The Lawn Boys' Malaise Years Dept.

In this heirloom double-header FoamFeature™, Steve Shark and FT3 pick through the Beach Boys' Malaise Years, finding some treasure in the flotsam and jetsam.

Steve Shark opines:

 "I'm practically a member of the band...Brian's got the talent to make the music...he's the creator. The other band members are just performers. So I'm the one who's making the album."

Yet one more egomaniacal quote from Murry Wilson?

Nope.

That was Brian Wilson's psychologist Eugene Landy in 1985, when interviewed about the new album "The Beach Boys". He got songwriting co-credits for all the Brian songs on it, although he lost them (hooray!) later. The whole Wilson/Landy saga is so convoluted that I'm not even going to try to begin to describe it. The above quote will have to suffice for now.

Out of all the band's recorded output, it's probably one of the Beach Boys' albums I'd have least wanted to claim any credit for because it's an absolute turkey. With some tracks using synths for everything instrumental, as well as uninspired and uninspiring material, its sales showed what Joe Public thought of it - #52 in the Billboard 200 and #60 in the UK Top 100 album chart. The vocals are great, with Carl, Brian, Mike, Al and Bruce all singing really well, but there's not a snowball's chance in hell of them saving "California Calling" - a "Surfin' USA" clone that sucks more than a sucking sucker which sucks. If it wasn't the Beach Boys, it'd be a cruel parody. Even the cover art is shite.

1985 was also the year of Live Aid and the Beach Boys duly took part, delivering a performance that was lacklustre, quite frankly. Mike Love's lead vocals, in particular, were poor and even his harmonies were way off at times. It was a chance to make a global comeback just two years after Dennis' death, and a golden opportunity to promote their new album, but it proved to be just one more mediocre chapter in the band's career at that time.

Although the band carried on gigging, just 4 more studio albums were released after that. "Still Cruisin'" (1989) was moderately successful but mostly a repackaging of music that had been used in films. 1992's "Summer in Paradise" sold less than 1000 copies on its first day of release and the poor sales contributed to its distribution company going bankrupt. Almost inevitably the downward spiral continued with "Stars and Stripes Vol. 1", which featured guest vocals on a mixture of the guests' songs and old Beach Boys hits. It was the last studio album to feature Carl, and it's a blessing that Volume 2 never appeared. To quote one critic, it was an "unmitigated disaster". 2012 saw the release of the last Beach Boys studio album "That's Why God Made the Radio", with the return of David Marks for one track, but it was better received this time. It was their highest charting studio album since 1965's "Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!) - not that its content was anywhere remotely near as good.

So, a mere 4 studio albums since 1985's "The Beach Boys", although a staggering 50+ assorted live, archive and repackaged hits albums over the same time frame.

Tryin' to keep the summer alive.

Even the following year was an arid period for Beach Boys fans - but there was one glittering gem amongst all those turds in the mid 1980s, and what a gem it was!

"California Dreamin'" (yes, *that* California Dreamin') was a one-off single produced by Terry Melcher in 1986 and, to my ears, surpasses the original by considerably more than a few country miles.

It's a fairly simple arrangement, with prominent bass and drums, but the real icing on the cake is several tracks of gorgeous electric 12-string from ex-Byrd Roger McGuinn. I'm assuming it's all Rog [he gets the credit - Ed.], it sounds like it, although some could be BB session regular Jeff Foskett. There's also an acoustic 12 string guitar, possibly a synth pad adding ambient body to the overall sound, tambourines, and two brief sax solos - player unknown. It concludes with McGuinn's Rick 12 chiming during the fade. The vocals, as ever, are sublime and it's quite simply a stunning track - right up there with the very, very best that the band ever recorded.

It has a real goosebump moment for me. The first beat of the fourth bar of McGuinn's solo has him playing a note (a sharpened 9th over the root minor chord for music buffs) that sounds so discordant but works so beautifully. One of his very finest moments ever.

The video for the track is well worth seeing, too:

Shot in black and white, it's a sombre take on the whole California vibe, as befits the lyrics. There's Brian, Carl, Mike, Al and Bruce dressed for the winter weather going into a large church, with Papa John Phillips playing the rather saturnine looking priest, and also miming to the sax solo. McGuinn makes an appearance on the balcony playing his Rick and the camera zooms right in to his trademark tinted granny glasses during the solo. There's also Mama Michelle Phillips in the video who fades in and out - as do John P, McGuinn and the five Beach Boys themselves. So, they're all apparitions, It's interesting to ponder why the Beach Boys go into the church seemingly solid but when leaving it, they fade away to nothing.

It's all very bleak and almost like a funeral service without someone dead to mourn, or even some sort of black mass. At one point, a close up of Brian [above - Ed.] shows a quite chilling expression that's a million miles away from sunny California.  All in all, quite, quite remarkable.

"California Dreamin'" stiffed (no pun intended), only reaching #52 in the US charts and failing to enter the UK charts altogether. It got an album release later that year on a hits collection which went platinum, although I doubt it was down to the inclusion of the single.

FT3 avers:

I *cough* curated Low Tide [alternate cover, left - Ed.] a while back because there's a few late Beach Boys albums that even I, a broken man too tough to cry, avoid like beached jellyfish during my bathrobe stumbles along the ocean's edge. Albums I don't even own in digital form, whose titles I cannot bring myself to utter, so gravid are they with Lovecraftian horror. But I wanted to keep the few good-to-great songs from this period, and this gathering thereof came out surprisingly swell, given the disparate (and shit) sources, and the collection gets mucho kudos down at fabled Imaginary Friends Tiki Hut®.

If you were prescient enough to download it antecedently, do it again, on account which it's now got California Dreamin', which Steve reckons is not only better than the original (*splutter*) but as good as Good Vibrations (*choke*). Of particular note are the superior Kokomo and Somewhere Near Japan, both benefitting from John Phillips' participation, but the whole album's a simple pleasure, if you're in the market for that kind of thing - and nobody is, in these doomscrolling times in which we're living in. Forgiving the 'eighties production values is easier, and more rewarding, than you might think. It's the songs. And the singing. It's The Beach Boys. Even the borderline insulting Brian's Back (thanks, Mike) is saved by an ear-worm verse and a swooning chorus with Carl at his most angelic. The synthetics and generics and the corny lryics are everywhere redeemed by tunes and singing only these guys could come up with.

It means you can skip gaily from LA Light Album, assuming you've already gathered your skirts and vaulted over MIU, to That's Why God Made The Radio, scooping up Low Tide with a beachcomber's beady-eyed glee. 

Incidentally, some of Steve's opinions in the above screed make my sunken cheeks color with unreasoning anger, and if he were here I'd beat him about the head and shoulders with a bag of glass noodles. But I'm a professional, so I rise above it.

This post made fungible thru' catering services from Arnie's Kup O' Kake©, Pismo Beach CA, - "when a cupcake just ain't enough!™"

Randy Randomguy's Randomness Roulette! Dept.

Foam-O-Graph© - a rent in th' veil of illusion!

Lookit these swell society-types throwing their hard-earned dough at organised crime! Oboy! Some fun, huh?! What wouldn't you give to join in the laffs?! What's that you say? You have the gumption you were born with? And you're broke as the axle on your wheeled home? So why not accept Randy's invite and recreate the heady glamor and thrills of the casino right there in your fiberboard Fortress of Solitude?!

Simply set audio device of choice to shuffle (or throw record collection up in air like Lucy shuffles cards) and play first five tunes! Invite gang around to gawp open-mouthed in amazement like our stock photo models!

(Don't forget to share results in comment, or the whole thing's a bit of a farce, frankly.)

This post made possible thru donations from the Cosy Cockroach Motel, Pork Bend, WIS, and the Guggenheim Foundation For Sex-Crazed Ugly Billionaires.

Hummel Collector And Guitar Gear Demonstrator - The Jeff Beck Interview! Dept.

Jeff Beck with Heidi Apfelstrüdel, yesterday.

Jeff Beck! Guitar legend and hot rod enthusiast! But few know his True Story - the Man Behind The Myth! Jeff was kind enough to grant us an exclusive inteview over Foam-O-Fone©.

FT3 Jeffery! Becky-boy! Th' Beckster! Lookin' good! Let's start with Hi Ho Silver Lining - the song that launched your show-biz career!

JB A beautiful song, a sad song, that most people don't get the drift. (sings, wistful) Flies are in your pea soup baby, they're wavin' at me ... See? The flies are wavin' goodbye, 'cos thay have to go an' they're sad. Me Nan said I sang it with great aplomb.

FT3 Everybody can sing along with that! But you never followed it up - why is that?

JB I got into demonstratin' guitar gear, you know, electric guitars, amplifiers, pedals ... plectrums ... that's a funny word, innit? Plectrums.

FT3 You made a few records as a guitar demonstrator.

JB Yeah. I was like, you can make it sound like this, or if I turn this little knobbie, it sounds like this! People loved that, all the different sounds. Cat miaouw! And the whammy bar. I'd demonstrate that and people went bonkers! Nyiaaaauuuwww ...

FT3 But your first love remained ...

JB (grins, nodding) Hummel figurines! There was a few of us demonstrators what collected them. Eric [Clapton - Ed.], Ronnie [Wood - Ed.] ... and Jimmy Page (frowns). He dated one of my figurines.

FT3 Jimmy Page - dated - one of your Hummel figurines?

JB Fuckin' weirdo. Little Heidi Apfelstrüdel. It started out okay, quite cute really. He'd take her to the zoo, or roller skating. Then he started taking her backstage, into his dressing room, and I was not best pleased. I had a duty of care, you know? We had a falling-out over her, it's why he quit The Yardbirds.

FT3 Phew! Rock and roll!

JB Would you like to hear me demonstrate this new electric tuner? It's got like diodes set into the neck. Diodes - that's a funny word, innit? Diodes.

FT3 Love to, Jeff, but I just heard the microwave ping?

JB I can do that, an' all! Ping! It's a pinched harmon- (connection lost)

In 1986, Hummel© produced a limited edition figurine [left - Ed.] honoring one of their foremost collectors! It now commands up to dollars on the internet!

The two Jeff Beck demonstration albums by UPP will be made available as a loaddown shortly.

EDIT: Four Or Five Guy© and Hummel enthusiast Hugh Candyside sends us the cover to the Jeff Beck issue of the Hummel Collectors Magazine! Thanks, Hugh!

This Is It

Cover art: IoF© Department of Art Dept.

The last studio recordings of Davis* [Miles - Ed.] don't get much stylus time from anybody except uncritical Davis-heads. Leave us face it - most jazzbos don't dig hip-hop or rap or smewthe Rn'B vox, and don't want their Davis fucked up with "feats". And those are the tracks responsible for the relegation of Rubberband and Doo-Bop to the aisle-end dump bin of his career.

What's left even after you strip out the already dated and misguided youth market clichés the man hoped would get him played on street corners during dope deals - take a breath - also gives the goatee n' beret demographic the horse staggers. That rhythm section?! What the actual fuck!? Davis never gave a shit what we thought. Not even the steam off of it. He wasn't hung up on the past - it was done and gone. Let's do this.

This Is It (title taken from the lead track) makes for a brilliant and celebratory last studio album, nothing like the bag of beatbox leftovers you might expect. Above all, it's fun; up-beat, good-humored, varied, sumptuously detailed, and surprisingly consistent, with some astonishing bursts of playing from the man with the horn when he feels like it, his spark undimmed.

The first step was easy - all the vocal tracks from Doo-Bop and Rubberband were kicked to the curb. A dirty job, but someone had to do it. After a hazmat scrubdown, High Speed Chase was nixed for the original Rubberband session, and Wrinkles, an endless go-nowhere carthorse plod with vestigial trumpetry went into the shredder, as did most of Chocolate Chip for the same reason. Then the transformative alchemy of sequencing - that underappreciated art - over a weekend of cloistered experiment. In a masterstroke of editing brilliance, Echoes In Time was seguéd seamlessly onto Rubberband - thrill at the instrymental contiguity! - providing an elegiac coda to the best Davis studio album since [your choice here - Ed.].

This is a record album to be played, not an archival or completist box set to be filed away. You can dance to it, drive to it, do drugs to it, maybe even do it to it. Ten tracks across fifty minutes shouldn't be a stretch for anybody, even on Adderall. The sound of Late Period Davis is familiar from Tutu and other swell records, and you either go along with it or invent spurious arguments why nobody should be enjoying it. The opinion (and it's always voiced by some drawling æsthete) that it's more a producer's album than his is just so much stale gas. Davis always let the producer do what they wanted - we might as well dismiss the Gil Evans - and even Teo Macero - sessions for the same reason.

You want the last great studio album from the man with the horn? You want the soundtrack to summer? This Is It. 

*It's the hipster jazzbo rule: always refer to Miles Davis as Davis, and John Coltrane as John.

Play Some New! Dept.

Irwin F. Axolotl surveys latest delivery of contemporary music! Legacy Foam-O-Graph© - "Art For Slobs™"

Th' Four Or Five Guys© know that th' Isle O' Foam© is no haven for the Cult Of The New. When the existence of humanity endures for but a blink of the cosmic eye, it seems foolish to cling to the idea of old vs. new - every recorded note we listen to was recorded in the past, be that past days or decades ago. Who's counting? Who cares? And anyway, most new pop music (and by new I mean post-'75, as good a definition as yours) is competent at best, with its sources and inspiration more evident than originality. If you're happy with competence, as The Young People Of Today seem to be, with their diminished allowance of human happiness, then fine.

But new releases do get auditioned here, by Irwin F. Axolotol [above - Ed.], in our Quality Control Dept. You haven't seen much of Irwin for two reasons; he don't look so great in a bikini, and most of the records he listens to are recycled as decorative items - novelty flower pots, ashtrays, abstract mobiles and the like [add to cart - Ed.], but occasionally he rubber-stamps SWELL! on an album and passes it on to me.

Hence [grammar - Ed.] today's SWELL! offering; a back catalog bounty from Elephant Stone [first album, 2009, at left - Ed.] That rare thing - a guitar group. That can play guitar. As well as some Exotic Instryments. Yes, the influences are there because the format demands it, but their take is energising and skillful, melodic and a little thrilling. They're out of Canadia! They get psychedelia right, by George! Buy their records! Or not!

This post funded in part by endowments from Katy's Katheter Kabin, Pork Bend, WIS, and UNESCO.

Fifty Coolest Top Ten Iconic Rock, Pop, n' Roll Looks For You To Try At Home Before You Die Ever! Dept.

 

Perfection. Art and artifice. Image as substance.

Paradox. Jean-Paul Goude's manipulation to the point of inhumanity reveals her humanity.

If you're going to be a control freak, be Frank.

Poison Ivy: don't touch!

George Hunter, getting there first, doing it best.

To dress like this, you need these eyes.

Timelessness: strong enough to be himself.

Lady Bo: sass, style and class. But mostly sex.

For real.

The eyes are true voodoo, the mouth a mask.

Amazing Grace.

Heart and soul.

A-Wop-Bop-A-Loo-Bop-A-Wop-Bam-Boom. Nobody said it better.

He could, you couldn't.

She dreamed big.

New York Tendaberry. More influential than she knew.

This is it, now and forever.

Carnaby Street.

Clarence Pune's Ten Cents Dept.

In what we're hoping will be a regliar FoamFeaturette™, Four Or Five Guy© and Insta Influencer Clarence Pune will say "just my ten cents worth, folks!" 

Shave and a haircut‭ – ‬ten cents [two bits, Shirley? - Ed.].‭

It’s a rhythmic bit of doggerel heard on playgrounds and as‭ ‬a simple,‭ ‬7-note musical couplet,‭ ‬riff or fanfare popularly used at the end of a musical performance,‭ ‬usually for comic effect.‭

People‭  ‬who actually know about music‭ ‬tell me that it’s‭ ‬a simple,‭ ‬syncopated‭ ‬3-over-2‭ ‬clave rhythm played in a‭ ‬4/4‭ ‬time signature that has a direct lineage in Afro-Cuban music.

A guy named Ellas‭ ‬Bates‭ ‬McDaniel changed his name to Bo Diddley,‭ ‬took his rectangular guitar and adapted it into a trademark‭ ‬rhythm‭ ‬that would add a distinctive backbone to many a song.

The first was a ditty he named after himself.‭ ‬Buddy Holly picked it up.‭ ‬So did the Stones.‭ ‬Johnny Otis.‭ ‬Elvis Presley.‭ ‬Dee Clark.‭ ‬The Who.‭ ‬Springsteen.‭ ‬George Michael and more.

Not a bad‭ ‬deal for ten cents.

... and that's Clarence Pune's ten cents for today! There's A Mystery Loaddown which you're welcome to prod at in the comments!

Sister Whiplash And Her Psalter O' Psychedelia! Dept.

Foam-O-Graph© - The visual equivalent of photography!

As Sister Whiplash, comely ingenue Rholonne Déodoranté is th' IoF©'s Cosplay Religiousness Consultant, providing counseling on such spiritual-type issues as personal redemption thru faith, the role of liturgy in transformative abnegation, and suchlike. But did you know she's also a passionate advocate of old psychedelic albums?! Turns out she's got a buttload of 'em! And her breviary of choice? Glad you axed! It's her Psalter O' Psychedelia!

Can you behold and see which band she has bookmarked in above Foam-O-Graph©, readers? Study image closely for hidden details! No, not there, to the right a little ... the book ...

If you think you know band, leave clew in comment! Don't name directly!

Do You Think You Could Get A Job By Thursday? Dept.

The sheer quality of this album - as sheer as a cliff face - is such that you'll wonder why you don't have it as a cornerstone album of your collection. The opening track is a scripted (or extremely cleverly ad-libbed) encounter between a lady "social worker" and a prospective customer. It's cunningly sound-designed for atmosphere, lasts over six minutes, and I could use an entire album of this. A spoken word opening track? Who is this bitch?

Marlena Shaw was the first female vocalist to be signed to Blue Note, and '74's Who Is This Bitch, Anyway? her best-selling album for the label. Quality is equalled for sheerness by variety - funk, soul,  pop, orchestral interludes, jazz, and that audacious opening track. It's a white-knuckle ride ride. Sweet Beginnings, from '77, made less of an impact - that change in image from in-your-face byatch to sensitive romantic did her no favors - but is still, as we say here, a swell listen. Her monologue intro to the second track is brutal. And funny. Helluva dame.

Dr. Swami’s Prescription Dept. (Or - Mother’s Little Helpers For The Agony Without XTC)

Sitarswami (for it is he) transmits his screed from Madame Blavatsky's Etheric Temple And Car Wash on the warm, sunlit uplands of Hackensack, NJ.

Time passes. Daylight dwindles. Dusk and the dissolution of memory and the pursuit of happiness. Has night fallen on the last band that mattered? While the principles survive, and increasingly release new material, there’s little hope of even a contractually obligated Let’s Make Up & Be Friendly 33 1⁄3 reunion. Digging through discographies and discarded pillboxes, Dr. Swami has assembled fragments found scattered across the years on individual ep’s, singles, collaborations and compilations. The result: twenty-five undiluted doses of the next best thing to XTC. So, if you find yourself saying “Life’s just much too hard today” and feel the need to tranquilize your mind - ease your suffering and download right now. Not available in stores. Use only as prescribed. Results may vary. Most insurances accepted. Fuzzy Warbles not included.

Cavegirl – Andy P (an Ape House free d/l of a track from the unrealized bubblegum lp)

Humanoid Boogie – Andy P (Bonzo Dog Band cover and b-side of the Apples & Oranges single)

Scatter Me – TC&I (an ep from Colin M and Terry Chambers)

You Kill Me – Mike Keneally & Andy (the original demo version)

Turn Me On Deadman / Got My ... – Robyn Hitchcock & Andy (from their recent ep)

Greatness – TC&I (see above)

The Mating Dance / Ghost Train / Great Day – Andy P (from the ep My Failed Songwriting Career, v.1)

The Hardest Battle – Colin M (single)

Come on Back / Let’s Make Everything Love / Love Is the Future – Andy P (from My Failed Songwriting Career, v.2)

Papersnow – The Heads feat. Andy (fronting the Talking Heads)

The Man Who Died Two Times – Days Before Stations feat. Colin (who lends his voice)

You Bring the Summer – The Monkees (written by Andy)

You Are Here – Yazbek (co-written by Andy who also sings & plays guitar)

Gloria Monday – Dave Gregory (from one of the Re-moulds releases)

You Can Build a House on Love – Pugwash (string arrangement & guitar solo by Dave)

Karen – Peter Blegvad (produced by Andy who plays guitar & Linn drum, Colin also appears on the album but not this Mummer-ish track)

Baby I Can’t Please You – Sam Phillips (feat. Colin on bass who also co-produced this track, strings arr. by Van Dyke Parks)

Before the Hurricane – Martin Newell (string arrangement & album production by Andy)

The Laundry – The Lilac Time (production & guitar solo by Andy)

The Virtuous Man – The Nines (co-written by Andy who also plays guitar)

Sitarswami's Kirlian Aura Brush n' Wax© is recommended by Pia Zadora! Ask for rates.

Great Classics Of Literature Out Th' Ass! - Dept.

Back in the early days of the IoF©, it attracted a more bookish crowd than the present bunch of clods and schnooks. Intellectual-type guys what dug readin' an' poetry an' shit. So a regliar Dept. was opened to service their needs, named after a quote from The Shawshank Redemption for extry literary cachet. It was a rip-roaring success! Turned out th' Four Or Five Guys© had an unquenchable thirst for the Noble Tradition of Publishin'!

And the library's most-borrowed book? If you're half the beady-eyed rascal I take you for, you've already glommed the evocative artwork decorating this piece - note subtle play of light on sculpted forms! note vibrant polychrome brushwork! - and surmised it's that masterpiece of the illuminated tract The Complete Little Annie Fanny! It's also the most popliar ever screed on th' Isle©! Ever! By some way, by George! That's kind of reassuring, ain't it? The Four Or Five Guys© may know Jack Shit about what they like, but they know about Art!

It's been locked away for years, so we're making it available for a new generation of 4/5g©, in the hope it will plant within them the delicate seed of Literature, which with careful nurturing and assiduous study may bloom into Intellectual Fruition. Limned mostly by Sir William Elder and scripted by Harvey, Lord Kurtzman, this handsome volume - an heirloom piece you'll be proud to display in den or lobby - contains all the strips originally published in The Watchtower [and you were doing so well - Ed.] during its long run from 1962 to 2000. Not only a timeless artistic masterpiece, Little Annie Fanny is also of immense socio-political importance, holding a mirror to the times, and there is no better resource for the keen student of history! Topics such as Womens' Issues and Free Love are covered in depth [left - Ed.], bringing the times to vivid life! Oboy!

This post made fungible thru' our sponsor, Fancy Ant's Pantie Pantry™, Gusset, NM. "Puttin' ants in yer pants since the Hoover Administration!"

The Other One Drops Dept.

New readers start here!

After releasing Black Vinyl Shoes, our footwear band of choice travelled back in time to record their sophomore album [rockspeak advisory - Ed.] Bazooka. The stunt misfired, drawing opprobrium from the critics, who asked why they didn't take the opportunity to prevent James Taylor from releasing Gorilla.

Re-entering the space-time continuum, they waited until 1979 for Bomp! Records to release the swell single Tomorrow Night, and then sold their souls to Elektra to cut Present Tense, their first album to sound like it wasn't recorded in a five dollar motel room. Head of Elektra at that time was billionaire recluse Don Ho [this is bullshit - why don't you look them up on wiki and copy-paste like everyone else? - Ed.] who paid for the studio to be redecorated as a Zion motel "to make the boys feel at home" and flew in their moms to cook their favorite meals. The result was a brilliant album simply ewzing with chewns that should have made them global stars.

Find out what happened in the next episode of It's A Shoe-In!

The Lost Boy Redux

 

None Of The Above Dept.

Back to front ... front to back

Shawn Phillips has been FoamFeatured© antecedently - most of the good stuff already has. But Second Contribution was the album I immersed myself in (although we didn't use the word back then, except for taking a bath) in 1970, and still do. It's playing as we speak. Press your ear to the wall - hear it?

The first track has one of the longest song titles ever published (Fairport Convention beats it) - She Was Waiting For Her Mother At The Station In Torino And You Know I Love You Baby But It's Getting Too Heavy To Laugh. What-type song might you expect from that? Possibly not the slow build and strings you get. He's not exactly top-loading the single here. A flowing suite of songs that lean on each other follows, propelled by his fearsome acoustic strumming, and the side finishes with the beautiful Ballad Of Casey Deiss. Phillips sings about his friends with great affection (even asking after one of his musicians on this album in a song on the next). His lyrics, as ever, veer closely into pretentiousness, but credit to him for writing like absolutely no-one else. And there's his voice. It's Olympian. Soars into the clouds, plumbs oceanic depths, never forced, always true.

Side Deux follows the first, in being a suite of songs tagged with a more conventional, stand-alone song. Phillips never had any trouble attracting first-rate musicians, and his musical partners here are the awesome Paul Buckmaster, who plays, arranges, and writes, with Bruce Rowland, Jim Creegan (another friend to be namechecked in a song), Peter Robinson and Poli Palmer. Where he'd used Traffic as his core band on Contribution, here it's Family, with Buckmaster's restrained and dry orchestration integral to the sound, never falling into cliché. It's unclassifiable. Not a conventional singer-songwriter album, not even close to prog although some elements are in place, not a straightforward rock album; none of the above. And that's what the man continued to be - none of the above. He's still alive and making music, although even a fan like me has to admit his imperial period - basically the astonishing run at A&M - is long over.

This album has been a close and valued friend for over half a freaking century. Did I imagine back then, my dreams of escaping gray-skied suburbia somehow colored by his voice, that I'd be a grizzled old man living in Siam, still listening to this? Of course I didn't, but if I'd been given a glimpse of the future, I think I'd have been surprised, and happy. It's been a trip, and Shawn's been along for the ride, and bless you, Mr. Phillips.

Shorter Please Kreemé Dept.

Kreemé showcases her deliverables, yestiddy. Starring Will Smith as "Diversity Jones", and Rholonne Déodoranté as "Sister Whiplash." Stock photography ©Living Hell Photo Library

This is Kreemés [19 my ass - Ed.] favorite Wayne Shorter period. Not like you care, but she don't care you don't care. What's that you say? You don't give a shit she don't care you don't care? Like I give a shit. Where do you think you are? The internet? There's more, of course, from this fertile period, but you can loadup your favorites if desirous of adding to the gaiety of nations and the general healthful happiness of humankind in these troubled times. If not - well, screw you, pally.

There's just something about his playing during this period, and leave us lissen to Kreemé wax loquacious anent the elusive yet palpable qualities of tone, attack, and improvisational technique that make these discs such a reliable source of musical satisfaction. On second thoughts, fuck it. I'm going to feed the dogs while you clods arm wrestle in the comments.

Loaddown includes these two swell long-playing L.P. records, plus Night Dreamer, and Speak No Evil.

Kurse O' Th' Kaftan Dept. - Th' Sons O' Champlin

Our kudos-garnering series Th' Kurse O' The Kaftan ("quite the best-written and most incisive rock writing on the internet" - Roberta Christgau, Dean Of Music, Lancaster Amish University. "I ain't read it but I is gonna turn it into an novel" - Stephen King) has been dormant a while, but returns in full paisley splendor with this timely and provocative piece on one of New Jersey's lesser-known bands. Mainly because they wus from San Francisco, but also because they really weren't all that great. Horn sections were a Bay Area thing, and a little goes a long way. Or stops right there, preferably. The Sons weren't Blood Sweat & Tears, whose first album is a joy forever. They weren't even Chicago. Or from Chicago.

So why are they receiving the honor of a FoamFeature®? Because the music they made before that first double album [left - Ed.] is perfect kaftan pop, and the transition they made from its sparkling melodicism™ to the dull bluster of Loosen Up Naturally exemplifies the sad arc pop music took in the late sixties, so comprehensively chronicled in the Kurse O' The Kaftan© series. Humankind had to wait until 1999 for Alec Paleo to curate [rockspeak advisory - Ed.] the material into album form, and a swell job he made of it.

This post made fungible thru' th' auspices of Maxie's Wax Shack "Bikini Lines While U Wait! Free For Ladies!"

Happy Business People From Photo Library Hell Endorse Nu-Spin© Randomness Generator Dept.

Lost souls mutely screaming "HELP ME!"in stock photo hell, yesterday - base image ©deposhitphotos

"The team really pulled together for this product endorsement," sez Project Leader Cory Shitbeard [right - Ed.]. "Nu-Spin© technologies will streamline random selection of songs, enabling excellence for end users." Senior Inclusivity Officer Wendy Whitebread [second right - Ed.] adds "That's right, Cory! And the whole team brought individual skillsets to the table!" Consumer Outreach Officer Betsy-Jo "B.J." Swallow [far left - Ed.] and Office Supplies Officer Diversity Jones [second left - Ed.] both give "thumbs up"!

How do you, th' Four Or Five Guy©, benefit from hours of meetings that went into breakthrough decision? Why, it's simplicity itself! Simply connect Nu-Spin© unit to gramophone with cable supplied, sit back, and let Nu-Spin© take hard work out of random track choice!

List first five songs randomly thusly chosen in comment, earn grudging respect of confreres!

This post made plausible thru participation of Deposhit© Photos - your go-to image library of human suffering! (Other stock photo libraries are available.)

Please Make It Go Away! Dept.