Psychfan's Trip O' Th' Week - Mindbending Mud

Sometimes [writes Psychfan - Ed.] when I heard Elvis mentioned in the late sixties or early seventies I found myself wondering why he didn't assemble an all star band of young players and make an up-to-date rock or blues rock record. After all (I reasoned), all he had to do was snap his fingers and the biggest names in the business would line up to play in such a band and the album would give him a badly needed relevance boost.

This was seriously naive for a few reasons. First, a lot of big name blues rock musicians had big money commitments taking up most of their time, along with big drug habits taking up the rest. It may not have been as easy as I thought to assemble a superstar band for this purpose.

The bigger problem, though, was my mistaken assumption that Elvis wanted to update his sound in the way I envisioned, that he wanted to follow the path that others had taken in a direction that had diverged from his own.

Whatever was leading me to think along these lines was also active in Chicago, where young Chess Records  exec Marshall Chess was being given leeway to experiment by his label-owner father. His version of the idea was to get Muddy Waters to record psychedelic blues. He left out the part about big name backing musicians, though he did use quality session players, including guitarists Phil Upchurch and future Miles Davis sideman Pete Cosey. The two albums that resulted, Electric Mud and After The Rain, were derided as attempts to cash in on current trends (which they were) and as artistically worthless (I would argue that they were not).

There's an interesting segment in the Red, White and Blues documentary that was part of Martin Scorsese's Blues series on PBS. In it, Chuck D from Public Enemy and others debate the worth of Electric Mud, with Chuck D in favor. To me, the two LPs sound like a pretty decent psychedelic blues band that happens to have Muddy Waters as lead vocalist. Of course I was the exact person Marshall Chess was targeting with this ploy so my opinion may not be reliable. Judge for yourself. Muddy returned to his own style of playing after that and later worked with Johnny Winter, which was probably a better idea.

Chess tried something similar with Howlin Wolf, but that's another story for another time. Also, they eventually got it right with the London Sessions series a few years later. Elvis ended up performing in Vegas and hiring James Burton to play rockabilly and country guitar, along with the Sweet Inspirations on gospel backing vocals. The mixture of old Elvis songs and carefully chosen covers of current country and pop material that they performed there seemed perfectly appropriate to me by then.

Archies To Reform - Tour, Album Due

Iconic farewell concert, Alcatraz, 1970 ©Foam-O-Graph™

The news that iconic 'sixties cartoon pop group The Archies are to reform comes at exactly the right time. In a world laid waste by Stupidity, Greed, and Vanity (the true Horsemen of the Apocalypse) the unexpected resurrection of the youthful entertainers will lift the hearts of millions [Baiter and Dylene Millions, Smegma, WIS - Ed.]. Group leader and "America's Typical Teenager" Archie Andrews granted us an exclusive interview yestiddy via th' Foam-O-Fone®!

AA This sure is an honor, sir!

FT3 So - the band's getting back together! Tell us how this happened!

AA Gee - well, the guys were down at the malt shop, chugging phosphates, and Jughead [Forsythe P. Jones III - Ed.] said, hey guys, let's get the band back together! We all kind of looked at each other? And it was like the years since our last single [Bunny Hop Baby, 1970 - Ed.] just - disappeared? Like they never happened? It's not like we aged a day - we still look seventeen!

FT3 (laughs) The advantages of being 'toons! Plus, it's not like you can get the covids, either! So who's in the band?

AA It'll be the iconic line-up, Jughead on drums, me on lead guitar and vocals, Reggie on bass, and not forgetting the gals!

FT3 And you're recording?

AA Sure are! We have hundreds - thousands - of songs we wrote since the band broke up. We're going to work on a dozen for the album, which is called Sunshine Sprinkles. But the live act will be mostly the hits, and some deep cuts for our loyal fans!

FT3 I'm hearing rumors of a box set? The Archies Archives?

AA (smiles) No promises, but maybe our fans will be getting a surprise Christmas present!

FT3 Sweet! While you're here, Arch - there's another rumor - is it true that Betty and Veronica are - are, you know, into each other?

AA You mean like besties? Oh sure! All that rivalry was just for the comics!

FT3 I mean, there's this persistent talk, they had like a lesbian wedding?

AA (wrinkles nose) Lesbian? What's lesbian?

FT3 Tell you what - never mind. Rots o' ruck with the tour!

Delta Del On Living The Blues

Delta Del living the blues, yesterday

Greetings, people of the Foam, Delta Del here with another informative piece on matters blues-related.  Perhaps some of you have been wondering how does an English bluesman, or more specifically an internationally known imaginary Free Blues guru-tarist from England, spend his days?  Well, here’s a little number about exactly that, and it goes somethin' like this …

I woke up this mornin, and for breakfast I had a ham hock in my cornflakes as part of my soul-diet.  This special diet was prescribed by my rocknroll doctor after I suffered recurring bouts of pubrockitis, an unpleasant condition endemic in the alehouses of Olde England.  Symptoms include complete loss of groove, an irresistible compulsion to play Roadhouse Blues, again, badly, and a sudden inexplicable fondness for the songs of Eric Clapton, including in the most extreme cases, Wonderful Tonight.  Treatment via soul-diet is usually very effective, but severe cases may require prolonged isolation in a sensory deprivation zone, such as a Travelodge, while a looping mix of James Brown squeals, shrieks and grunts is piped continuously into their room.

After my soul-diet breakfast I embark on a rigorous front porch workout.  It’s 30 minutes intense action on the rocking chair, which is connected to the internet for motivational encouragement.  Apparently yesterday I was “Smashing it!” and indeed a small fragment of rocking chair splinter did embed itself in my behind.  Which was fine as it counted towards my daily quota of bad luck n troubles.  

For lunch it’s usually a red beans and rice based dish.  I habitually substitute white toast for the rice element, and I favour Heinz baked beans as they are a deeper shade of red than rival brands.  I wash em down with hard liqueur, Baileys Irish Cream that’s been in the freezer.  After lunch I often pop down to the amusement arcade for some reckless gamblin, and try my luck on the penny-pile-shoving machine.  I always emerge at least 10p poorer, and as I try my luck there every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, my status as a 3-time loser is rarely threatened.   And what of the ladies?  The bluesman’s number one preoccupation and lyrical inspiration, surely a main squeezy mama must feature prominently in Delta Del’s life?  You would think so, but my woman done left me cryin' again.  I pay extra for that of course, but it’s worth it.

Relaxing at home in the evenings with my pet rattlesnake Elmore and his soon-to-be-supper companions, Pixie and Dixie, I immerse myself in the music of the blues greats who inspired me to become what I am today. And, although my eyesight is fading now as I approach my 93rd birthday, I still enjoy using the Swiss Army groover, handed down to me by my grandfather Delta Dick, as I set about my gaily coloured plastic bag [huh? - Ed.].  

And thence to bed.  I draw the line at layin' my worried head on the cold hard ground of course, as I have discovered that even the smoothest, flattest rocks simply will not make anything remotely resembling a pillow.  And so at last to sleep, perchance to dream again of the endless A303, unwinding before me as I motor West in my Morris Minor soft-top, with the blooze spinning wild ’n loud on the in-car Victrola.

And that, people of the Foam, was a day in the life of an English bluesman. Cheerio!

Delta Del's luxury yacht The Whipping Post, currently plying the inland waterways of the United Kingdoms, England, is available for hire - corporate motivational courses, product launches, a speciality! Kosher menu on request!

The Boss Recovery™ Dept.

In the publishing world - you know, books - it's standard practice for a work to get a new cover when it's republished. Nobody expects the cover of the first edition to be carried through the printed life of the work. Strangely, this is not the case in business we're calling "the music"

Why? Or rather, why not? Why, in the overwhelming majority of cases, is an album identified with its cover? Why, f'rinstance, does Springsteen's Tunnel Of Love have to be weighed down by its shabbily generic cover design (yes, I know, you like it, it's iconic) through all eternity? Isn't there a marketing opportunity here? Huh? Hoo-hah?

In the first of our Grammy-nod Boss Recovery™ series, we're imagining a world where Springsteen albums get a bold new look, like which they wus a book. Which is very appropriate in Bruce's case, because under that rock n' rowdy persona he is quite the literary gent. He's smart enough to know The Working Stiff mistrusts someone who cuts his own quills from peacock feathers, so he comes across like a grease-monkey. It's a necessary camouflage. This man does more hard thinking than that one statue of some guy bustin' his brains what that French guy done [Michaelangelo - Ed.]. He weighs his words with academic precision, and frequently adjusts the meter to make it out of step, like natural speech. His lyrics - sometimes honed to bluntness - achieve the very subtle quality of appearing artless and uncontrived - the affectless expression of an inarticulate man, the simple yet troubled soul searching for meaning in a world of shit. Springsteen's pumped intellectual muscle, rather than being denied, could be reflected by a new creative approach [e.g. above - Ed.] with a more authorial, literary tone. Why his albums - with a very few iconic exceptions - look like gas station cutouts is probably down to what I suspect is his chronic lack of visual suss. Man can't have it all.

But wait! It's not just a salon make-over exercise. This is the whole nine yards version of the album. Springsteen is the most prolific of rock writers, and records way more songs than get onto the wax. The world (or at least the record label) doesn't want a triple album every time he goes into the studio, but choosing the songs that make the cut is mostly guesswork - how could it be anything else? So here you'll find the full hour-and-change, with all the swell unused material he later slipped onto the four-disc Tracks box set nobody listens to (except you - *rolls eyes*). I'm sure he recorded even more during the sessions, available on bootlegs, but these are the songs he thought merited release, which should be enough for anybody. And they won't get dumped at the end, in the clueless I'll-just-leave-these-here way of "bonus" tracks. Springsteen didn't write or record "bonus" tracks - they're the album. So the running order will be cunningly reconfigured into what should be a fresh way of appreciating a fine, if somber, work of art. A new product we'd be pleased to add to our squeaky-wheeled consumer cart if it ever manifested itself into the glittering world of tactile thinginess we find so alluring.

Look for the light at the end of the Tunnel Of Love. It's what gets us through.

 

Next up - Human Touch. Which I love, incidentally, an' I'll tell you fer why on the day. Not that you should care.

Babs' True Thanksgiving Day, 1967

Four Or Five Guy© Babs - th' IoF©'s Token Tomato - crashes thru th' mirror ceiling to drop this swell screed on our Circular Bed O' Dreams™.

There are days in our lives that are just - beautiful. Like Friday, November 24th, the day after Thanksgiving Day, 1967. I was twenty-years-old, in my third year at Caltech in Pasadena, California, and majoring in Applied Mathematics. 

The day before, I had Thanksgiving dinner in Caltech’s dining hall with Jennifer and her roommate Sandy. We weren’t close friends, but we had smoked weed (we called it grass back then) a few times. Both of them had a “hipper than thou” attitude, but they were always friendly enough, and the campus was empty due to the holiday, so what the hell. After dinner, the conversation turned to contraception. I gave them the name and address of a nearby woman doctor who gave the Pill to unmarried women, and a pharmacy that didn’t ask questions, or look at your ring finger (who’s hipper now, bitches?). The Pill in 1967 was illegal for unmarried women and would remain so until 1972. 

On our table is a copy of the psychedelic newspaper, The San Francisco Oracle. After reading a few articles, I say to Jennifer: “LSD sounds very interesting” to which she replied “Let’s do some tomorrow!” Sandy smiled and nodded her head in agreement. Jennifer and Sandy had dropped acid a few times before, but I was a newbie to the drug scene, having smoked weed for the first time only a few months earlier in July, during summer break back home in Brooklyn. Jennifer got up, walked across the dinning hall, sat at another table for a few minutes, came back, opened her hand, and showed us three sugar cubes. We made arrangements to meet at their place after lunch the next day. 

That evening, I was trying to solve a differential equation [phew! rock n' roll! - Ed.], but I couldn’t concentrate due to the anxiety I was feeling about taking LSD. Would I think I could fly, and jump off of Jennifer and Sandy’s roof? What kind of hallucinations would I have, what would I see? What about those bum trips? Flashbacks? The media was reporting stories on chromosomal damage and genetic mutations. There was a rumor going around, that you could be declared legally insane if you took LSD more than five times! But everything they told us about weed in high school was complete crap. Also, I knew LSD was wildly popular in certain intellectual circles, and that was a club I wanted to join [welcome to th' Isle O' Foam© - Ed.]. 

The next day, I’m apprehensive while walking to Jennifer and Sandy’s place. It’s raining, there are a few records under my arm, that I’m trying to keep dry. When I arrive, Sandy is making some kind of herbal tea, and on their kitchen table incense is burning. Jennifer walks into the kitchen and hands out the sugar cubes. We let the sugar cubes dissolve in our mouths, smoke a joint, and sit there like we’re waiting for a bus or something, smoking cigarettes.

Twenty minutes or so later, The Doors first album is playing, the room looks exactly the same and yet somehow different, everything has a sheen that it didn’t have thirty minutes ago. Sandy is rolling some joints and starts to giggle, which causes all of us to laugh. I feel hyper-aware, and in amazement I watch rain drops rolling down the window. The music sounds incredible, and I wish I had a piano to play.

Tim Buckley’s album Goodbye and Hello is now playing, and Sandy goes very quiet and is staring across the room. Jennifer and I look at each other and start laughing. I light a cigarette, and it feels like the cigarette is smoking me. There’s an exposed brick wall in the living room that I can’t stop staring at, it almost looks like it is breathing and all these little colored lights dancing around between myself and the wall. I feel euphoric, and think back to the article I read yesterday in The San Francisco Oracle that mentioned The Cosmic Joke and start laughing hysterically. I wonder if this is enlightenment or if I’m having grandiose delusions, or maybe both? Who knows? Who cares? I’ve never had so much fun just sitting around! 

 

It’s now 7PM, we’ve been tripping for six hours, I’m still very high, but it’s not as intense now. I decide to leave, so I thank Jennifer and Sandy, and say goodbye. Walking home across the campus, my mind is racing. I think about my abstract algebra class that is so confusing, but now I see it in a different light, “I can do this!” I think to myself.

 

As I’m walking there’s a large puddle from the day’s rain, as I step to avoid it, I can see the reflection of the moon in it, it looks beautiful, a light breeze makes it ripple, and I start laughing. As I bend over to take a closer look, I hear a voice behind me, “Are you OK?” I turn around and there’s an athletic looking guy who looks concerned, “I’m fine” I say, still giggling. “I thought you were crying,” he said, followed by “What’s so funny?” “The universe is what’s so funny,” I tell him. He gives me a knowing look and smile, and says: “Last Saturday the universe was a funny place for me too. Take care, and happy trails!” and walks away. I go home, listen to music, and play my piano. Later I chain-smoke cigarettes thinking about the day's events.

 

The following Monday, I’m back in the in Caltech dining hall in line with my tray, when a voice says: “How funny is the universe today?” It’s the guy from Friday night, I tell him: “It's still funny, but not as funny as Friday.” He laughs and says: “Probably not as beautiful either, right?” I smile. We have lunch together, blow off our afternoon classes, and make each other laugh having a conversation which would last for the next forty-five years - beautiful.

 

Epilogue
 

Sandy graduated with a degree in philosophy, joined The Peace Corps, and disappeared.

Jennifer went on to become a biochemist (now retired).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tom Bosley's Beachcombing Bonanza! Dept.

Sayy! Ain't that kewt-n'-kurvy Kreemé photobombing Uncle Tom's beachcombing bonanza? Amscray, sister! Get yer buns outta here! Skeedaddle! Nobody wants to look at you! ©Foam-O-Graph

 

You'll know cute-n'-cuddly Tom Bosley from his much-loved appearances as "Scrappy Pappy" in the long-running NBC TV series Bum Fighter! - but did you know he's also a keen collector of obscure rock music-type vinyl? That's right, subscribers! And he likes nothing better here in happy retirement on th' Isle O' Foam© than to mosey along the beach, looking for albums what have washed up from the wreckage of distant sinking continents. Like yours.

Today is something of a bumper harvest - can th' Four Or Five Guys© identify the long-playing LPs he's uncovering down on romantic Bleach Bottle Bay? If you can, deposit hint in comments! Don't name artist/albums outright! Demonstrate arcane knowledge of modern-type music to confreres with cunning allusion!

Pssst! - as this is a particularly not easy treasure hunt, here's another clew for you all - Steely Dan connexion! Oh boy!

 

This post (one of a series of IoF© Heritage Pieces ideal for display in den or lobby) made feasible thru th' patronage of The Sister Hortense Home For Whores, Cementville, ND. "It's not a whorehouse - it's a whore home!"

 

 

Hospital Visitors From Hell Dept.

The very last person you'd want turning up at your sickbed is dear little Georgie Ivan. Especially if you're circling the drain. But here he is, snuffling at the window for air, whining about how he can almost smell your T.B. sheets. You're begging him to step on your hose - please! kill me now! - but he's scribbling notes for a song for his first album, and it will last over nine freaking minutes and be everybody's least favorite song about how laundry can smell of disease.

The poison cherub will blame Bert Berns for the album, wrongly called Blowin' Your Mind. He'll blame passers-by, Catholics, Jews, lawyers, People Of Diversity. He is probably the world's least likeable human being, alienating every poor son of a bitch who has to work with him. And yet, this unpleasant, resentful, sour, paranoid little shit will, in a few months, record one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever created, a suite of songs like nothing else before or since. Go figure, as Buddha said.

Here on th' IoF©, it is our duty to correct the mistakes of Great Artistes, to improve their albums, and it is in that spirit we present his first album - sensibly and obviously retitled Brown Eyed Girl - with a subtle yet telling revamped running order. T.B. Sheets loses all the gag-inducing references, in a new and reasonably listenable 5:45 minute edit retitled Cool Room. And Chick-A-Boom gets its rightful place on the album for the first time.

It's still not a lost masterpiece, but it's a pretty good first album. I've given it a kind of contemporary Pop Art cover, inspired by the Bang! Records logo. It's no masterpiece either, but it's good enough.

Included as a FoamBonus© is this swell Boston live recording [FoamFeatured antecedently - Ed.] made just before Astral Weeks. It used to be rare before there was an internet.

Doug McLure's Mexican Dwarf Disco N' Dinner Wrestling Club Dept.

Foam-O-Graph© - it's what Mother would have wanted!

TV's Doug McLure will be familiar to th' Four Or Five Guys© as "Burro" from TV's long-running Rio Grande Hemp Rustlers TV show, but did you know his secret passion for Mexican Dwarf Wrestling? Turns out Doug has his own club south of the border catering to like-minded-type guys!

Doug graciously granted th' Iof© an exclusive Vid-Fone™ interview yestiddy, wherein he waxed lyrical anent his bold initiative!

FT3 Hey, Dougie! Lookin' good!

DM Yee-haw! You ol' stump-suckin' hornswogglin' son-of-a-gun!

FT3 So - tell us about your exclusive Mexican Dwarf Disco N' Dinner Wrestling Club!

DM Which it is my Mexican Dwarf Disco N' Dinner Wrestling Club, Farq, located on th' outskirts of Escroto Mula here in fragrant Pastel de Urinario Municipality. Try our signature Liver n' Mint Gummi Bear Tacos!

FT3 Gee! They sure sound swell!

DM Say, Farq - out here in the desert, a guy gets to hankerin' after some late 'eighties disco sounds. Would you got any of them Idris Mohammad dance albums?

FT3 You mean the shit ones he did for the money?

DM Guy's gotta eat, Farq ...

FT3 Got a couple of things he did when he was fantastic.

DM Could a dwarf wrassle to them?

FT3 Ha ha!

DM Ha ha! [falls into horse trough - roll credits over harmonica theme from Rio Grande Hemp Rustlers]

So - will Doug's diminutive combatants be able to wrassle to the dancefloor beat of today's loaddowns? You be the judge!

... and I'll take Joe over Jeff any day.

Psychfan's Trip O' Th' Week - "I Almost Saw Disneyland"

I've written [writes Psychfan - Ed.] before about subjective reaction vs objective judgement. When David Bowie and Roxy Music appeared in the early seventies I was suspicious - a hippie who channels Anthony Newley? An effete metrosexual?

I was soon won over, however, by Bowie's ability to rock and by what I was startled to recognize as psychedelic elements in the work of Roxy (I was impressed by Out Of The Blue and Mother Of Pearl). 

As a result when punk and disco arrived a few years later I was prepared to look past my initial impression that they were purely reactionary movements. I never identified with either in terms of lifestyle, but when post punk evolved as a music incorporating elements of both (as well as something that still felt like psych to me) I felt like part of the target audience again. 

My favorite late seventies band was Talking Heads, who embodied this development. Remain In Light gets all of the attention (and it's a great album) but I think that their second LP doesn't get enough. 

More Songs About Buildings And Food is a classic, one of those albums where every song is strong , the energy keeps building throughout and a distinctive vision is expressed in the process. The cover represents a vision of altered consciousness that's been updated for the (very) beginning of the digital age. 

By 1981 David Byrne was a solo artist and he collaborated with Brian Eno (from early Roxy Music!) on another classic, the very psychedelic My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts. 

This is a mashup LP using voices captured from radio and TV. Some are singing, some are speaking. The voices used include a conservative radio host, a black preacher in front of an energetic flock, a middle eastern singer and a Catholic priest conducting an exorcism. 

The voices are combined with rhythmic and compelling music by Eno and Byrne to hypnotic effect. 

Oh, yeah - Disneyland. In 1979 I spent several months visiting friends in LA and one day we dropped acid and piled into the car to go to Disneyland. We got lost on the freeway (even though one of us was a lifelong LA resident) and didn't get there until thirty minutes before closing. It was explained to me that you couldn't even get through the parking lot in thirty minutes and we turned around and drove back to the beach. 

Our soundtrack for the journey was More Songs About Buildings And Food. 

Don't try to tell me it's not psychedelic.

Oh Lonesome Neil

My pal Sudsman is the most knowledgeable Neil nut archivist I know, and he put this swell - and essential - Ur-Neil album together (although he wants no credit - "it's all Neil"). Here's what he says about it -

Oh Lonesome Me

“This is a song from our new album, when we record it” says Neil Young in the intro to the song Wonderin’ at the Fillmore East in March 1970, referring to the yet-to-appear second Crazy Horse album after Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere. It never happened, of course - just one of Neil’s many unfinished projects.

To recreate it, we start with the Crazy Horse studio session in summer 1969, just after the release of Everybody Knows. Here’s what was recorded (according to Archives Vol. 1):

Oh Lonesome Me
Birds
Everybody's Alone
Wonderin'
I Believe in You
Look at All the Things
Winterlong
Dance Dance Dance

Supposedly Helpless was also played but, due to an error, not recorded. Archives Volume 1 includes many of these tracks - the previously unreleased Everybody’s Alone and Wonderin’, unique stereo mixes of Oh Lonesome Me and I Believe in You not later found on After the Gold Rush, an entirely different mix of Birds that was mistakenly included as the B-side to Only Love Can Break Your Heart, and a different version of Dance Dance Dance from the one recorded two years later with the Stray Gators in the Harvest sessions (it didn’t make that album, either). Look At All The Things has never been released, and Winterlong didn’t appear until Decade, in a 1973 rework intended for the first version of Tonight’s the Night. (A 1970 performance from the Fillmore East would later appear in Archives Volume 1).

Some subsequent archival tracklists from the era list a working title for this lost album as Oh Lonesome Me, which is, I suppose, as good a reference point as any, though they confusingly list a number of tracks that were already featured on Everybody Knows. At any rate, the album never came to be, although Neil Young Archives lists an upcoming Crazy Horse album called Early Daze which will probably bring it back to life.

Then, of course, we have the mysterious alternative tracklist (in Neil’s handwriting) printed on the liner notes for After the Gold Rush:

1 Oh Lonesome Me
2 Wondering
3 Everybody’s Alone
4 Sugar Mountain
5 Sea Of Madness
6 Big Waves
7 Dance Dance Dance
8 Birds
9 I Need Her Love To Get By

Obviously there’s a lot of common ground here, and the start of a nice intermediate album that serves as both the follow-up to EKTIN and the first draft of ATGR. We’ll use Neil’s tracklist from the ATGR liner notes as the basis for the album. First, let’s delete the tracks from both lists that simply don’t exist: Look at All the Things, Big Waves (an early version of Powderfinger), and I Need Her Love to Get By. Though it’s from 1968 and not true to the era, we can keep Sugar Mountain because it was an important B-side in the two previous years and, well, Neil does this kind of thing all the time. While Archives Volume 1 only contains the live performance of Sea of Madness by CSN&Y at Woodstock, the bootleg Holes in the Archives Volume 1 has the never-released studio recording that was almost certainly meant for this 1970 album.

To fill in the missing tracks we can add I Believe in You from the first list since it’s a unique mix from the one on ATGR (as are Oh Lonesome Me and Birds). We can also add the 1970 live version of Winterlong with Crazy Horse. These nine tracks make a pretty short album even for its time, so we can add a couple of very appropriate tracks from the era. Considering After the Gold Rush was essentially Neil combining the talents of Crazy Horse and CSN&Y, we’ll throw in the previously unreleased mix of Helpless that would appear that year on CSN&Y’s Déja Vu. And since this is an album that might have been, we’ll wrap it up with It Might Have Been, a 1970 live track with the Horse recorded in Cincinnati fifteen years before Neil would re-record it with the International Harvesters for A Treasure.

1. Oh Lonesome Me (previously unreleased mix, with Crazy Horse)
2. Wonderin’ (previously unreleased version)
3. Everybody’s Alone (previously unreleased song, with Crazy Horse)
4. Sugar Mountain (live at Canterbury House, 1968)
5. Sea of Madness (studio version, with CSN&Y)
6. I Believe in You (previously unreleased mix, with Crazy Horse)
7. Dance Dance Dance (previously unreleased version, with Crazy Horse)
8. Birds (45 rpm single version, with Crazy Horse)
9. Winterlong (live at Fillmore East, with Crazy Horse)
10. Helpless (previously unreleased mix, with CSN&Y)
11. It Might Have Been (previously unreleased live version, with Crazy Horse) 

 

The cover is IoF© (*hushed golf applause*), the music is Neil's (when he was golden), but the work is all Sudsman's, so a big manly punch on the upper arm from all of us! (And Neil? I know you're a lurker here - you can contact th' Suds thru me - he'll make a better job of keeping your catalog healthy than you. With all respect, dude.)

 

 

 

Country Rock "Frayed Pastor's Bedsocks" - The Gosdinbrothers Brothers

Vern and Rex Gosdinbrothers sang harmony on Gene Clark's first solo album With The Gosdin Brothers in late '66, just after he quit The Byrds (who play on the album, sans Jim-Roger, tellingly). It doesn't enjoy the rep it deserves, both as a high-quality recording and a signpost for country rock as a genre, and that's maybe due to Clark's generous co-billing for a couple guys nobody heard of, diluting the impact of his own name. But anyway.

Vern n' Rex eventually got their own album to do in '68, the presciently-titled Sounds Of Goodbye, sporting a cover design and haircuts straight outta '65. These guys looked pretty cool on the back of the Gene Clark album - what the fuck happened here? The DJ-penned liner notes sound the death-knell: "This album should serve as a launching pad for the pair - the sound of hello to two of America's brightest new singers." Oh shi-it.

It was produced by the legendary Gary Paxton, whose life burns up his wikipedia page, and here.

It's a beautiful album, but the turtleneck-n'-sideburns demographic was into Vic Damone -[right - Ed.] and any Byrds fan would leap into moving traffic to avoid being seen on the same side of the street as Sounds Of Goodbye. It was the sound of sayonara, auf wiedersehen, and au revoir to sales, credibility, and (temporarily) the music business, and we can blame the beyond-shit cover, credited to Capitol Photo Studio.

Vern n' Rex Gosdinbrothers recorded enough for another album, and you can read about it here, but this here cover [top left - Ed.] is fresh outta the False Memory Foam© Department Of Art Department Dept. and presented to you, Mr. and Mrs. Customer, as a free gift with no obligation - a small token of my appreciation for your continued mild interest. 

 

This post funded in part by Tommy Tuttle's Turtlenecks, Tullahoma, Tennessee.

Five Guns West Avers "Rehab Is For Quitters!" Dept.

Well, to make a short story long, I'm in rehab with Dennis Hopper, Doctor John and Anthony Hopkins (just call me Tony....a really, really nice guy btw). Dr John had written 'Right Place' there on an earlier visit. Musta liked the joint. He liked something. Piano.

Studio 12 was on Magnolia Blvd at Vineland I think was the cross street. At that corner were two liquor stores (if I was relying on repeat business I would have located my rehab center right there and gone Liberace on the place with 200 bucks or so to lavish on the two car garage where we all lived.). It was the summer solstice that night and there's bad traffic on Sherman Way and other majors so Magnolia Street is backed up, assholes honking. I was out by the pool with Tex Mosely from the Hangmen, chain smoking Gauloise Blondes and drinking horrible chicory coffee. Sufferin' like a fool. We start hearing this fucking banshee wailing intermingled with the car horns and then also realized (being sober is so fucking weird, I can't believe people pay money to feel this way) that the cars seem to be honking at our fucking house. We, poor Tex and I, hobbled up in that refreshing brand new unjunkie wobble, to ascertain the situation and perhaps take in some carnage. Carne, we didn't expect!!!

Fucking Dennis Hopper is buck naked up a fucking palm tree twenty feet off the ground with a half empty magnum of Maker's Mark howling at the fucking moon and shaking his forlorn wedding tackle at passersby. I never realized or fully appreciated how many convertibles were running around with like awesome Latinas in their big shades.....laughing their asses off and if, if, if you ever met them, your face they'll never forget. Tex and I flashed on that and realized we were through. Just ruined. We split rehab and got high a couple of days later. Your punishment was a night out!!!! No visitors, no chicks....that's a high success rate right there. In fact, we wuz ruminatin' just the other day about what we could do for some of society's more unfortunate creatures (trust me, right this moment I'm destroyed, wrecked, but I just smile a lot), celebrities, artists, musicians, televangelists, alien sex fiends...everyone knows them... and we thought our club, (working name here), could provide specialty rehab to dishonest people. It'd have to be in Nevada or a, dare I say, private island somewhere. Strip clubs, the real whores - congress, check it out, like a tenner to lap dance with Pelosi...curdles the old chutney dunnit? A full service bar. Hot and cold running gov't milf attendants. Myra would have loved it. And Carlos, her little dog too. 

 

 

Return Of The Son Of Bride Of The Curse Of The Kaftan Dept. - The Unspoken Word

Older readers - that's you, boomerface - may remember the award-winning and influential FoamFeature© The Curse Of The Kaftan, which chronicled the late 'sixties transition many groups made from day-glo paisley to sepia workshirts. I was getting my fingernails dirty down in the crawlspace today - the vast sump of downloaded but unpacked albums - and I dug up a perfect example hithertofore unbeknownst to me. The Unspoken Word were from Long Island, which is in Central Park ?research pse. [eat penis paste - Ed.]. Their first album from '68 is about three vagillion times better than the totally unrepresentative cover. It's beautiful, melodic, haunting baroque folk rock with frayed psych edges. If you like Chrysalis, Michaelangelo, that-type music, you'll do a double back flip for this. Plus also, trout stream clear production (man)!

Anyway, they got tired of being taunted and lampooned by the Long Island roughnecks for playing this bookish, drawingroom stuff and re-invented themselves in 1970 as a hard-rockin' combo. The surprise is that they do it so well. There's a couple tracks I never want to hear again (overwrought vox, the bane of the genre) but it's a swell listen. Like, digsville!

This post made possible by Ballistic Propane Heating Solutions™, Kneejerk WA.

Randy Randomguy's Romper Room O' Randomness! Dept.

Foam-O-Graph© - Disorder Out Of Chaos!

 

Thousands of th' Four Or Five Guys© [Trailer n' Nardette Thousands, Gore Park, VA - Ed.] have wrote in to request a regliar Which Is The First Four Or Five Random Tunes Chosen At Random By My Device Are!

In response to this veritable smörgåsbörd of enthusiasm [do you mean tsunami? - Ed.] every Sunday, Randy Randomguy will be presenting this Foamtastic® new FoamFeaturette™! That's right, subscribers! It's th' swell new game that's taking skeevy seniors by storm across th' Nation! Season première co-hosted by kewt-n'-kervy Kreemé [down, boy! down I say! - Ed.], taking time out from trimming my ear hair!

How to play? Why, it's E-Z as A-B-3! Simply set music-playing device of choice, be it your Mr. Coffee™, Etch-A-Sketch™, or Veg-O-Matic™ to random shuffle, and note first 4 or 5 songs to play! List tunes in comment! If you forgot awready, wander outside, shout at traffic! As TV's Chandler out of popliar NBC series Friends© might of said - could it be any easier?

"Let's do this, people!" 

Important Health Warning: The above Foam-O-Graph© may induce epilepsy, death, and the heartbreak of psoriasis. If in doubt, close eyes whilst viewing.

Delta Del Dept. - The Slop Done Rose To Th' Top

Delta Del (at right) ponders solecism inherent in concept of time expressed as linear intervals. Legacy Foam-O-Graph© - "pearls for swine!™"

Greetings Islanders! Delta Del here with another educational blues-related piece. Having explored the previously unknown genre of Free Blues, I now turn my attention to the little-understood phenomenon of Semi-Sloppiness. Regular Island visitors may recall mention in a recent T-Bone Walker comments section of “semi-sloppy” guitar playing. But what is it? A force for good, or a lazy mess born of ignorance and intoxication? And either way, where can I get me some?

When I told Farq that I was planning this piece, he cautioned against the project [no he didn't - Ed.], telling me that in attempting to dissect and analyse semi-sloppiness I would be messin with forces that I don't understand. I’d be trying to shove a strange-beautiful vibe into a killing jar and pin it down in a display case in the Island museum. I’d be shooting an endangered species just so I can paint it accurately. Jeez Farq, says I, back off with the heavy analogies willya? Of course Farq was not aware that my training as a Free Blues Advocate-Practitioner included a Semi-Sloppin' module, so I had already devoted many hours of research and study to this subject (and seventeen sheets of hand-written A4, the narrow-lined stuff, with illustrations, laminated, in a nice binder). It certainly shook up my thoughts about guitar playing, and the slop done rose to the top.

As a Free Blues guitarist, I hate precision unless its written on my bassman’s Fender. For slop-heads like me, accurate is never the point, but try telling that to the plague of tribute bands. And flawless is a bore. A recording engineer of some repute, tired of a steady flow of perfectly competent music college graduates, once told me that the way an unschooled player’s limitations shape their music makes them a much more interesting listen, and challenge, for a pro like him. I hit the tattoo place next door to the studio, and since that fateful day my bared chest informs the world that “My Limitations Make Me Interesting”. It does also state that “Del luvs Claire & Claire luvs Del” but alas the second part of that one ceased to apply in September 1982. She left while I was temporarily unconscious, but not before using an indelible marker pen to change “Interesting” to “Intolerable”.

But of course the ability to play in a semi-sloppy style and have it sound NATURAL and RIGHT is not a limitation, it is a superpower. I don't claim to have that power, but I have aspired to it, glimpsed it, perhaps even grasped it briefly on occasion. But the really cool thing about semi-sloppin … even after 50 years, seventeen pages and a nice binder, I still don’t know what it is. Which is why I’m instigating a survey, sure to be useful in my PhD thesis, among the 4or5 Island regulars. There follows a questionnaire to which interested parties should respond via the comments section.

QUESTION 1
Semi-slop washed up on the Island via Eric’s comment on T-Bone Walker (Hi Eric!). Farq’s reply cited Jimi. What other artists are on the list of semi-sloppers? Any bands loaded with semi-slop players? This doesn’t have to be restricted to blues-type guitarists. And who among us knows enough about jazz to tell me what the slop is goin on with Monk?

QUESTION 2
Is semi-sloppin all about timing and time-keeping? Is it exclusively a groove thing? Is there a connection between semi-sloppin and an African sense of timing? Does that sense form the basis of an African-American version audible in the work of T-Bone and Monk? The swing factor? The teasing of the one? Which one? The Other One?

QUESTION 3
Yes what about them Whiteboys? Are the Dead jammin up a slop or not? Keef … perma-stoned or slop chops finely honed? Them Feats … so tight yet somehow so loose? How is such a contradiction possible and is it true semi-slop?

QUESTION 4
What’s geography got to do with it? Does Louisiana’s groovy gumbo make it your favourite one-stop slop-shop?

QUESTION 5
What’s technology got to do with it? Do those accusing Jimi of being a sloppy player ever stop for just a single second to appreciate his control of high volume amps, early unpredictable effects units and wild feedback? No. Oooh what a messy riff that was! Aha he came in a millisecond late on that change! You people, honestly.

QUESTION 6
Where was I? Oh yes, is it possible to construct a version of semi-sloppy via tightly written and arranged parts that play around with time signatures and create unexpected phrase shapes? Can clever clogs cook up a fully-fake semi-slop?

QUESTION 7
Does anybody really think semi-sloppin is just lazy, sub-standard players who should knuckle down and practice until they have erased this defect from their playing? If so, see me afterwards. Outside.

No conferring please. Mobile phones must be switched off. Your time started a while back, and it will be all over before you know it. Hand your completed answers in to the comments section and leave quietly.

And by the way, when I submitted my initial outline for this piece to Ed. (mid 40’s my ass) he was reluctant to give the OK. He referred the matter to Farq (mid 50’s my ass), or Mr Throckmorton, Sir as Farq insists on being addressed by his staff. Farq didn’t seem terribly keen (killing jars, endangered species etc.) so I whipped out my Semi-Sloppin module binder. Here Farq, says I, check out this nice binder. He thumbed through a few pages, muttered an appreciative mm ... laminated as he fingered a striking full-page portrait of Claudia Lennear [left - Ed.], grunted a grudging “OK go for it”, and turned his attention back to his latest Foam-O-Graph©, which appeared to involve Bob Ross body-painting a log cabin (with fir trees) on Myra’s wrinkled folds. I hope he will concede that he made the right decision in okaying this piece. We must all hope that his decisions concerning Foam-O-Graphs© will eventually improve.

Record Store Day Special Dept. - For Girls! Th' Box Set

Some girls, yesterday. Foam-O-Graph© - Underachieving Excellence In Entertainment™!

 

As it's Record Store Day today [huh? - Ed.], when neckbeards vie for kale-colored 10" vinyl releases of something mediocre they already have and then vaunt their prizes on InstaTube™, we thought we'd join in the fun and offer a LIMITED RELEASE of this COLLECTIBLE BOX SET! Oboy! Imagine the looks on the faces of your pals in the laundry room when you swagger up with this! And there's more!

Each download is INDIVIDUALLY NUMBERED, and the FIRST FOUR customers will win this swell COLLECTOR'S EDITION! Let's see what you get!

👙 The four ORIGINAL ALBUMS, pointlessly remastered by Stephen Wilson in 8-track, Dictabelt, and TwinVQ formats!

👙 Swell NEW COVER DESIGNS for at least one of the albums! Plus poster-size Hi-Res reproductions suitable for framing for den or lobby!

👙 A quarter-size PAIL OF SAND from the beaches at Th' Isle O' Foam©!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

👙 A life-size silicone* model of MRS. MYRA NUSSBAUM! This hauntingly lifelike, fully articulated model [shewn above - Ed.] is ACCURATE DOWN TO THE LAST LIVER-SPOT! Let Myra be your Special Companion for those lonely motel nights, long car rides up into the woods, and bathroom hygiene sessions! (*actually chopped liver with silicone-like finish)

 👙 A MILLION DOLLARS in a cheap fiber suitcase! Used bills, low denomination, untraceable! What every girl wants!

👙 CERTIFICATE OF AUTHENTICITY signed personally by [illegible] down at the print shop!

That's right, subscribers! Remember - only the first four of Th' Four Or Five Guys© who hammer the Stealth Link® in the comments will qualify for this SPECIAL LIMITED COLLECTOR'S EDITION! The fifth will just get crappy mp3 files! Hoo boy! Are we having fun yet?!

 

Psychfan's Trip O' Th' Week Dept. - Jonathan Wilson

Gentle Spirit, the debut album from Jonathan Wilson was released a decade ago and I have had it on my list of things I want to listen to for almost that long. I finally got around to it a few months back and it was a bit of a surprise. Wilson has been described as a throwback to the Laurel Canyon singer-songwriters of the early 70's, and there's some truth in that.  He's good at it too. 

What I didn't anticipate was the trippy sounding lead guitar and creatively multitracked vocals that feature on several tracks. This one feels more like a psych album with acoustic rhythm guitar. Guests include Barry Goldberg (60's blues keyboardist) and Chris Robinson (from The Black Crowes). 

An artist worth discovering.