At Home With Th' Harrises! Dept.

Foam-O-Graph© - Th' Serving Suggestion Of Th' Mind!

Th' IoF© postbag is full of requests from hundreds [Monty and Bunty Hundreds, Greasecake, MI - Ed.] axin' what's playing on th' IoF© radiogram! Is it mayhap a slab of rare jazz funk, or perchance the Inuit Zither Ensemble playing Twenty Hard Rock Power Ballads? Nay, nay, and thrice nay! Them of youse schnooks what have managed to read this far without snapping yer attention span like the waistband on yer skeevy old undershorts will be facsinated to learn is that what which your host has been listening to on the radiogram is ... the radio.

Not what passes for radio today - if anything does - but transcriptions of radio shows from as far back as the 'thirties, right up to today, which is, like, the 'fifties, when television killed radio as radio had killed vaudeville. And my current binge listening is The Phil Harris And Alice Faye Show. You don't care, and why should you? So let's "tune in" to Phil n' Alice Harris, with daughters Phyllis n' Baby Alice Harris, at their H'wood palace (as imagined by some eel-hipped lisping Mexican interior designer hired by the ad agency) to see what's warming the valves on their consolette!

Our intimate peek [above - Ed.] into the Lives of the Stars shews a family phonograph festival! Daughter Phyllis has taken all the vinyl out of the sleeves, because she's a girl, and stacked them on the occasional table [sometimes it's a refrigerator - Ed.]. Mom'll learn her to throw 'em on the carpet later. But what of the album propped up at the bottom of our colorful composition? Do you recognise it, readers?

Frankly, I'm passed caring if youse bums recognise it or not. The back-breakin' woik what I put into dese quizzes ain't recompensated by yer lazy-ass lackadaisical participation, hey. So I'll tell yez up front, hey. It's the first Fallen Angels album, which I bought back in the early 'seventies on account which 1: paisley on sleeve and 2: someone thanked for "good vibes" in credits - two of my prime purchase parameters back then. And their follow-up stacked behind it. They're swell long-playing L.P.'s, and exactly what I'd expect Hipster Harris to be spinning on his spindle!

This post funded in part by grants from the WTAF Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to making less sense of the world we live in.

Begging For Mersey Dept.

The Koobas/Kubas were a beat group straight outta Liverpool onto the Reeperbahn, and they had everything but the breaks. By the time their eponymous album limped out in '69, they'd already broken up.

This pimped version is retitled/recovered. The cringe-inducing and jaw-droppingly inappropriate "humorous" interludes and funny voices have been edited out - too late! The damage is done! A couple of tracks - a ho-hum cover of A Little Piece Of My Heart, and an ill-advised and over-long concept piece about a circus - called Circus - are replaced by a couple of B sides; the monster freakbeat Face, and the strangely lovely Woe Is Love, My Dear. Both these tracks are a tad rougher in quality, but they're the best I could find.

In this form, it's an unfeasibly tough-sounding album, with memorable original songs and a yearning edge to the vocals, and should have done better. Trying to lighten the mood with the funny stuff didn't help, nor did the banality of the original cover and the crippling absence of a hit tune. But it's a swell late 'sixties U.K. pop-rock album you'll be proud to play at your next Visualization Workshop.

Both album sleeve and rip are at the low, low quality you've come to demand from the best in our-type entertainment!

One Buck Guy's Shadow Men of Pop Dept. - Martin Briley

Legacy Artwork by Th' Io'F© Department O' Fine Art Dept.

Charter Four Or Five Guy© One Buck Guy spent three lousy months scrimshawing this screed onto a Narwhal tusk as part of his rehab. The least you can do is read it. Is that too much to ask? What is wrong with you people?

First off, [begins One Buck Guy - Ed.] I had never heard of Martin Briley until very recently. Maybe you haven’t either, at least not consciously. When he published his first three records, including fluke hit “The Salt Of My Tears” in the early-to-mid 1980s I wasn’t yet part of the record-buying or even record-listening part of the population, and then the man and his beret disappeared for more than two decades from the eye of the public, starting a modest comeback by finally publishing another record in 2006. When I call him one of the shadow men of pop, that’s because he was for long stretches of his career, first as a performer, then as a songwriter. A behind the scenes presence on more records than you’d know or care to listen to, with credits that go in the hundreds. That one moment in the spotlight when “Salt” climbed into the top 40 and then got him tagged as a one-hit wonder (technically correct, unfair as it is) came after heaving away in the music industry for more than fifteen years, and after that brief moment of (semi) stardom, he returned to the grind for a prolific if completely behind-the-scenes career as a songwriter/songdoctor and composer for film and television.

Briley started out with one of the many UK psych bands that crowded the market place in the wake of the summer of love, Mandrake Paddle Steamer [left - Ed.], later shortened to just Mandrake. Mandrake Paddle Steamer only ever got to issue one single, a recorded album stayed unreleased at the time and was only issued in 2018. To my unwashed ears it sounds like pretty standard stuff for the time, style and the era, but I’m not at all an expert on that particular genre. Just Mandrake also went nowhere after a sole single was released exclusively in Sweden, so clearly world domination was out of the picture at this point. So Mandrake was kaput, though Briley continued to work with the band’s Brian Engel in a number of projects. One of these was an orchestral pop album for George Martin’s AIR label, that also got shelved and was finally released in 2007.

With Engel he worked as The Liverpool Echo and contributed to a number of other short-lived projects like Prowler and Starbuck, while also going into studio work as arranger, vocalist and guitar player for hire, collaborating with hit writer tandem Howard and Blakley, and also joined the BBC orchestra for an extended stay. He joined prog band Greenslade in 1974 for a short interlude, cut an instrumental slightly proggish album for Island, then the Ian Hunter Band for a couple of years in the late 70s.

Afterwards he was doing studio work with a ton of artists of all ilk, from Engelbert Humperdinck to Mick Jones. Looking at his clientele list you realize that Briley had no qualms about working with uncool and hopelessly MOR artists, including Cliff Richards, Olivia Newton-John and Tom Jones. This would become a topic for his later career from the mid-80s onwards as songwriter/songdoctor for everybody, from dozens of teenage bands/acts to Christian pop artist Rebecca St. James to the inevitable Celine Dion, not to mention out of left-field choices like Rosie O’Donnell or Nana Mouskouri and even Bill Wyman’s child bride Mandy Smith. He dryly notes on his website that he hasn’t heard most of the fruits of his labor for the teen acts and other “gun for hire” work. He also became a bit of a Jim Steinman mainstay, working with and for Meat Loaf and Bonnie Tyler. That’s Briley playing the guitar on “Total Eclipse of the Heart” (though usually Rick Derringer gets credited for it).

But right there in the middle, just before attacking hundreds of songs, co-writes and commissions for music for TV and films, are his glory years, three albums from which I pulled the accompanying compilation. As a general rule, I prefer a “all killer, no filler” approach, so instead of wading through three albums with a rising amount of filler-ish tracks, here’s what I think are the best tracks from his run on Mercury records. I have a clear preference for his debut album, Fear Of the Unknown, which sounds still amazingly fresh forty years later. It has a pretty obvious New Wave influence, with a faint hint of the Cars sound, but Briley makes it work fabulously without ever seeming to imitate someone else. His singing voice isn’t particularly distinctive, sometimes reminding you a bit of Peter Gabriel (he’s a dead ringer on “Heart of Life”) and to me personally of Men At Work’s Colin Hay. What is clearly distinctive, though, is his songwriting with a decidedly unique point of view on such tracks as “I Feel Like A Milkshake” or “School for Dogs” with its delightful double entendre use of the expression “man’s best friend”. Even on some of the later, more conventional tracks his pop smarts and craftsmanship are undeniable and no doubt contributed to the subsequent demand for him as songwriter for hire.

This is glorious pop, intelligent and quirky, but not with such an amount of mannered quirk that it threatens to derail songs, like, say, some of what Lindsay Buckingham was doing at the same time. Like Buckingham, Briley is also somewhat inspired by 60s pop, as on “It Shouldn’t Heard that Much” with its doo-wop style backing vocals and even throws in a tribute to his prog days on “Fear Of The Unknown”, again complete with Peter Gabriel-styled vocals. The production gets slicker throughout the album trilogy, while the songs overall probably get weaker. Some of the demos he cut during that time recall the freshness of the debut with their slightly more rudimentary, but also more immediate sound. As such, the accompanying comp breaks down as having eight tracks from the debut, four each from the follow-ups and four demos from the time frame. So let the shadow man step into the limelight for a moment... 

Another Nice Pair Dept.

It seems fantastic, but there's a possibility that one or even two of th' Four Or Five Guys© don't gots these swell recordings.

Tongue Twister suffered from being hyped by product placement in Porky's - the distinctive sleeve was even visible in the shower scene. The stunt backfired so badly (preview audiences booed every appearance) the movie was reshot, removing every trace of the album. Which is a damn shame, because it's a swell record.

Smarting from their wounds, the boys secretly released the next album Boomerang with no publicity at all, in a blank sleeve, and distributed free to footwear stores within Zion's own Korea Town district. When Elektra boss Rodney Dangerfield discovered the ruse, he reissued the album in a shit sleeve and terminated their contract.

This is a continuing series. If youse bums don't know how to use the search facility by now, I can't help you.

Drive-Thru Double Feature Dept.- Pop Porn Or Dirty Disney

Tuesday, yesterday, forever ...

In a recent comment, FiveGunsWest™ claimed his favorite movie soundtrack was Lord Love A Duck. A quick sift through my local internet learnt me that it was a movie I should immediately pretend to have known all about. How did this one slip past my all-seeing Eye Of Agamotto? Helmed (as we movie buffs like to say) by Tinseltown heavyweight George Axelrod (Seven Year Itch, Breakfast At Tiffany's, The Manchurian Candidate) and starring Roddy McDowall and Tuesday Weld it's a screwball satire on contemporary (1966) U.S. culture - including surf movies - and a definitive slab o' 'sixties celluloid. Kind of a shame it was shot in black and white, you ax me. There's a shit copy on YewChewb, if you want to get your fingernails dirty, or you can download this here swell copy what I eventually dragged clear of the seaweed in the Pirate Bay. Axelrod brilliantly said the movie was "pop porn or Dirty Disney. It may yet give bad taste a bad name." Look for the name of the Director of Photography in the credits as the bikini babes frug surfside!

Making up a swell double drive-in FoamFeature® is Ride The Wild Surf, from '64. Older readers may remember the awesome soundtrack album by Jan And The Deans being FoamFeatured© antecedently. Turns out the album is much, much better than the movie, which only features the title song. Yeesh.

Fans of Fabian and Tab Hunter will enjoy the buff bod-flexing and waxed coiffs, and there's beach babes au-go-go for the rest of us, but it's standard Surf Opera© fare. This copy took forever to drag out of the seaweed, too, and it's probably the only way you'll ever get to see it, so quit whinin', ya ingrate.

Barbara Eden, Shelley Fabares, and Susan Hart want to wax your board

A tomato triptych from Lord Love A Duck

"It Was Easy, It Was Cheap" Dept. - Nobby's Guide To Sticking It To Hitsville U.K.

Television Personalities, yesterday

No slimy deals with smarmy eels In Hitsville UK So sang the well known CBS recording artists, The Clash, with a nod to Motown and in praise of the new independent DIY record label explosion, which they never joined.

Between 28 December1976 and 29 January 1977 Buzzcocks recorded, pressed and distributed their Spiral Scratch ep, entirely self financed at a cost of £500. This had followed Stiff Records, the previous August, famously financed by a loan of £400 from Lee Brilleaux of Dr Feelgood. A punk fanzine, Sideburns (not Sniffin Glue as everyone usually attributes it too) had famously shown everyone how to play three chords and form a band [left - Ed.]. So having learned the chords you could all now go out and make a record. "It was easy, it was cheap...(£153)... go and do it" extolled The Desperate Bicycles on their record sleeve in March 1977. The T V Personalities' "Where's Bill Grundy Now" e.p. also spells out the various costs involved. The following is a selection of  songs which appeared over the next few years from the bands that did just that, or at least signed up to an independent label that had already done it. Because I am fond of a lyric that doesn't take itself too seriously I have concentrated on the ones that represent what I have seen described as "the under appreciated world of bizarro post punk". I had never come across the term before but I rather like it.

Sadly none of them became hit records, and many of the performers didn't carry on in the music business, they just had fun while it lasted and then got on with the rest of their lives.

Not sure how many of the 4 or 5 of you will be familiar with these, maybe you know them all, maybe you don't know any. I bought them all (bar one) over 40 years ago and I rate them all highly. The only one I don't own is the first one "Bloody", which somehow passed me by at the time, but is now my favourite. If you don't listen to them all, at least give that one a go, once heard you'll not get it out of your head.

Bloody : The Golinski Brothers : Attrix Records : 1979

"Well, this is the best record in the world for this week..... People have been given the OBE for less, a lot less” John Peel

Name me a song with a better opening line than this:

"I want to go where they've never seen snow, send my giro to Cairo"

Then name me a song with a better chorus than this:

"What am I bloody well supposed to do, got my bloody well self, bloody stuck on you"

Named after their guitarist Bob, the rest of the band weren't brothers but seem to have adopted his name like wot the Ramones did. Originally on a compilaiton called Vaultage 79 ftom Attrix Records, highlighting bands from Brighton, there was also Vaultage 80 and 78, see later.

Bob Golinsky went on to become a well respected barrister but passed away in 2020, if you look him up, there has been some very nice tributes paid to him.

Playing Bogart : 23 Jewels : Let's Call It Temporary Records : 1979

A great example of a low cost noisy mess of a record that just captures something magical, a bit like Medicine Head's early single "His Guiding Hand" (the magic not the style). Simpson went on to a career in classical music apparently.

"I had been working at WH Smiths in Manchester, it struck me for the first time, going in and out of town on the bus, how people geared themselves up for a Friday night out; I was single, probably a bit lonely, and saw the whole thing as a bit of a charade". - Nick Simpson

The Baby She's On The Street : Jona Lewie : Stiff Records : 1978

His real name is John Lewis and he had been in Brett Marvin & The Thunderbolts who had a hit single with "Seaside Shuffle" when they were masquerading as Terry Dactyl & the Dinosaurs. So many nom de plumes that I'm surprised there aint a statute to him on th' IoF©. Suggested statue at left [left - Ed.].

Of course he went on to fame and fortune with " You'll Always Find Me in the Kitchen at Parties" and "Stop the Cavalry". You will notice  his habit of slurring his words here which is even more apparent on a B side of his "I'll Get By in Pittsburgh" where the whole lyric is a mystery as he sings it like a badly recorded blues singer from the 1920's.

Lord Lucan is Missing : The Dodgems : Attrix Records : 1978

To the non-anglophiles here, this is the story of one of our aristos [left - Ed.] who alledgedly [allegedly my arse - Ed.] murdered the nanny after mistaking her for the wife. He then disappeared, sparking tabloid interest to this day wondering whether he topped himself or was spirited away by his friends in high places. From the compilation Vaultage 78.

Showing Off To Impress The Girls : The Art Objects :Heartbeat Records : 1980

"Look at all those shy young boys, who don't even know they are shy" it begins and then continues with a girl's eye view of the chaps setting their caps at her.

Toe Knee Black Burn : Binky Baker : Stiff Records : 1978

The only thing I know about him is that he is the husband of Anne Nightingale, the radio one D.J. The lyrics are an in depth evaluation of the life and career of that other BBC radio one DJ, Tony Blackburn.

Love and a Molotov Cocktail : The Flys : Zama : 1977

From their self financed "Bunch of Fives" e.p. They were picked up by EMI who released a couple of lps and were championed by John Peel, doing three sessions, but they never took off and soon split up. Singer Neil O'Connor joined his sister Hazel's band.

Wot's For Lunch, Mum, Not Beans Again : The Shapes : Sofa Records : 1979

From Leamington Spa, with the gloriously named Seymour Bybuss on vocals. If I ever do a follow up compilation it will feature another song ftom the same e.p. "I Saw Batman in the Laundrette"

Max Bygraves Killed My Mother : The Atoms : Rinka Records : 1979

Didn't know until starting my research that this was actually the subsequent comedian Keith Allen, father of singer Lilly.

Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen : Clive Pig and the Hopeful Chinamen : Waldo's Records : 1979

Apparently he is now a succesful modern day troubadour, telling stories, reading poetry and singing songs at schools around the world

Iggy Pop's Jacket : Those Naughty Lumps : Zoo Records : 1979

Frontman Pete Hart was a librarian at Liverpool Poly when I was there in the days when you used to get your books stamped as you borrowed them (maybe you still do, it's a long time since I've been in a library). He is now a world famous historian at The Imperial War Museum

Part Time Punks : T.V. Personalities : Kings Road Records : 1978

From the ep "Where's Bill Grundy Now" [left- Ed.], their most famous song beautifully captures the moment when a movement implodes :

"Then they go to Rough Trade
To buy Siouxsie and the Banshees
They heard John Peel play it
Just the other night
They'd like to buy the O Level single
Or Read about Seymour
But they're not pressed in red
So they buy The Lurkers instead"

Let's Go : Blitzkrieg Bop : Lightning : 1977

From Middlesborough, a little ditty about those goddamn hippies in San Fransisco, probably never been out of the north east of England in their lives but you know "Never trust a hippy" as we were told at the time.

Sheepdog Trials In A Babylon : Shoes For Industry : Fried Egg Records : 1980

A theatrical group from Bristol with some splendidly daft songs., including this bit of cod reggae nonsense. They also recorded an lp with more of the same, including "Invasion of the French Boyfriends", which some of you may remember if you downloaded my holiday mixtape from a few weeks ago. (Still available at no extra cost Hallelujah Europa.rar https://www.imagenetz.de/eiLqg )

Don't Crush Bees to Death with your Walking Stick : Wavis O'Shave : Company Records : 1979

From his first e.p. "Your Denis smokes Tabs" (tabs = geordie slang for cigarettes). He later gained some tabloid headlines with his lp "Anna Ford's Bum", the subject of which was an English newsreader at the time, all deeply satirical stuff, you know.

She Goes to Fino's : Toy Dolls : Volume Records : 1980

To round off we have this lot from Sunderland singing about a local nightclub. They had a hit single later with their punked up version of Nellie the Elephant, and are still going strong, being very popular in Japan in particular.

 

Well, I Like 'Em Dept. - The Moody Blues

Rock n' roll purists (hi, Mike!) like to believe that the Moodies lost the plot after Denny Laine quit, but that first album is nothing fantastic. Leave us dive straight into Days Of Future Passed, which is more their debut proper, and for 1967 - for any year - something approaching fantastic.

The Cover Deram marketed the album under their easy-listening Deramic Sound System banner; the only pop-rock act among dozens of suburban schlock LPs, such as *gulp* Tony Osborne's Three Brass Buttons [check generic sleeve format at left - Ed.]. Imagine the band's delight at seeing their commissioned arwork - a beautiful and intricate psychedelic painting by David Anstey - cheapened by the house style. My more minimalist approach above [above - Ed.] shews the painting with the best color palette you'll find on the internet and incorporating a none-more-sixties futuristic font. Tilt your head to the left to see the face. Like, oh wow!

The Music The band subverted the intent of the label for them to record versions of classical music, and covertly composed and recorded a suite of songs based around a day in the life of Everyman, interwoven with cinematic orchestral interludes based on their own music, played by The London Festival Orchestra. The arrangements are very much in the English Light Orchestral tradition of Eric Coates  [⬅︎ original critical aperću - Ed.] and that's absolutely appropriate. Nothing pompously fake-Wagnerian here. Recording at Decca London Studios started in May '67, when concept albums weren't exactly stuffing the racks - Sgt. Pepper (barely an idea, leave alone a concept) dropped the next month, Nirvana's Simon Simopath in October, SF Sorrow a year later.

All the hallmarks of the Moodies are here, fully-formed, for better or worse, and some haven't dated particularly well. But if you can forgive the pretentiousness as ambition, and the dumbness as naiveté, there's a lot to admire and enjoy. The across-the-board excellence in composition, arrangement, production and performance (they were an accomplished multi-instrumental band) was unmatched for the time in the U.K., and if that seems like a wild claim, prove me wrong.

As the album was recorded in state-of-the-art stereo specifically to demonstrate the capabilities of the Deramic Sound System, wanting to hear a mono version - or worse, pretending to prefer it - is just perverse. Here's some hi-fi porn for those with a taste for it:

"Two Neumann M50s in-line 4.5 feet apart and angled about 15 degs. to the floor. A third M50 centered between the two and placed forward 2.5 feet, again angled down about 15 degs., augmented by two more M50s set out beyond the first two and further back in the room for ambience and depth. All mics would be panned as they were in the room - left, right & center with the ambient mics about 6-8dB lower than the others. The genius of this setup is that they devised the perfect surround (5.1) recording technique nearly five decades early."

Tell me again about white-coated technicians drinking tea at Abbey Road.

The Critics Rave The deep thinkers at Rolling Stone loftily opined that it was "an English rock group strangling itself in conceptual goo, and one of the most startlingly saccharine conceptions of 'beauty' and 'mysticism' that any rock group has ever affected". New York Magazine weighed in with "a ponderous mound of thought-jello." Well, gee whiz. They forgot the sneer you send out returns to you. Time has mellowed their harsh, Rolling Stone honoring it with a place in its snooty list of the essential albums of 1967. Fuck them anyway. I don't hear any jello or goo, I hear a sincere and successful attempt to create an original, beautiful, and moving piece of music. Luckily, accusations of pretentiousness never seemed to bother the Moodies overmuch, and they continued on their own path with increasing success, much loved by millions of plain folks, such as je. 

The Loaddown Needledrop of the original stereo mix @320, plus the 2CD 2006 Deluxe Edition with all the bells and whistles. 

This post sposored by Tallulah's Tuna Town, Tullahoma, TN. "Just follow your nose!"

Who's In Mrs. Myra Nussbaum's Tuna Taco? Dept.

Mrs. Myra Nussbaum [right - Ed.] and gal pal "Goldie" Fingerhut, yesterday.
Foam-O-Graph© - "When Good Taste Is Just Not Good Enough!™

Uh-oh! Looks like Myra's Tuna Taco has an unexpected ingredient! Can you tell who it is, subscribers? Why am I asking youse bums? I spend endless minutes finely crafting these wholesome music-adjacent puzzles for your entertainment, and get a whole shitload of meh in return. Go ahead - don't be a come-with 4/5g©! Just sit there on yer thumb waiting to profit from someone else's work and goodwill, if that's the kind of slob which you is!

Recognise Mystery Artiste in Mrs. Nussbaum's moistly pungent open sambwidge? Leave clew or allusive hint in comment! Don't name artiste directly! This is entire point of game - to let your confreres know you know! Not to be the first!

Steve Shark's last winning entry was the quite brilliant Giraffe Carafes, for Long Necked Bottles, the Captain Beefheart tune. I don't expect you to come up with anything as clever as that, because you're not smart like he is, but it shows the kind of thing we're looking for. I'm not stopping this feature due to lack of participation - the beatings will continue until morale improves!

This post brought to you thru loans from Pale, Male n' Stale Bros., Skunkeegee, MO.

Steve Shark Gets Under The Covers With Susanna Hoffs! Dept.

Th' IoF© prides itself on being the first to feature new talent, new discoveries in this business we call "the music"! Today, Steve Shark reveals the results of intensive internet research, often venturing into the Dark Web armed with nothing more that an Indiana Jones hat and a box of Bengal Matches! His discovery? Comely songstress Susanna Hoffs [left - Ed.], a talented lass with that elusive je ne sais quoi [Fr. "fuck knows" - Ed.] that today's Hit Parade demands! Over to you, Steve!

Cover versions! [gasps Steve Shark - Ed.] Some are so like the originals that there seems little point to them, whilst others are so different that they seem almost like new compositions.

When they work, however, they're often a thing of beauty that brings out the inherent qualities and merits of the original, whilst adding a different dimension to it. Johnny Cash's cover of "Hurt" by Nine Inch Nails is a prime example. It was already a great song, but Cash adds a bleak poignancy to it with his very personal interpretation. It's telling that many people think that Cash actually wrote it.

Personally, what I look for in a cover is affection for the song, no matter how the artist chooses to treat it and, if it doesn't work, there's always the original to go back to. Nothing's been lost.

The specific subject of today's screed has its origins in a Green on Red BBQ held in 1984. I have no further details, but I'm a huge fan of the band and I'd bet money that an extremely good time was had by all, with plenty of pills 'n' booze.

Members of Dream Syndicate, The Three O'Clock, Rain Parade and The Bangles [feat. Susanna Hoffs, left - Ed.] were in attendance, and during proceedings the idea of an all star covers band was floated. This resulted in a loose aggregation of Paisley Underground musicians under the name of "Rainy Day" - a nod to the Hendrix song that they later covered - and an album was recorded, with songs by Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield, Big Star, The Velvet Underground, The Who and, of course, Jimi.

Over 20 years later, Susanna Hoffs (honorary IoF© babe) of Rainy Day - and, of course, The Bangles - got together with power popster Matthew Sweet [couldn't find a pitcher of this dude so here's another of La Hoffs, left - Ed.] and cut an album of 15 covers of 1960s songs. This was followed over the next 5 years by a further couple of albums which covered the 1970s and 1980s.

The range of material ranges from The Zombies through Mott the Hoople to The Go Gos, and many, many points in between. The songs are treated with my prerequisite of affection, as well as respect, while not being slavish copies. Above all, everyone sounds as if they really enjoyed themselves!

So, without any flim-flam, 'ows yer father or beating about the bush [steady now - Ed.], here's Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs [left - Ed.] with their "Under the Covers" albums. It's exactly what it sez on the tin - a veritable cornucopia of covers. Hell, even those jolly japesters the Ramones get immortalised here! All in all, 64 - count 'em - slabs of pop and rock goodness. If there's nothing you like here, I'd be surprised.

Cunningly entitled "Completely Under the Covers", this is the complete Sweet and Hoffs 4 CD set, with bonus tracks, complete with suitably poptastic cover art and groovy track descriptions - it's so fucking complete that it hurts! For added value, the Rainy Day album is included.

In response to requests from hundreds [Enis and Burgwyn Hundreds, Chowderhead, KY - Ed.], we've managed to source extra archival material for this piece in the form of photographical data we're pleased to present here in the spirit of musicological rigor. Unfortunately, no pictures of the guy - that guy - him - who contributed to "Under The Covers" was available at the time of going to press.

This post made tangible thru endowments from The Hy Averback Archive Of Forgotten Radio Voices, Boston, MA.

The Tragic Band - "Horrible And Vulgar" But Actually Pretty Damn O.K.

On tour, '74. Reedsman Del Simmons paying his mortgage, left.

"Horrible and vulgar" was how Van Vliet described today's Beefheart Bonanza albums, after he belatedy realised he'd made a critical mis-step that alienated old fans and won him no new ones. But he was prone to this kind of Stalinist revisionism, having disowned the awe-inspiring Strictly Personal [here - Ed.] after first (rightly) approving Bob Krasnow's head-bending production. It may be difficult to believe that the Captain lacked self-confidence, but it's a control freak trait, covered up by blabber n' smoke.

The Magic Band walked out on hearing Unconditionally Guaranteed. That's the story. But hadn't they heard what they were playing in the studio? Weren't they listening to the songs? The album was produced and sweetened after final takes, as Clear Spot had been, but the basic nature of the songs didn't change after the band left the studio. In short, everyone knew what they were doing, and there were ample opportunities to change direction or walk out before the record hit the racks and the shit hit the fans.

Liberated at last from Van Vliet's bullying, abuse and thievery, and free to follow their Zen Art Dude muse, the Magic Band reformed as Mallard, drafting in a supperclub Beefheart soundalike, and cut a couple of pleasant, conventional albums far closer in spirit and sound to Unconditionally Guaranteed than any earlier Beefheart albums. Only not as good. So there's that.

Unconditionally Guaranteed is the Magic Band, with three odd additions: Andy DiMartino, songwriter and producer who played guitar. Mark Marcellino, keyboard player with no other recorded history other than songwriting input (with DiMartino) on a Buckwheat album, and Del Simmons, session flautist/reedsman with fewer session dates than Marcellino. Perhaps they were hanging around the watercooler at Mercury Records. After his band flounced, Beefheart had four days to hire a pick-up band for a European tour. Drummer Ty Grimes had played with Rick Nelson, so he had to be good, but of the others only Michael Smotherman seems to have any track record (that Buckwheat connection again). The live album, cleanly produced by DiMartino, is better than you might expect, or not as bad as you fear. The necessarily simpler arrangements of familiar songs are crowd-pleasing blues and boogie, in some ways a throwback to the Mirror Man sessions [⬅︎ original critical aperçu - Ed.], and only the critics complained that it wasn't the real Magic Band. But tragic? Heroic, more like. What a thankless gig.

EDIT: I'm relistening to the live album and it's not only better than you might expect, but much better than I remembered. Boogies along very nicely, great playing, terrific recording. Included in loaddown.

The follow-up album for Mercury, Blue Jeans And Moonbeams, [cover art by The Mascara Snake - Ed.] was the only Beefheart album my girlfriend liked, so naturally it got sneered at by me and everybody else who saw it as a total artistic betrayal. The critical vitriol spewed on this album is weapons-grade toxic. Some see it as slightly better than the previous album, some as even worse, but everybody thinks it stinks. Except those undiscriminating souls - such as je - who are able to enjoy it for what it is, a nice album, which isn't enough for the furrowed-brow difficult listening crowd. But I'll take the tragic band over the virtuosi who made Doc At The Radar Station and Ice Cream For Crow. Those guys were academically rigorous, awesomely accomplished, but by then Van Vliet had simply run out of tunes. And ideas.

The Secret Passion Of Sister Whiplash Dept.

Foam-O-Graph© - To DALL-E 2 what Webb is to Hubble!

You'll know comely ingenue Rholonne Déodoranté as th' IoF©'s Cosplay Religiousness Consultant Sister Whiplash, but did you know she's also Captain Beefheart's Only Girl Fan?! That's right, subscribers! If you see her with headphones over her snood, she's likely booglarizin' to th' Magic Band!

But which Beefheart song is doing her low yo-yo stuff today? The clews to the title are encypted in the above Foam-O-Graph© [above - Ed.]. I'll repeat that for those of you on drugs: THE ... CLEWS .... TO ... THE ... TITLE ... ARE ... ENCRYPTED ... IN ... THE ... ABOVE ... FOAM-O-GRAPH© [ABOVE - ED.].

If you think you're smart enough to have solved the puzzle [yeah, ri-ight - Ed.], leave a clew in the comments - don't name song directly!

Today's lucky prizewinners will be taking home not only a Limited Edition Legacy IoF© Adult Diaper Pack*, but these two swell long-playing record album L.P.s! Oh boy!

The Dust Blows Forward is a stunning example of how to *cough* curate *cough* a retrospective compilation. A comprehensive career-long overview, it's the perfect introduction for the curious - it's fair to say if you still don't see what the fuss is about after this, you never will, ya schmuck. Even for the obsessive fan (such as je) there's a lot to savor - the best-ever take of Little Scratch, for one. 

Out-takes is its exact opposite - a missed opportunity. Given the profligate richness of material available on bootlegs, the compiler came up with a mean and puzzling grab-bag of bits and pieces, including an inferior take of Little Scratch (compare and contrast) and, astonishingly, no version of Funeral Hill. Nuts and fooey on the conehead who thought this was a swell idea.

* No-Leke™ Adult Diapers (100% recycled, 60% effective) provided by Milty's Intimate Collectibles, Pipetown, WY.

EDIT: Lick My Vocals Off, Baby (which is - and you may be well ahead of me here - the backing tracks for the Decals album, plus fragmentary vocal interjections) is a fabulous addition to the music enthusisast's record library! Yes, dear friends, this swell recording is yours absolutely free - just a dollar! - if you subscribe to our Body Cavity Research Program in a comment (offer valid where state laws permit).

Straight Outta The New York York School Of Abstract Expressionism Dept.

Jon Pousette-Dart's dad was a big noise in New York Abstract Expressionism, and expected him to take up the brush and join the family business. "He'd be flinging paint on a canvas, smearing it about," laughs Jon today, "saying things like, it's money in the bank, son! The saps lap it up! But I always wanted to be a soft rock singer-songwriter. Oh, we'd fight about it. I was too good for abstract expressionism, too proud to get my hands dirty. Yadda yadda. Typical father-son generational disconnect."

But Jon had country-inflected soft rock burning in his blood, and was soon playing in a band called Tony And The Tigers, with Tony and Hunt Sales. "Their dad, T.V.'s Soupy Sales, wanted them to join the family business as television comedians, but like me, they rebelled," laughs Jon today. "As Dylan said, we were the young generation, and we had something to say."

Tony and Hunt went on to play with David Bowie [as Metal Machine - Ed.], while Jon formed The Pousette-Dart Band and recorded a bunch of albums for Capitol, and is today still making swell music under his own name, Jon Pousette-Dartband.

Today's Sarabande O' Soft Rock™ is a scented nosegay of their four albums plus the relatively hard-to-find Archives set, which includes a live disc with Little Feat. But - caveat griftor - exactly who and what Little Feat were at the time is unclear. Don't expect any Lowell George.

This post funded in part by The Peggy Guggenheim Foundation For Fucking Anybody Who Stands Still Long Enough.

The Trampolene Kid Dept.

Doinnnngggggg

Rocklete™! That's right, sports fans - the term Rocklete™ is Nils Lofgren's registered trademark! I wonder why he didn't use Athletician™? Anyways, today's Bumper Fun Blisterpack™ is a veritable smörgåsbörd tsunami o' trampolenin' tuneage!

Here's Nils to tell the story. Nils?

"A high, high hi-di-hi to th' Four Or Five Guys©! Woo-hoo! I'm excited to share these thirty-nine bonus tracks of rare recordings and special demos through the years. They originally appeared on the out of print ten disc Face The Music box set. Featuring unreleased Grin tracks and a bunch of other bouncin' beats! Wheeee! Grin’s version of Keith Don’t Go features an inspired performance by Neil Young on piano and vocals. It rocks! It rocks out! And then it rocks back in again! Also, one of the greatest voices ever, Lou Gramm duets on Some Must Dream and I’ll Arise, for all you little ladies out there! Love ya! Hope you all enjoy these tracks and thank you all for listening all these decades. You, th' Four Or Five Guys©, are the main inspiration for everything you hear, here! Bless you all! YEEEEEEEEE-HAW!"

This post made visible over the event horizon by Arizona, to whom we extend our thanks.

Randy Randomguy's Romper Room O' Randomness Dept.

Foam-O-Graph© - your intelligence has never been so insulted!

Every Wednesday, we open the door into Randy Randomguy's Romper Room™! It looks chaotic, but he's in absolute control.

Randy is pre-installed on your device of choice - for customer convenience he is often called "shuffle". 

Your first five tunes chosen by Randy?

Play Some New! Dept. - Torschlusspanik

If you can remember what you came into the room for, and which pants you got on without looking, you might recall The Fernweh's superswell first album being FoamFeatured® antecedently. It's unlikely. In the veritable smörgasbörd tsunami of deliverables here on th' IoF©, you probably missed it. If you can work up the energy and the interest, go here to marvel at the lost age of zero comments. I knew you'd turn up eventually - and here you are!

Well, the guys have come up with what deep thinkers love to call their sophomore effort. They've lost none of their gift for making fantastic music, but they've retained their skill for bowling shoe ugly sleeves. This [left - Ed.] is my alternative, using an AI text-to-image app. 

It's hard to know where to begin. They get everything right. And they make every other group on the planet sound like they're not trying. There's so much going on in here, at every level, and it's so well executed, so damn smart. "We don't need no procrastinaaaaai ..." they sing on the thumping first track, finishing the word a few beats later - "... shun". Smartasses. And then the epic chorus and the woo-woos, and a gnarly guitar solo, and an unexpected coda (is that a cello?) into the insouciant lope of the second track. If you start listening, the chances are you'll play it right through - they make it easy for you. Melody, variety, lyrical skill, imaginative arrangements using a wide palette of instrumental color, and slyly addictive vocals - this is a proper twelve-song album of great pop music, and you'll maybe even buy it, if you dig it, which would be groovy, wouldn't it?

Included at no extra cost to you, Mr. and Mrs. Freeloading-Grifter of Anytown U.S.A., is the first album you missed [at left - Ed.], both at the low, low bitrate you've come to admire for its bluecollar honesty. Wotta time to be alive!

Torschlusspanik means "bezeichnet umgangssprachlich eine auftretende Angst, etwas zu verpassen."