Big Bowl Buffett Buffet

1970

Jimmy Buffett didn't exactly hit the ground snoozing. He had to work at that Key West yacht bum thing. His first couple of albums see him trying to relax, but feeling guilty about it. There's some earnest folky social comment, a few thinly-veiled drug references (them was the days, right?), and, most strangely of all, some left-over psychedelic-type touches, phasing, modal jamming, that type thing.

This is Buffet on the outskirts of Margaritaville, looking in.

Recorded '71, released '76, cover 2020

I've done a new cover for High Cumberland Jubilee, because the old one was a shit hack job pasted together when Herb Alpert finally decided to release it five furshlugginer years after it was recorded. If you already have the album you can dress it up nice now. Click image for bigly.

Terminally Unhip Dept. - Santana

I resisted adding my own Top Three to the micro-lists in a recent comments thread because my choices would be lamestream acts and I'd lose the shreds of hip credibility that still adhere to the cuff of my trouser. Top Five, I'd see Thelonious Monk in there. Ike Quebec. But Top Three? I'd be a dirty lying bum if I said Santana wasn't going to make the cut. If you're still reading this without the taste of sick in your mouth - hang in for the second paragraph.

When Caravanserai came out, nothing had prepared me for it. Not the first three Santana albums, anyway. I thought it was the Everest of albums - pure, bright, majestic, thrilling, powerful, and beautiful. I still do. That, and the following couple which make up some kind of "spiritual trilogy" - Welcome, and Borboletta - saw me through some pretty tricky times. Washing back sleeping tablets with cheap wine, waking up crying - you know the deal. But there was very special medicine in those three albums, and when nothing else worked, they did.

Singing about universal truths and so on (or worse - Jesus) is a recipe for disaster. You end up singing shit about nothing. So it's best not to listen too close.  Luckily this is mostly instrumental. Just let the feeling that inspired it do its work - what goes in, comes out. I know the stories about Carlos, how he's less of a human being than you and I, with our lofty standards, but I don't care. Sometimes music shows just how damn great people can be, how wonderful human life can be, and why it's worth fighting for.

These are dark times, maybe darker than we realize (being new to this end-of-the-world thing), and anything that ignites the flame of beauty in our souls should be fiercely guarded. Sometimes it can even be a record album.

©FMF Art Department Dept.

EDIT: Check comments for links to this and a swell concert bootleg recorded the same year.

TL-DR Dept. - Playing Touch n' Tickle With Deadmandeadman

You know that great new car smell? Four Or Five Guy© deadmandeadman smells like that. But only until you get to the end of this, his showroom-mileage screed for th' Isle O' Foam©. A work of towering genius.

The doctor and twenty assistants were sifting through the ashes looking for the photos of phony mustaches to match with the posters they got from the Feds. They soon understood it would do them no good so they opted to draw one instead. The artist among them had broken his arm and the doctor was useless as hell, and the absence of paper, pencil, or pen proved problematic as well. They hoped to abandon their mission but the rainbows were already blue, so they loaded the van while some of them ran unsure of what they should do. The posse was restless, they'd gathered in town, riding their turtles, hunting them down. But storm clouds had risen off in the east, dropping some rain where they needed it least and all the Boll Weevils were having a feast, while the doctor was having conniptions. So he reached to his vest for the thing he loved best and wrote himself a prescription. The neighbor lady was rubbing one out and was lost to the world for a time, floating on feathers, feeling sublime, pleasure beyond description. The locals had gathered outside of the church waiting for someone to lead them, they all wore mustaches they found in the ashes, they knew they were going to need them. The Mayor addressed them from high on his perch, sure he was gonna be left in the lurch, alone without mustache he raced for the church while the locals were milling about. Someone was singing and church bells were ringing and the crowd sang twist and shout. The Chief of Police was rolling in fleece with the janitor's niece playing touch and tickle. While a half drunk clown from the neighboring town was flying the hammer and sickle. 

But the phony mustaches they'd found in the ashes were starting to fall off their faces, so they started to hide by running inside and hiding in unlikely places. They entered the church where the mayor was perched and each one selected a pew. They wanted to pray but what would they say? They didn't have a clue. The rain started falling while the faithful were calling for help from the daydream above. The Mayor cried and was crucified for saying.............

All they needed was love.

Re-Ups Babe-Splained!

Phil Spector, yesterday

Bikini babe LaPleasure Gnubeeste (20) is here to lay out re-up policy here at th' Isle O' Foam©. We're all ears, LaPleasure! Which is pretty disgustifyin', ya ask me!

"Hi, guys! Farq has asked me to, like, read out this shit what he wrote, makes NO sense to me, but hey. Okay. Fuck - the guy's handwriting leaves something to be desired - what? It's typed? The fuck he type with, a hen's back? Okay. I got this.

- Request re-ups in the comment to the piece about the album you want to illegally download.

- Make a note of what the piece is called, or you won't be able to find it again. And you'll feel foolish.

- Have a look in a couple of days.

- Make it easy on us both - if it's only one album of a multiple upload you want, name it.

- Don't request Literature re-ups. I probably won't be assed to hunt them down.

- Wear a mask, wash your hands.

And keep your skeevy eyes off of me, grandpa! I added that one."

TL-DR Dept. - Crab Devil's Acid Test

Long-term I.O.F.© resident Crab Devil takes drugs seriously at his house. He wrote this on one side of the blotter only.

Please respond to one (1) or more of the following topics if you did not (not) pass the previous assignment with a grade of "C" or better:

(A) Ted Nugent -- Who Hurt You?
(B) Sammy Davis Jr. as Mensch, Mouse, or Vice Versa
(C) The Phenomenology of Cardi B Featuring Megan Thee Stallion's "WAP."

Don't be afraid to think outside the box! Remember, your contribution may take any of a number of forms:

- essay?
- meditation?
- blog entry?
- interview/dialogue?
- speech?
- roundtable discussion?
- collage?
- film/play/video/animation/puppet show?
- interpretive dance or other non-verbal performance?
- salad?
- ?

Unless you are in the Unofficial Mentée Cohort, your answer is due right away.

NO PLAGIARISM! I have read, heard, seen, smelled, touched, and tasted just about everything and can absolutely tell when motherfuckers try and "lift" without identifying their sources. Cheaters will, without exception, be disciplined with a grade of "C" on the entire project (total possible points TBA).

Submit your bibliography in keeping with either MLA conventions or something else, taking care to use only a paper clip when affixing payment for the materials fee (see note on web site).

TS-DR Dept - Bob In Vancouver On Cloud Nine

Bob In Vancouver wrote this all on his ownsome, and I told him it didn't meet the very low bar we set here on the I.O.F. Tsk. I felt like a heel, so here it is, something between the best comment I ever had and the worst TL-DR feature - take it away, Bob In Vancouver!

Poor, unloved Clarence Pune picked up his ukelele and a looked for a scratch pad. He couldn’t find one, so he used the plain back of a Preparation H pack, musing once again what ever happened to preparations A,B,C,D,E,F, and G.
But instead of morbid introspection he returned to dreaming of False Memory Foam Island. That haven of azure waters and big tits. [Mammaries - Ed.]
Mammaries... memories... perhaps for the first time since Winona got the restraining order, he had a near coherent thought: write a song about False Memory Foam Island. Those bozos on the website were clearly tone deaf from that dross Farq force fed them.
Hmmm, what was the recipe for a song?
He began strumming and scribbling:

Take one fresh and tender dame
Add one stolen night of shame
One broad, one lad
Some good, some bad
Mammaries are a foam game

Clarence looked at what he’d done, wondered if he should go for a second verse, and wished the Preparation H pack wasn’t empty.

The Stroboscopic Fun Bun Of Your Brain Dept. - Frontal Lobe

Album, 1965 - cover, one of five

The first in maybe up to a couple minimalist pieces on the much-loved Fugs. Here's the first two albums in swell alternate covers, with a slew of extry trx.

Album, 1966. Cover, 1967

I don't gots nuthin' to say - of inspiration, I is bereft. Help a guy out in the comments.

My Rock N' Roll Lockdown Hell Dept.

We're Still Looking For Guys What Like To Write! Dept.

Older readers - that's Irv and Ilene Older, Beaver Gulch, AZ - will remember our popular and timely feature encouraging you - th' Four Or Five Guys© - to submit your screed for publication! Some of you got laid as a result. "Gee, Zelda," they quoth at the drive-in, "I is a published author now, so make wit' th' mout' awready!"

If you missed out last time, join in the fun here! If you already attained the lofty literary pinnacle of acceptance into this august pantheon of scribes, write some more, ya lazy bum!

How To? Why, it's simplicity itself! Simply type your piece up on the balcony of the Foreign Correspondents Club, wearing a Panama hat with a daiquiri at your elbow. Then copy-paste it into the comments below. You can write about any old shit (see previous entries). Nobody's going to read it except you. It will disappear - hey, it really is magic! [Doug Henning - Ed.] - and appear as a blog piece, maybe with your own collectable Trading Card if I feel up to it. Or it may, in the unlikely event of it being total shit, never reappear anywhere.

Don't forget that i's are not 1's, and O's are not 0's.

TL-DR Dept. - Kreemé's Hi-Fi News!

"I like all types music, I guess!"

If you have an internet and like the best in our style of modern-type music - and the chances are reasonably good that you do - then the chances of you knowing the work of Prof Stoned are good, too. He has, like, a real turntable and real vinyl records, which he digitizes to the highest possible quality with a computer and then makes available on his web site, which is actually a blog like FMF©, only with fewer babes and not as funny. If you have a high-end system and burn [make - Ed.] your own CDs [compact discs - Ed.] from illegally downloaded files, you rascal you, he provides an essential service.

My problem - which is also my solution - is that it's all lost on me. I'm not a wine-taster or a foodie or a hi-fi nut. Not any more, anyway. I used to care about all that nuance [subtlety - Ed.] and exquisiteness of sensation an' shit. Now I just dig music, like I used to dig it back when I first dug it. It didn't occur to me as a spotty teen, listening to pirate radio on my transistor radio [early-type telephone - Ed.] through a deaf-aid earpiece that it was compressed to fuck and the soundstage was narrower than a lady flea's vagina. I just thought the music was fantastic.

So when I see something I want that he's labored over to enshrine forever at museum-grade quality, I stomp it down to @192 (because @128 looks cheap) using a catering-grade sausage grinder. Then I listen to it on household electrical items I bought from a supermarket that would make the good Professor throw up his pale hands in horror. It still sounds fantastic to me.

Which is all by way of an introduction to what will be a regular series, wherein Kreemé [19 my ass - Ed.] will keep us abreast - no jokes please - of the latest developments in hi-fi technology! Step up to the mic, gal!!

Kreemé: Hi, guys!

Unfortunately that's all we have time for right now, except to tell you that today's Surfside Stompdown® is this swell singles collection of The Who's early singles, by The Who. It's swell. Plus, at no extra charge, you get this bitchin' cover what I done.

True Life Stories Of Rock, Pop, n' Roll Dept. - The Dillards

Pork Bend, ILL, grew from Hy Pfooflefeffer's Ladies Only Trailer Park [Est. 1945 - Ed.]. Today it's a run-down ghost town, with the Hardee's and Kinko boarded up on Main Street, and the Wiener Baron© sausage skin factory which once provided work for up to a dozen people standing empty in mute testimony to the death of the American Dream. 

But it was not always thus. Back in its heyday the town was jumping, mainly from flea infestation, with the local music scene drawing in an audience from as far away as the end of Fatback Bvd. Mom n' Pop Dullard ran the local Happy Hog© Grease n' Lube franchise, and hosted weekly music concerts from the grease pit. 

Their boys Rodney and Douglas were natural musicians, excelling on clawhammer washboard and washtub bass. Rodney jokes today that "we kind of boosted them from the town laundry, but nobody noticed! Only Democrats washed their duds." 

Spotted by showbiz impressario LaMonte d'Esquire, the boys were swept away to Hollywood and groomed for stardom, starring as The Darling Dullards on T.V.'s The Andy Griffith Show. "Then we changed our names to The Dillards," says Douglas, "which we should of done day one. That really held us back." 

The rest is history.

Play Some New! Dept.

There's not much "new" (as in recorded this century) music played on the Isle O' Foam©. This is because it's the product of a mediocre, smug, self-obsessed generation utterly incapable of coming up with a tune as good as (say) I'm A Believer. But occasionally - so occasionally that it's statistically insignificant - I'll hear something that doesn't make me want to hold my breath until I pass out.

The Ruby Suns are obviously fans of Brian Wilson, which is fine by me. But their - his, whatever - music does more than just channel or reference [Millennialspeak for copy - Ed.] the Beach Boys. You won't find anything as glorious as Good Vibrations here, or even, God help us, I Wanna Pick You Up. What you do get are imaginative, thoughtful, sometimes beautiful little pieces, nicely played and sung, avoiding lo-fi pretension. Keepers.

Here's three of their albums, with the usual fake-charming homemade covers. Actually the zebra is okay. They slipped up with that one. If you have others, I'd be interested.

You have just been participating in a sample test of our area alert system. Your concern at this point is enough.

Color Me Three O'Clock!

The first Three O'Clock album was a stunning re-creation - as opposed to stylistic imitation - of sixties psychedelic pop. As thrilling as anything that came from '67, it was a breath of fresh air in the synth-dominated early eighties. What a shame that it came wrapped in one of the dullest sleeves in the history of dull. What were they thinking? They created this sparkling, fizzing pop-art music explosion and made it look like a John Foxx single [below right - Ed.]

Dumbasses. Anyway, I've made many attempts at a more representative cover over the years, and here's my best shot [above left - Ed.]

Freak Out! With The Comfy Bros. Dept.

My eyes!!!!!

Neddy and Teddy Comfy [at left - Ed.] share a secret love - no, not that - for Acid Rock. They like nothing better than to strip off their knitwear, daub their bodies with day-glo paint, and "freak out" to the latest happening teen sounds of "Acid" rock n' roll! "It's a groovy scene!" gushed Neddy at their Sodding Buttockton cottage yesterday. "Are you beginning to feel it?" cried Teddy, leaping to the gramophone to flip their favorite long-playing record album.

And their chosen soundtrack? You're way ahead of us - it's I'm Beginning To Feel It by exciting new beat combo The Trilogies!

Why not Freak Out With The Comfies in the privacy of your lush abode? All kidding aside, this is a swell album, but youse bums probably gots it awready.

From 1970, two years too late, th' saps, maybe Chicago - I forget - these guys play up a storm. They got dynamics out th' ass, a rare quality, and pay attention to arrangements and detail an' that type thing. Plus a drummer who sounds like he has the best job in the world. He's probably right. Killer album.

Screwin Wit' Th' Classics Dept. - The Joe Haydn Quartet

Ralph Gleason writes:

Strung Out is an impressive Third Stream outing for the Joe Haydn Quartet on the Blue Note label, which redefines jazz dynamics. Joe's tight charts leave no room for improvisation, the stripped-down ensemble running through two side-long suites.

Side One is entitled Fifths, and celebrates, Joe says, "gettin' high on spirits, man!" while the flip, Lobkowitz's Delicatessen, offers tempting delicacies from Joe's local eatery. "The band chows down at Manny's after gigs, and this is our way of sayin' thanks."

Whatever his tastes, the jazz fan will find this a feast for the ears. but only if they're open to new ideas. Like, digsville!

Play "Who's In My Box?" With TV's Emma Peel! - Dept.

B.R.B.

They were happier, more innocent times! A primetime family TV show character could get into leather and bondage and whipping and stuff without anyone noticing! Except maybe guys. Royal Shakespeare Company actress and smokin' babe Diana Rigg [left - Ed.] slipped into kinky vinyl and spiked collars and got tied up and stuff because, er, it was integral to her character motivation and narrative arc. *cough*

You'll be familiar with Ms. Peel from the long-running TV show The Professionals, where she played Cherrypop Beaver to Roger Moore's Dick Stud, but few know she's something of an authority on Country Rock! So she was delighted to be invited to star in our latest "Who's In My Box?" episode while self-isolating on th' Isle O'Foam© recently!

FMF© Heyyyy! Look at you!
DR Why, thank you, Farq! If you could just tighten these ropes a little -
FMF© How's about that?
DR [moans] Purrfect!
FMF© So - you've brought us a record from your Country Rock collection?
DR Yes - it's pretty obscure, though. Should I give the Four Or Five Guys© a little peek in my box? [TAPE ENDS]

How to play this popular and educational game at home? Why - it's as EZ as AB3! Simply audition the music sample linked in the comments, and identify the Country Rock album that Ms. Rigg has in her box! (And hey - if you use sneaky song recognition software, keep the answer to yourself, ya nogood bum!)

EDIT: In the comments, the impossible-to-remember doors12496 nails this one. It's the self-titled [eponymous - Ed.] album from the impossible-to-spell Tufano-Giammarese, dose guys what was in dem Buckinghams [Foamfeatured antecedently - Ed.] So kudos to doors63742!

From Shimmer To Phase In Three Years

A pack of three for the weekend, sir? The Hard Times Blew Mind album is just gorgeous. From '67, it has all the soft shimmer and jangle you want from that year, the Association harmonies, the heartbreaking lyrical optimism. That title was pretty daring, in retrospect - no nudging suggestion ("Blue Mind"), but the music isn't exactly lysergic in effect.

That would change when the band morphed into T.I.M.E. - an acronym of Trust In Men Everywhere. The first album from '68 had a couple of cover variants - this [at left - Ed.] is the one I had, with a pointless but groovy window insert.

Smooth Ball, from '69, wrapped up the transition from patchouli-scented pop to phase-set-to-stun warp drive, in some kind of benchmark for drugged-out studio time. The title track at the end sends you right out there on waves of phase, so hang on to the arms of your La-Z Boy© recliner, old-timer!

Th' Classics Re-Imagined Dept. - WaM

In the first Mrs. Myra Nussbaum Memorial Lecture [FoamFeatured antecedently - Ed.], I made a persuasive case for Why Classical Music Is Shit. Or at least sounds like it. But it also looks like it. With few exceptions, classical albums feature shit stock landscape photography or shit antique paintings, or shit photographs of the artiste.

And those old-timey longhairs didn't help any, naming their compositions with all the poetry of auto part numbers in a factory catalog.

But it doesn't have to be like that, especially here, at Froth Central©, where we can basically do what the fuck we like. This is the first, and possibly the last, in a series that shows what classical music could look like if approached from the 21c.

It's Th' Surfin' Sitar Sound Of Auckland!

The Music Convention were nutsoid. This swell collection is called, inadequately, The Psychedelic Pop & Surf Sounds Of The Music Convention. They do some 20's-style stuff that sounds like Sopwith Camel, a cover of Nilsson's One, some swimmy pop-psych with sweet harmonies, some savage surf instrymentals (with the accent on mental) with lashings of hang-ten electric sitar. If that's not enough to wax your board, check out their duds on the cover. Nutsoid to the max! But - they could play. Not that they let technical ability stand in the way of having fun. The Music Convention - th' Isle O' Foam© salutes you!

Swimsuit Siren Offers Clickbait Service

Hortense Vavavoom [at left - Ed.] stopped by th' IOF© yestiddy to offer her clickbait service.

HV My stats [36-24-33? - Ed.] show your blog is dying on its feet, Farq.
FMF© Why, thank you!
HV And I'm here to inject a little vim, moxie, pep and gusto into the place!
FMF© Gee, Hortense ...
HV For a small down payment and affordable monthly installments, I'll allow your blog to post a picture of me what's guaranteed to have them horny old bastards piling onto your island in their thousands! 
FMF© I'm not sure that "horny old bastards" are my target demographic.
HV Maybe you'll get the Sturgis crowd here with their two-wheeled lifestyle transportation solutions!
FMF© Uh - I don't think so, Hortense. But do you have some music you'd like to share?
HV Well, how about Blood Sweat & Tears Live From The Psychedelic Supermarket 1968?

FMF© Is this an audience recording?
HV Of course it is. But it's pretty good.
FMF© Well, okay then.
HV Can't interest you in my service?
FMF© I don't think so. When the time comes that I need to post cheesecake to keep my pulse popping, I'm shutting up shop.

(Sorry, guys! But we have certain standards here and I'm not prepared to pander to the common herd, to debase the high tone we have struggled to establish, to compromise our rigorous ethical stance, for a few extra clicks!)

Familiar Obscurities Dept.

Peanuts Molloy brought this guy up on a mainland internet forum, and it occurred to me that Michael Chapman might not be as widely known, especially in the Benighted States, as I assumed.

So these are for the One Or Two Out Of The Three Or Four Guys© who haven't yet heard (of) him, so they can brag to their lowlife pals at the racetrack dey wus always into dis guy.

His first three "proper" albums, 69-71, presented at a hauntingly lifelike 192. Like, digsville.

Music To Conceive To Dept.

Make-out music for the cocktail generation. In the two-car garage, his Buick Skylark, and her Nash Rambler. And spinning on the hi-fi console, Lover's Rhapsody.

Pilsbury Greaseboy Jackie Gleason, much lampooned by Mad Magazine for his Renaissance Man pretensions and today widely forgotten, cut this 10" in 1953, writing and arranging the suite that takes up side one. So - if my calculations are correct - this is the first pop concept album, just sneaking ahead of Frank Sinatra's from the following year.

It's whiter than White Christmas, but there's something naggingly Not Shit about it. It's not camp, it's not cheese. There's some real skill here - composition, arrangement, and performance, and at the root of it, artistic intent. Sure, go ahead, yok it up, you juvenile delinquent you. Or - you know - fire up a couple of Daiquiris and let it do its stuff. Even if your own stuff is past its strut-by date.

Country Rock Melting Permafrost - Claim

Today's offering is Heartsfield, who gigged strongly in support of the biggest acts of the time, released major-label albums, and yet remain just under the radar for most. The problem wasn't chops - these guys could play and sing almost anybody off the stage. The problem was lack of great songs. They wrote their own material, and it never, not even for the space of one song, rises above the level of "very good". Which is good enough, and not enough. Good enough for us to have some fun listening to the albums, not good enough for great.

We don't care, here on Th' Isle O' Foam©. Not everything has to be great all the time, and sometimes good enough is good enough. The great music looks after itself - it's albums like these that need a little encouragement.

Their first three albums in the comments. There's a fourth, and some related releases, which I don't gots.

Play "Who's In My Box?" With TV's Elizabeth Montgomery! - Dept.

"Can I be in your band?"

You'll know Elizabeth Montgomery from her role as Corabeth Godsey in TV's long-running series The Brady Bunch, but few know she's something of an authority on "psychedelic" rock, the teen craze that's sweeping the nation!

That's right! Luscious Liz owns over twenty "psychedelic" rock albums, and regularly "trips out" to their swingin' now sounds!

When I dropped by her "pad" on LA's happening Melrose Strip recently, she 'fessed up to wanting to appear in our popular Who's In My Box? feature. In fact, she already had someone in her box!

In an exciting upgrade from previous shows, we're asking you, Mr. John Q. Public of Lovely Your Area, to recognize who's in Ms. Montgomery's box by identifying the following lyric. So put your ear to her Magic Box and tell us who's in there! Are you ready already! Hoo boy!

"All is quiet in the make-believe of business and success, and you've decided you've got time to take a ride ..." 

Edit: No clear winner this time - JKC obviously knew but very sportingly left it for someone else to name - well done, Hermann! 71.8 Foampoints© added to your account! Link in comments.

Doctor Strangely Strange's Incredible Medicine Show Dept. - Part I

There's a corner of th' Isle O' Foam© given over to rainy weather, pixies, and magic mushrooms. There's a crackling wood fire in the grate, and spliffs are rolled on album covers in the firelight. Very likely a Clive's Original Band (C.O.B.) cover.

Their two albums capture the essence of Wyrd Acid Folk® before it was even a thing. Back then - another lifetime, another world - there was just music, not endless categories of sub-genres. And music was, for some, very nearly the most important thing in all the world. It could sound like Clive Palmer, or Carl Palmer, or Carl Wilson, or Wilson Picket. It was all good.

Maybe there's a corner of your island where you can still listen to stuff like this, where you can look up at the stars and feel like the universe is still mostly magical, in spite of our unceasing efforts to turn everything to shit (King Midas In Reverse).

Here's some Clive Palmer fo' yo' asses. The first Incredible String Band album, the first Famous Jug Band album, and the two C.O.B. albums. That mushroom is big enough for us all to sit under.