. Leslie West delivers a fat solo, too. [No, he doesn't - you're getting confused with another Pappalardi helmed project, Bangor Flying Circus, linked in the comments to Give The Drummer Some More - Ed.]

More on this subject later - including the Blossom Toes' unexpected embrace of heavy metal and other delights.

Everything's Jake With Us

A bunch of charmers from NY musician Jake Jacobs (The Magicians, Bunky & Jake, Jake & The Family Jewels). A good-timey feel, rock solid melodies, and a fundamental happiness of spirit that seems at odds with almost any other NY act, except the Spoonful.

Perhaps you can help me, readers! I remember (from my long-gone vinyl) that the cover shot was taken at Clarence's Magic Garden. I'm probably totally misremembering, because a google reveals nada. It was a crazy sculpture park built by an old guy - the sculptor equivalent of Moondog - utilizing garbage and stuff he found, and much-loved by hippies at the time who saw all that stuff in their heads anyway. Probably long-gone, but I'd like to know more.

The second album by J&TFJ has the genius title The Big Moose Calls His Baby Sweet Lorraine, and that one took me an age to hunt down, back in the days when my life was mapped by routes between used album stores. It's more of the same - lilting tunes, more hooks than a fisherman's hat, and Jake's infectiously likeable vocals.

If you dig The Spoonful, you'll go ape for these swingin' sounds!

 EDIT: After a request in the comments, I've added the two earlier albums by Bunky & Jake, the self-titled first from '68, and LAMF (nobody knew what that meant back then, least not the record company) from the following year. Jake released A Lick And A Promise in 2012, and still lives in Manhattan, the lovely guy.

At left: the first Bunky & Jake album. Love that sleeve - the playful/serious poses they strike, the paraphernalia of the hippy pad.

... and the second. Like a motherfucker, indeed! What a great couple they make. Go to jakeandthefamilyjewels dot com for more great photos!

Fun Foam Fact: Jake once helped carry a passed-out Jimi Hendrix into a car after a late-night jam at Steve Paul’s Scene.

Frat Boys Freak Out

Don Galluci. Carve his name with pride on the marble tablets of history. At fifteen years old, he was in The Kingsmen when they recorded the utterly timeless, stupid, and wonderful Louie, Louie. Any ordinary mortal would have been content with that and retired early, but Galluci, thanks to his *cough* "connections in the music business" went on to form Rn'B showband The Goodtimes, whose line-up and performances were inextricably linked with Paul Revere And The Raiders. They had regional hit rekkids in the Northwest before relocating to LA to record this, their second album (or "sophomore effort" as rock writers like to write) with Ry Cooder, Hal Blaine, and Glen Campbell playing, and Jack Nitz - Jack Nitsch - Nytzc - god damn it - Jack Nitzsche producing. You'd think it would be pretty good, right? You'd be wrong. It's fan-freaking-tastic. A whole groovy thing going, a sunshine happening chock full o' tunes and no chalky aftertaste! They couldn't bear to lose the showband suits which served them so well in the dance halls, though. The album did okay in spite of them, but Galluci sensed a change in the air.

After a few singles that evaporated on release, he formed Touch, whose lone '69 album is something of a psychedelic benchmark from the last year of that glistening wave of LSD. Recorded in 20/20 Sound, it - wait, what? Let the liner notes explain:

"Twenty/twenty sound is to sound what twenty/twenty is to vision. In its concept, an equal division of musical content has been distributed on both channels, thus, as in the case of the eyes, the ears are both able to focus for themselves and the listener is not required to sit directly center as in the case of the phantom center speaker ... the listener achieves an altered state of consciousness, not through meditation or drugs, but through music ..."

Ri-ight. Although I'm guessing blotters were eaten like pizzas during breaks in recording. The music is astonishingly accomplished and complex, prefiguring the excesses of prog in some ways, recalling the Summer Of Love (by then long gone) in others. To give Galluci the credit he's due, this was no cosmetic exercise in an attempt to cash in on the psychploitation thing. He didn't just slip into a kaftan and love beads and add a sitar (notthatthere'sanythingwrongwiththat). This was a full-on, totally committed, up-to-eleven attempt to expand and change pop music as we knew it, and in its way perhaps helped to end it. The differences between this and So Good are telling. Pure pop was no longer enough, but this was too much for some.

In spite of its qualities, a stunning gatefold sleeve and free poster, it didn't set the charts alight. The band didn't tour to support it, as getting that 20/20 sound live wasn't possible. But you can't keep a good man down, and Galluci went on to a successful career in production; the Stooges' Fun House was his. And Crabby Appleton, who we'll get to.

That's Jaaazz! Again!

Kudos go to Anonymous (easily the most prolific commenter here) for giving this must-have 1957 album a shout-out. Presented here in crystal-clear mono, and bearing the original Reid Miles artwork ("Blue Note always sent me photographs of the artist, not these guys, I got an O. Winston Link print they hadn't licensed. They never used it, I never got my forty dollars.")

While I'd stop short of claiming The Train & The River is best jazz album ever made, it's in the top two. Listening to it again, I'm struck by the airy, zen-like minimalism. Not only are there no keyboards, but there's no drummer. Bass, guitar, reed, and that's it. 

Bearing in mind there was no click track back then coming over the non-existent headphones, the way these guys kept to the (often complex) beat is nothing short of telepathic. There have been other drummer-free combos (The Hot Club Of France, for one), but they've tended to compensate for the lack of percussive timekeeping with strong rhythm guitar/keyboards. Here, the musicians are continuously floating around each other, keeping that invisible beat between them. None of them is plodding away like a metronome - they're playing with the beat, dancing with it, passing it around, never nailing it down. And they're having an incredible time, reveling in each other's virtuosity. What a gorgeous sound!

And That's Jaaazz!

Rock and pop enthusiasts generally accommodate a few jazz "sides" in their collection, more out of a sense of rightness than actually spending ear time with it. Miles' Kind Of Blue ... uh ... something difficult by Coltrane ... hey! Moby Grape! Let's cue it up!

Whatever its failings, jazz is manifestly not the total crap that is classical music. Any guy claiming to find the sublime in a Fauré étude is just trying to get inside the pants of some girl who does. No working stiff goes through the agony of a classical music gig without there's some dame at his elbow which he has the hots for.

But back to jaaazz. First up in this timely and provocative series is Ike Quebec's Blue And Sentimental, which is wonderful in spite of its jaaazzitude. I've loved this album since my mother brought it home in '62. She'd heard it in the record store and couldn't leave without it.

Apart from some spare comping from Ike, there's no keyboards. This is almost a chamber jazz ensemble, with the inexpressibly fantastic Grant Green on a guitar that sounds like someone strung a Giant Redwood with spun gold. It's woodier than a woodpecker and rings like the mission bell, and you'll hear his rare rhythm playing as well as his precise and thoughtfully swinging lead. But its really Ike's show. If you haven't heard him before, listen to the first few notes he plays on this album, and dig. There's no way you won't be giving him some hushed jazz applause after his solo. His tone defines jazz sax. Breathy as a 3am phone call, this is Ike singing from some huge, dark, smoky place inside him.

Jazz? Like Kenny G?

I'm required by State Jazz Law to list the other musicians - Paul Chambers on growly bass, and Philly Joe Jones' pattering, understated drums.

Don't take my word for it, or my mother's. I just looked it up on wiki and there's a couple of quotes that might tempt you to take the plunge:

"A quiet, sorely underrated masterpiece" - AllMusic, getting it right for once.
"Quebec's masterpiece" - Richard Cook (who he?)

Fun Foam Fact©: Real jazz buffs never, but never, refer to Miles Davis as "Davis", nor John Coltrane as "John".

Roger Roger, Over Over Redux

It's Miller Time! Couple of items before I get around to The Genius Of box set, which just about wraps up what I have. First up is the playfully-titled A Trip In The Country. As far as I'm aware, Miller never struggled into a Nehru shirt in his life, leave alone a kaftan, although I'm sure he was well ahead of the curve when it came to recreational drug pursuits. This album fit the 1970 back-to-the country trend like a glove; except of course, Miller had to work his way up and out of the poverty then being embraced by middle-class kids.

This album gets two stars spat at it by AllMusic, which calls it a "dubious re-recording project" because it consists of new versions of old songs, played by a crack C&W band including no less than three Buddys: Spicher, Emmons, and Harman. AllMusic also bemoans the lack of the funny stuff which our reviewer apparently prefers. Well, gee whiz! This is a straight-ahead country album, and for those that like this sort of thing this is very much the sort of thing they like.

Your Bonus Subscriber Disc is an oddity: Miller telling the tale of the movie Waterhole #3. And singing The Code Of The West. Twenty-six minutes and we're done.

Little Boots Part The Third

This ain't rare as a steak, but it's good as gold. If you have it already, use this swell sleeve design - a FalseMemoryFoam© exclusive - provided at no extra cost - just a dollar! - to you, Mr John Q. Public. Nothing unusual for a '75 setlist, but the quality is extraordinary for an audience recording, as live as they get. It's like being there! In Tulsa! When you had hair!

Collect the set of these fine unauthorized audio recordings, and remember to break down your RIAA curve into two sub-curves, which when one cascades into the other will define RIAA parameters for guaranteed home entertainment satisfaction!

Steeleye Dan - The Donald Fagen Interview

Don Fagen (all his friends call him Don, or Donny, or the Donster) dropped by the FMF Conversation Pit Of Sound© last week with a test pressing that made my eyebrows swivel. Unfortunately, he didn't give me permission to post the music here, but you can take my word for it that it's sensational! Wow! I totally wish you could hear it!

The Donster was in fine form. Sporting a gray Phil Spector 'fro, he looked tan and buff in wifebeater vest and pleated chinos with cuffs over neon violet Crocs. Cody served kelp-flavored soymilk sundaes as we settled into the fun fur.

Don: What's the rent on this place?
FMF©: Oy! Don't ask.
Don: Already I'm asking.
FMF©: Drink your sundae. So what's this Steeleye Dan thing we're listening to?
Don: She's cute.
FMF©: Cody? I guess. Is this the sleeve?
Don: Yeah. It came out fairly lush, I think. It was Wally's project, really.
FMF©: Wally? Oh. Really?
Don: He always had a big jones for trad. arr. The Child Ballads, Shirley and Dolly Collins, that genre. He played the little concertina thing, the squeezebox, and wore this Morris dancing outfit, with the bells. You squeeze her box much? Where'd she go?
FMF©: So how did the meeting with Steeleye Span happen?
Don:  They were on tour in New York, and so were we. We met by chance in Saks, the lamp department there. They have these great pendant lamps. We're all major interior lighting fans. Who knew?

The FMF Conversation Pit Of Sound©

FMF©: And you managed to fit a recording session into your busy schedules.
Don: Well we did. To our mutual satisfaction.
FMF©: But the album - Solstice On 7th Avenue - was never released.
Don: Contracts! Everything was screwed by our lawyers. Our lawyers screwed everything.
FMF©: Wow. This song sounds fantastic.
Don: It was written in 1812. That's a hell of a time signature.
FMF©: Is this Walt - Wally - on the cover?
Don: Uh-huh. In his Morris dancing clothes. Can I get another sundae? 
FMF©: You didn't finish that one.
Don: Whatever.

At this point, we veered off-topic, swapping show-biz anecdotes (the one about Michael Bolton and the cantaloupe was new to me) which have no relevance here.

What, You Worry?

A small package of no value today, a swell gift from Blank Frank! Three full-length albums of vintage Mad Magazine-ness that you'll wish were singles, and a single you'll wish had never been released, all in one sumptuous package! Fink Along With Mad (1962) features the regrettably unforgettable sounds of The Dellwoods, Mike Russo, and Jeanne Hayes (me neither). Mad Twists Rock n' Roll features, uh, more of the same. Musically Mad [at left - Ed.] embraces the latest in stereo recording technology, featuring the musical genius of household names Bernie Green And The Stereo Mad-Men. And as a bonus, we throw in (or up) the 1959 single from Alfred E. Neuman And His Furshlugginer Five, What, Me Worry?

Hoo boy! You'll sure be the envy of the gang with these swell recordings! Remember to Thank Your Uncle Frank in the comments!

What's Happening?!?!

Y'know, readers, I'm often accosted in city thoroughfares by humble citizens, much like your good selves, anxious to learn what's spinning on the turntable in the FMF© Conversation Pit Of Sound. Farq, they whine, genuflecting to kiss the hem of my garment, what discs would you currently recommend from today's seething musical marketplace? As a service to them, and to you, I'll be regularly running this regular feature regularly at regular intervals on a regular basis. Unless I forget or get bored.

Steeleye Span - Estd. 1969 A stunning follow-up to the invigorating Dodgy Bastards album from 2016. Mind-blowingly lovely, thrilling music from a band I'm shamefully late to appreciate. Want wah-wah guitar? Want achingly beautiful arrangements of trad. arrs.? Of course you do.

Bruce Springsteen - Western Stars I haven't been emotionally moved by a Springsteen album since The Wild The Innocent And The E-Street Shuffle. There's been a few damn good albums since then, a couple great, but nothing that transported me in the same way, until now. I listen to this in the dark, and it's as potent as listening to The Wild ... all those decades ago. Don't care about the reviews. Don't care about the influences. Don't care about anything except where this astonishing album takes me. Thanks to the magic of mp3, I have edited out Sleepy Joe's Café, a likeable enough song that probably works live but is an unconvincing mood-lifter here. Where The Wild ... was a young man's album, Western Stars is the country for old men, scarred by experience. From the boardwalk and the boulevard to chasing wild horses, Springsteen keeps the dream alive, and bless him for it.

Dadrock makes me wet!

Doobie Brothers Live From The Beacon Theatre I know, I know, the Doobies have never been cool, and there's not that many left of the original band, and yadda yadda. Again - color me don't care. This set is a one rockin' good time. And rollin'. The two classic album iconic album classics they cover sound like a greatest hits show, beginning to end, and the new arrangements add a dynamite big band swing. The old guys still sing like young men, and Bill Payne gets wheeled on for keys, and if this doesn't get you lurching around punching the air and getting sad looks from your wife, then, gee whillickers, I just don't know what will.

Primal Scream - More Light I fell out with the Primals when they got all shouty with Xtrmntr (whtvr) like some old bum-fight hobo you're trying to back away from. Here, they dialed back the bludgeoning and get subtle on our asses in a way they hadn't managed since, ooh, Echo Dek? Varied, thoughtful, detailed, and while the songs may not have what melodic force they could muster back in the old days, there's enough going on to repay repeat listenings. And some of it rocks out, dudes.

In Here

Love's Out Here doesn't get played much. The most obvious reason for that is the toxic drum solo, ten minutes of ballsaching tedium that perhaps not even another drummer could sit through more than once, and the rest of us not at all. Ever. But there are plenty of other perfectly valid reasons to pass this album by. A shitload of filler, for one. A dreary remake of Signed DC that nobody was asking for, for another. A running order that seemed to have been decided by chickens on cocaine. A general feeling of sloppiness, not knowing when to stop, coupled with a strangely cheap production that leaves some songs sounding like demos. The list goes on.

I've struggled with this damn album for years, and I finally arrived at something worthy of Arthur Lee. I had to be brutal. The sprawling double album (note how doubles are frequently said to "sprawl", something a single album apparently finds difficult) is reduced to a single, with a "soft" side and a "hard" side.

The first step was easy. Cut the drum solo. Yay! Then I cut the filler. You won't notice it's gone, and I'm not going to list it. Then I cut the sub-par songs, the ones that are kinda, hmm, okay, I guess. They went. Then it got a little difficult. Reshuffling the remains didn't work. Some songs outstayed their welcome, or were too short. The freakout guitar freakout freakout - which as these things go is first-rate - was in the wrong place. I dissected everything at granular level in Audacity, and edited it and sequenced it, after long trial and error, into the sumptuous thrill-ride I offer to you here.

What I can't do is give the whole thing the production it needs, the full Record Plant make-over that would have transformed it into the hit album - no, really - that it shoulda coulda. Although it lacks the highs of Four Sail, overall it's a stronger album. If you think that's an unrealistic claim, give it a listen. It's like hearing it for the first time.

Cruise Ship Kaftans

Squares! Man, they'll just never be hip like us! What Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In was to Lenny Bruce, The Happenings were to Jefferson Airplane. No amount of headbands, droopy 'taches, and flouncy shirts could stop them looking like a bunch of nice Italian boys out of Noo Joizy, which is what they were. They had scorchingly big hits, anyway, with See You In September and I Got Rhythm. They got a foot on the psychedelic bus pretty early, releasing Psycle in the summer of lurve. You'd think with a name like that, an album title like that, and a cover like this, there'd be some musical hint that they were hip to the happening scene, but you'd be wrong. They lent their not inconsiderable talents to singing a bunch of old tunes in a style like The Four Seasons covering Harpers Bizarre, or the other way around. Sparkling stereo production, creamy

harmonies, and the non-oldies are frustratingly good, making you wish for more, and less My Mammy and Bye Bye Blackbird, as inventive as their arrangements are. The sole remaining member still plays the cruise lines, and I like to think has a great and happy life.

The Cascades were, if anything, if possible, even squarer than a Happenings album cover. Sailors in the US Navy, San Diego, they were influenced by the nascent Beach Boys, hitting it large in '62 with Rhythm Of The Rain. By '68 they were clearly out of their minds. Their epochal concept album, What Goes On Inside clocks in at a whopping twenty-seven minutes, including a laid-back reprise of Rhythm Of The Rain, and an entire side (twelve minutes long) devoted to the epic suite Prelude. The internets are strangely silent about this album, which is puzzling, because it's a treat. As with the Happenings, their vocal talents are well-honed, bang in the middle of the note, and the stereo arrangements are inventive and make you thank the Baby Jesus for giving you two ears. Fun Foam Fact: It was produced - and beautifully - by Andy DiMartino, who would later have the thankless gig of playing in Captain Beefheart's unfairly maligned Tragic Band.

They Don't Make 'Em Like This Any More

Whenever I hear Paul McCartney touted as "the greatest songwriter of the twentieth century", Hoagy Carmichael is the name I counter with first. Then there's a list as long as Wilshire Boulevard before we get to McCartney. Carmichael may not be the greatest songwriter of all time, but he's in the top two.

This selection is a swell introduction, if you don't know his work. Cherry-picked from the hundreds of songs that he wrote in a long career, dating from his early hot jazz period in Indiana, through the New York songwriter years, to his move out west to Hollywood. He died in 1981 (like, yesterday), aged 82, leaving a matchless catalog of songs, recordings, and movie appearances. His understated vocal style hides a surprising virtuosity - try singing along to Stardust, or Baltimore Oriole.

They don't make 'em like this any more. They don't write 'em like this any more. In an age when hits with the longevity and substance of bubblewrap are assembled by algorithms and performed by bots, Carmichael's songs are, well, stardust, and will shine forever.

Free, As In Not Paid

It's an incredible story. In 1969, Moogy Klingman, 19,  fresh from the break-up of his band The Glitterhouse [see the Jane Fonda piece below - Ed.] somehow puts together a dream-team superstar jam album, revolving around sessions led by Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Linda Ronstadt, Dr. John, Keith Emerson, and Harvey Mandel, with contributions from Todd Rundgren, the First National Band, Mitch Mitchell, Joe Farrell, and a host of session luminaries (and a cameo from trash movie queen Geri Miller).

To cut a long story short, Earl Dowd [unfunny comedy album producer - Ed.] cut himself in on the deal, bringing free studio time at the Record Plant and a couple of big names, and finished up not only taking over the project but also taking the tapes to the UK ("the check's in the mail") and getting a deal with Charisma Records four years later, who issued the album in one of the most misbegotten sleeves Hipgnosis ever delivered (not this one here! that's mine!). In addition to the buzzkill sleeve, Clapton and Beck's names couldn't be used. If someone deliberately set out to sabotage the album, they could have done no better than Earl Dude.

"Hi boys!"

Had it been issued at the time, when supergroup jam sessions were a big deal, in a better cover, with everybody concerned credited and paid for their work, it might have been the biggest of them all. Currently, it's uncertain who holds the rights to this music. A mess.

In addition to the new cover (using a 1969 font, font fans), I've shuffled the tracks into the session order detailed in the Klingman interview linked in the comments.

Pcinemadelic (Part One)

We're talking psychploitation, but in a good and groovy way. It's a mystery why there isn't one mainstream movie that uses hippie counterculture as a context. Bullitt was made at the height of Haight, but you wouldn't know it - the film-makers were in a totally different San Francisco, one where the men wore narrow lapel suits by Botany 500 and snapbrim hats. If hippies were shown at all in mainstream movies, the guys provided comedy as stoned-out goons, and the girls a lot of otherwise unavailable leg. The Haight Ashbury/Sunset Strip scene was over before the major movie suits knew what a Nehru collar was.

So it was left to the B-movie independents and the no-budget studios, never shy to grab the opportunity to make a quick buck, to don the kaftan and spin the oil wheel. Mainstream movies take a long time to make - independents could ship out the first-take reels while the incense still hung in the air. Psych Out is a classic of the genre. It's not very good, either. The appeal is mostly camp - Jack Nicholson in a nailed-on ponytail is something to see. Bruce Dern's acting is not. But let's not get all cinéaste on our asses. It gave us a surprisingly excellent soundtrack album. In addition to sterling work by The Strawberry Alarm Clock and the Seeds it contains the only known recordings of mystery combo The Storybook, who if they are a fake band (a project of soundtrack director Ronald Stein) are a damn fine one. Their contributions are authentically strange; a long way from sunshine pop, haunting, dreamlike lullabyes that hover on the edge of psychotic breakdown. I want more, dammit. The other surprise is a blistering instrumental by Boenzee Cryque, featuring proto-psych psteel guitar from Rusty Young, who would join Poco with fellow Cryquester George Grantham. This rip has authentic crackles, to match the authentic cover.

This post is the FalseMemoryFoam© double-header you've come to expect from the blog where Quantity Is Quality. Our main feature is The People Next Door, which I have never seen* and neither - I'm guessing - have you. IMDB tells us it's about "comfortable New York suburbanites discovering that their seemingly perfect 16-year old daughter has been tripping on LSD." Yup, four years after the Left Coast was doing it, NY makes a mainstream movie about it. But the soundtrack, helmed by the fascinating Don Sebesky, definitely falls into the psychploitation bag, man. It's beautiful. Really. Strong songs in a drugged-out dreamy mode broken by Sebesky's unsettling instrumental interludes make for a compelling experience, one you'll be proud to share when unexpected guests drop by. Featured acts The Glass Bottle and Bead Game both made disappointing albums, but they shine here. Don Sebesky will turn up again in this ongoing Pcinemadelic© franchise.

*In a synchronicity that can only be described as being of cosmic significance, I have found an active torrent of this movie and look forward to viewing it in the FalseMemoryFoam© private cinema as soon as Cody gets back from her scrapbooking class.