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.

Steve Shark Dept. - Gurf Gets Ditched On A Gravel Road

Foam-O-Graph© - "Gee! It's like not being there!"

Th' IoF© [asserts Steve Shark - Ed.] is a great place for discovering new artists and their music. I can get a taste from the loadups and then hunt around to hear more, so I often find myself heading off to discogs to see what else is available.

Quite frequently I'm amazed by the sheer quantity on offer by people I've never heard of - sometimes a dozen or more releases - with not one shot at wider recognition paying off for them.

Why do some people just languish in obscurity?

Well, it could be lots of things...they just plain suck...more of the same old same old...people haven't caught up with them yet (and possibly never will)...poor promotion...no commercial potential...happy to make music without getting famous...

Who knows?

For the fortunate few, however, there's The Breakthrough Album. Sometimes it can be a gentle nudge into the big time - sometimes a rocket to global prominence.

Here's one of the former variety: now almost a quarter of a century old, and with its expanded deluxe reissue already fading into the distance.

Lucinda Williams had already released four albums and was slowly making a name for herself, but it wasn't until the release of "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" that she became far better known. It was a critical and commercial success and remains her best-selling album to date.

However, the album had a difficult birth, to say the least.

After her record label folded, she was fortunate enough to get a new deal. Album #5 was well under way, when Williams decided to ditch not only producer Gurf Morlix, but also all the recorded material and start from scratch. She was unhappy with her vocals, apparently. She was then invited to contribute vocals to Steve Earle's new album and liked the way that Earle and his producer Ray Kennedy worked. This led to the pair working on the material Williams had abandoned earlier.

Very soon, however, Williams' and Earle's working relationship became rather fraught. Moreover, Kennedy was boosting Earle's backing vocals in the mix and also adding lots of instruments, neither of which was to Williams' liking. Once again, Williams wasn't too happy with the way her vocals sounded, either. Then Earle went on tour, leaving the album unfinished and expecting to resume work on it later.

But Williams had other ideas when Earle departed.

She hired Roy Bittan of the E Street Band as producer to work on the tapes and he added new backing vocalists - including Emmylou Harris and Jim Lauderdale - as well as his own keyboard overdubs. Ace producer Jim Scott was then brought in and gave Williams' guitar and vocals more prominence in the mix. The album was then mastered by Kennedy - who somehow managed to survive the album's tortuous journey towards its eventual release.

After all this, it's amazing that the album sounds as cohesive as it does. It seems to work best as a sort of primer of American roots music with touches of blues, country, soul, alt country, folk rock and even a bit of 12 string jangle. Throughout, Williams' vocals tie it all together with their naive, occasionally frail, and often subtly world-weary qualities. The instrumentation is broadly rock orientated, with electric guitars well forward in the mix on most tracks. I can detect a hint of the Stones' "Exile" in the overall feel and she'd go on to explore that murky style more fully later in her career.

Anyway, see what you think to this culmination of false starts and the determination on Williams' part to capture exactly the sound she wanted. Here's the deluxe reissue with bonus tracks added to the original album - worth hearing in this case - and a bonus disc of a live radio performance, with the set list lifted mostly from the album.

We're big on aperos here. So, to win a copy of this fine album, just say what your fave pre-dinner drink/snack combo is.  

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!

Steve Shark Pimps Out Dept. - Scandinavian Jazz Piano Trio

Eating Sweaty Towel

When it comes to musical world domination [surmises Steve Shark] there's only one contender in the jazz category - the USA.

Europe's classical music legacy is a given, and it could be argued that the UK, in particular, was pretty much in the vanguard of the spread of pop music in the 1960s, although cross pollination with US African-American music and the earlier rock 'n' roll soon created a rock hybrid that thrived equally well on either side of the Atlantic.

However, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the US alone gave jazz to the world, for which the rest of the world was suitably grateful, with Europe in particular long viewed as a more hospitable place to play than the US, until more enlightened times arrived.

France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the Scandinavian countries were all eager markets for jazz, and even more of the continent opened up with the demise of the Iron Curtain. Musicians as diverse as Sidney Bechet and Davis [Miles - Ed.] always received a warm welcome in Europe and some even ended up living there. Incidentally, the same was true of blues artists.

Inevitably, as jazz became popular in Europe, the Europeans started playing it. However, apart from a few notables like Django Reinhardt, George Shearing (who emigrated to the US and found fame) Jan Garbarek, Eberhard Weber, Michael Petrucciani and Francy Boland - with only the first couple being really well-known - the homegrown variety of jazz didn't exactly set the world alight.

OK, I know I've missed some people out, but if the Atlantic was a street, it'd be almost exclusively one way. At one point fairly recently, it seemed as if one European jazz act out of all the others was going to make a global name for itself - the Esbjorn Svensson Trio, or E.S.T. as they came to be known, which was very fortunate for lazy buggers (like me) who couldn't be arsed to write out their full name.

E.S.T consisted of Swedes Esbjörn Svensson (piano/electronic keyboards), Dan Berglund (double bass/bass guitar), and Magnus Öström (drums/percussion). Ostensibly a piano trio, they didn't shy away from the occasional use of multi-tracking and electronic effects, although their last recordings showed a determined move towards the greatly increased use of these.

Relying on group compositions, with only a rare standards cover, E.S.T. built up a huge following in Europe and eventually gained a worldwide release for their fourth album, "From Gagarin's Point of View". It's quite mannered stuff at times, with light touches of ambient and new age music, but it's still jazz - think Keith Jarrett, or even Pat Metheny if he took up the piano, to get a hint of the general flavour. The title track is quite simply beautiful.

Some people may have noticed that I'm referring to E.S.T in the past tense and there's a sad reason for that. In 2008, at the age of 44, Svensson died in a scuba diving accident.

E.S.T were building up a crossover market for their brand of piano trio jazz, with light shows, smoke machines and electronic effects which appealed to rock and jazz fans alike, with neither faction excluded by the seamless marriage of rock elements and jazz sensibilities. The first European jazz act to appear on the cover of "Downbeat" magazine [left - Ed.], they seemed poised to capitalise on their growing popularity in the US and go on to become internationally successful, but we'll never know.

See what you think of E.S.T. from the excellent compilation "Retrospective", curated by the two remaining members. It covers the group from their fourth album right up to "Leucocyte", which was completed shortly before Svensson's death and shows a quite startling move into the use of electronic effects. If you don't like those, there's plenty of straight piano, double bass and drums.

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.

Lowell George's Blue Plate Special Dept.

It’s pretty generally accepted [asserts One Buck Guy - Ed.] that Little Feat didn’t become the Little Feat we all love until at least their second album, “Sailin’ Shoes”, if not “Dixie Chicken” with the classic six-piece line-up. The first album got them noticed, not necessarily by the general public as it pretty much sold jack and shit, then at least by the critics, and it consolidated their signing to Warner Brothers, back when you could have multiple underperforming records (“Sailin’ Shoes” only sold a couple of copies more) without anyone dropping you from the label. 

I’ve always liked that first album, though. It certainly is rough around the edges. The sound is still hung up deep in the blues rather than the New Orleans R & B the band would soon trade in and has traces of the garage rock of his former band. Not sure the Howlin’ Wolf stuff was a good fit. And you can see why they re-cut the classic-in-waiting “Willin’”. The makings of something good are there, but the band was still putting it together. One of the issues, I think, is Russ Titleman’s production, which makes the album seem somewhat feature-less, slightly mushy, with most of the instruments being largely indistinguishable. Seemingly, Lowell and Titleman hated working with each other. Still, the highs are high: “Truck Stop Girl”, “Brides Of Jesus”, “I’ve Been The One”, “Strawberry Flats”. They would get more refined really quickly, but there is a ramshackle charm to this first outing that sounds like nothing else in the Feat discography. 

Fast forward a couple of years, when the end is nigh. Lowell George is pretty out of it: his mind, his songwriting, performing with the band. Drugs are, I’m told, a hell of a drug. Coca-haine, running through my brain and all that. Years of junk food had made him balloon all the way to 300+ pounds.  Just compare George to even in 1975 when Feat’s fortune’s were slipping. He was still at a decent 180 pounds and still in full control of his powers. But they were fading, and he and the band drifted apart. It was a vicious cycle of sorts: Lowell’s songwriting well began to run dry, so the other band members stepped up with more contributions, which with their new jazz-fusion leanings further alienated George, who in turn became even more passive in his dealings with the band. Payne and Lowell were a fabulous songwriting duo during the early days of the band, but now Payne and Barrère started to become closer collaborators, with Lowell shut out, or, shuttting himself out. The Feat plowed on, but they were fast becoming something different from the previous group.

In that pretty volatile situation, Lowell dropped his solo album, Thanks I’ll Eat It Here. He had negotiated for a solo deal years earlier, mainly to use the record company advance to keep the band alive and going during lean periods. And then, from 1975 onwards, he occasionally recorded what would become his solo record. When the rest of the group learned that Lowell, now more or less completely isolated from the rest of the group, would not only release a solo record, but tour behind it, they were crestfallen. Work on a new record – which would become Down On The Farm – had been slow, and was now halted. Essentially, Little Feat were put on hold, though the account of who dropped who, whether the band split up or took an, ahem, infinite hiatus largely depends on who tells the story. 

If only Lowell’s solo platter would have been worth it. But, man, what a disappointment it turned out to be. Barely a half hour worth of music with a skimpy new three authored or co-authored Lowell songs, the rest filled up with covers of Toussaint, Rickie Lee Jones, Jimmy Webb and even himself. Ann Peebles’ “I Can’t Stand The Rain” was fine, but predictable, while the music hall whimsy of “Himmler’s Ring” was – at least to my ears – absolutely atrocious. Whatever you think of the individual songs, it’s hard to deny that there is an almost complete lack of energy here. The album would be pretty much a total wash, if not for “20 Million Things”, Lowell’s collaboration with Roger McGuinn’s (and Dylan’s) old running mate Jacques Levy. 

One great song does not a comeback make, but when Little Feat completed and released Down On The Farm a couple of months after Lowell’s death, there were signs that the well of George’s songwriting hadn’t been completely dry. Call me crazy, but “Six Feet Of Snow”, “Kokomo”, “Straight From The Heart” and “Be One Now” pretty much beat the tar out of most of what George had been coming up with since 1975. And yet, the rest of the album also illustrates the gulf between the group as it had been, with the Feat starting to sound like Gaucho-era Steely Dan (no, that’s not a compliment in my book) on tracks like “Perfect Imperfection” (despite Lowell on vocals) and “Wake Up Dreaming”. Still, if the Lowell tracks on Down On The Farm are any indication, the fire was greatly diminished, but not completely extinguished yet. But Lowell was gone, and so was Little Feat, at least for a while. And the rest is another story. 

The attached music offering is a collection of lesser known odds’n’ends Lowell stuff, quite a bit of it with Little Feat. 

Roll Um Easy

Yeah, let’s get rolling with this fine solo remake of the Feat track off Dixie Chicken, done for possible inclusion on his solo album. Maybe he felt a redone “Two Trains” was enough, given the skimpy running time, though, this would have been nice to have on Thank’s I’ll Eat It Here Later. For me, it also beats that Trains remake rather easily

Doriville

One of the loveliest Feat outtakes. This deserves to be much wider known. Just an absolute beauty.

Good Lovin’

The track that got this whole project started, Lowell being backed by The Grateful Dead on this outtake from the Shakedown Street sessions. It’s raucous, it’s rowdy, it’s slightly off-kilter – it’s very Dead and very very Lowell.

Crack In Your Door

The earliest version, with an embryonic Feat.

Brickyard Blues (Play Something Sweet)

Really good outtake, certainly better than some of the stuff that made the records.

Willin’ 

Lovely live version from 1974 with some quicksilvery, extra lovely piano work from Bill Payne. I might be critical of some of the man’s latter Feat feats, but this is fantastic. 

Feats Don’t Fail Me Now 

Lively alternative version. The classic Feat New Orleans R’n’B.

Easy To Fall (Easy To Slip)

One of two demos they gave the Doobie Brothers. The Ted Templeman connection I guess. The Doobies didn’t use them, too bad for them. I really like the mid-tempo shuffle of this one.

Long Distance Love

The original version of the song with an extra verse before they rejigerred the Feats Don’t Fail Me Album. It sounds more like a demo and the vocal is curiously flat with an odd cadence. Admittedly it’s not a patch on the published version, but not very widely circulated and thus right at home with the assorted odds’n’ends here.

Rock’n’Roll Doctor

Alternative version with a horn section. The song cooks either way, of course, the horns are a nice extra touch they seemingly decided they didn’t need, but let’s be real, it would have been an instant Feat classic in any of these versions.

Fool On The Avenue

Lowell solo demo from 1975, just the man and his guitar. Lovely stuff.

Wait Til The Shit Hits The Fan

Early version of “The Fan”, as rowdy and garage-y as early Feat would get. Just listen to those frat boy “Whoh”s.

Juliet

 Like “Crack In  Your Door”, this is from the pre-Warner Brothers session

Two Trains

Lowell’s demo for the band: him, his trusty drum machine and even more trusty guitar. A killer, even in this early unadorned form.

Heartache 

Unfortunately never properly recorded for reasons unknown, the demo with Valerie Carter was attached as a bonus track to Thanks I’ll Eat It Here. This is from a radio appearance in 1974, slightly rough sound quality, but it’s Lowell & Linda. ‘Nuff said. 

Rat Faced Dog

More early, rowdy Feat, cookin’ up some hard boogie. Guitar freaks will love the work out. 

What Do You Want The Girl To Do

From his solo tour, with his really slick backing band, this is almost disco. Lovely background (due to the mix almost duet) vocals by Maxine Dixon. Recorded three days before his death, more proof that reports of him being some sort of unsalvagable wreck at the end were mostly unfounded, at least as far as stage performance is concerned. 

Texas Rose Café

The second demo for the Doobies.

China White

A song that stayed with Lowell from the early 70’s until he finally recorded it in 1978. Published on “Hoy-Hoy!”, from the slow build to the bluesy middle to the full-blown gospel choir, this is a lot of Lowell in a nutshell.

20 Million Things

For me personally, this is Lowell’s masterpiece, and thus there was no other way to end this collection. If I listen to this with one ear, I sing along (as well as possible) to it, if I listen intently I get choked up. This gets me, totally, every time. It’s also an understated tribute to Lowell’s talents. Somewhere adrift on this island is a discussion between the Farqster and yours truly, about how hard it is to sing along to this seemingly straightforward song, because Lowell does some interesting things with his vocal delivery, always a tick earlier or later than you would expect. And, man, that Lowell (or Levy) could turn a phrase: “...all the letters never written, that don’t get sent”. Lyrically and in sentiment a close cousin to Jim Croce’s “Time In A Bottle”, both remind us of how both their respective authors had approximately 20 Million Things still left to do, and no time left to do them. Forgive the slightly distant sound quality, for extra poignancy this is the last ever “20 Million Things” from the Lisner Auditorium during Lowell’s last concert. Three songs later he would stop singing. One day later he was gone. Time had slipped away. 

And we miss him, still, and always.