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| "Whaddya mean we, white man?" |
Robert Margouleff had one of the first Moogs (after Micky Dolenz), to which Malcolm Cecil added a massive bank of other technology, creating the world's largest sound synthesizer, the acronymic TONTO. The wiki page tells the story, and it's well worth your time.
The first thing you may notice about the Tonto albums is how organic they sound. Squelchy burps, jungle bleeps and whistles, flutters and feathery whooshes. This is warm, surprisingly human music, not the chilly interstellar soundscapes of (say) Tangerine Dream. Earth music.
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| Bob [left] and Cecil - that hair! |
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| Gatefold art by psych pioneer Isaac Abrams |
My ten cents: I bought the first album on release, and I was more puzzled by it than blown away. Psychedelia had mostly run its course by '71, and there was an element of pastiche in the name. It didn't sit happily with the Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, or Krautrock. But those were problems created by my point of view, not the music. Better and more original than I thought at the time, it seems today a unique treasure, a brilliant bubble of sound. And a lot of fun.
Oh - ear goggles advisory.
Today's Stealth Link© is the crux of the biscuit. It's the double retrospective Tonto Rides Again - the two albums plus a swell bonus cut.
ReplyDeleteNice! I had "Tonto Rides Again" on cassette, until the player chewed it into a mangled mess, and spit it out.
DeleteYour stealth link is so stealthy that I cannot find it. I would very much like to download this album. I knew Malcolm slightly since he lived near me and would appear as a bass player on rare occasions. By then his hair was white and curly. His bass playing was first class.
Deletehttps://static01.nyt.com/images/2021/04/04/obituaries/Cecil-01/Cecil-01-jumbo.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp
Eric, it's the apostrophe in "today's". The rip is @192, so if that's not what you want you may find it elsewhere.
DeleteBabs? You never have to wait for me to ax.
ReplyDeleteWhat are some of the dumbest lyrics you’ve heard in a song?
Delete"My brain hurt like a warehouse" - art genius David Bowie.
DeleteFrom the brain of Bernie Taupin
Delete“Mars ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids. In fact, it’s cold as Hell. And there’s no one there to raise them if you did.”
So, there’s no one there to raise them if you raised them on Mars...
Never Ever
DeleteAll Saints
"A few questions that I need to know"
No, its the answers to the questions that you need to know not the questions duh.....
Roger Whittacher
DeleteI've got to leave old Durham town,
And the leavings gonna get me down.
When I was a boy, I spent my time,
Sitting on the banks of the river Tyne.
Watching all the ships going down the line, they were leaving,
Leaving, leaving, leaving, leaving me.
I've got to leave old Durham town,
As anyfulekno Durham is on the river Wear not the Tyne
Neil Diamond
DeleteI am… I said
To no one there
And no one heard at all
Not even the chair
"If you're listening to this record right now ..." Dennis Wilson, spoken interlude.
DeleteI'll be the roundabout
DeleteThe words will make you out 'n' out
I spend the day your way
Call it morning driving thru the sound and in and out the valley
Pop Design.
Delete" na koncu vedno sta dve poti, a ti izbereš tisto, ki je ni,"
Babs, I always thought Yes's lyrics were a bit dodgy, so I thought I would look some up to rival yours, but I've had to give up. I might as well print their entire output. To think I used to sing along to that claptrap! (Still do, now and again, but now that I've seen it all written down it could be the end of a long friendship).
DeleteI'd prefer listening to the song Roundabout dodgy lyrics and all, rather that the "Darling you look wonderful tonight" vomit provoking stuff of much pop music. I have no heart.
DeleteSing along everyone -
In and around the lake
Mountains come out of the sky and they stand there
Twenty four before my love and I'll be there
Yeah, I have to agree I'll still be going down at the edge, round by the corner, but not right away, not right away.
DeleteIt's like an old comfort blanket!
DeleteCountry Bill Hicks - Blue Flame;
ReplyDeleteShe's got a blue flame shootin' from her brown eye.......
Scott1669
The Beatles could never handle lyrics. They went from Tin Pan Alley cliché and cornball sentiment to pseudo-poetic-psychedelic gibberish virtually overnight and nobody cared. Hold you in his armchair you can feel his disease? Ri-i-ight.
ReplyDeleteScaramouche! Scaramouche!
ReplyDeleteI dunno. I'm no Queen fan, but the Bohemian Rhapsody lyrics are parodic, rather than stupid.
DeleteKind of like the Beatles' 'Sun King'. Cod Italian.
DeleteAs a teen I loved heavy rock, Deep Purple, AC/DC, the lyrics are mostly awful and dumb. However I can still listen and enjoy if I'm in the mood.
ReplyDeleteI always got the impression that AC/DC knew their lyrics were dumb and dumb on purpose. Very much of the British seaside postcard/Carry On films innuendo genre.
DeleteYup. They're smart-dumb.
DeleteWithout hesitation - Neil Diamond (again) - 'Play Me'.
ReplyDeleteSong she sang to me
Song she brang to me
Hanging is too bloody good for that songwriting crime.
Another contender - Macca's 'Hi Hi Hi'.
ReplyDeleteWell well, take off your face,
Recover from the trip you've been on.
I want to lie on the bed,
Get you ready for my polygon.
I'm gonna do it to you, gonna do it,
Sweet banana, you've never been done.
Yes, I go like a rabbit, gonna grab it,
Gonna do it 'til the night is done.
Hmm...I always thought it was "Get you ready for my body gun", which makes some sort of sense.
DeleteLeave us not forget the recently FoamFeatured™ Jeff Beck:
Delete"Flies are in your pea soup baby
They're wavin' at me" - Hi Ho Silver Lining
I always thought it was 'Hold you in his arms, yeah, you can feel his disease'.
ReplyDeleteBut you're right.
"Yellow matter custard drippin' from a dead dog's eye." Oh dear.
ReplyDeleteThin Lizzy - Jailbreak
ReplyDelete“There’s gonna be a jailbreak, somewhere in this town”
Um, it might be possible to narrow it down a bit - to perhaps the prison ?
Van Halen - Why Can’t This Be Love
ReplyDelete“Only time will tell if we’ll stand the test of time.”
“Because the world is round, it turns me on”
ReplyDeleteAnd after nine days I let the horse run free
ReplyDelete'Cause the desert had turned to sea
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
There was sand and hills and rings
The ocean is a desert with its life underground
And a perfect disguise above
Under the cities lies a heart made of ground
But the humans will give no love
Dear Steve you can check Ulan Bator Trio's "Por el culo me dió un zombie" ("A zombie gave it to me through the ass") for dumbadelic lyrics and thrashy sound.
DeleteDon't thank me, just kill them.
Translation goes like this
A night of mistery in the graveyard
i saw someone bit by bit shaking its dick
(chorus)Up the arse gave it to me -A Zombie
Its rotting hanging member dislodged from the root
I finally escaped with his dick still stuck inside.
(chorus)
And so on.
A good reason to avoid learning spanish.
Cheers
baby .... baby ... baby ... wow ow ow ... baby wow ow ow ow ... {repeat ad infinitum}
ReplyDeleteI've always grooved to Dum Dum Dum Dumby Doo Wah
DeleteI don't mind these purposefully dumb lyrics, the papa-oom-mau-maus - they're great.
DeleteAnd Mickey Dolenz claimed that Frank Zappa invited him to try out for the MOI.
ReplyDeleteI'm a believer:
DeleteMicky Dolenz: "When The Monkees show had gone off of the air, we were still recording a bit, fulfilling some obligations. I lived up in Laurel Canyon, and down the street was my friend, Frank Zappa. He was a fan, had been on our television show. He got The Monkees, understood what we were, and what we weren't. He was a very smart man. He called me up one day, and I remember it so clearly. He asked if I would be the drummer for his band, The Mothers Of Invention [laughs]. I had to pick myself off of the floor. Of course, I was incredibly flattered, like "Oh my God!" But, he said that I'd have to get out of my recording contract with RCA, because his band was going to record. So I called the record company, and basically they said, "Absolutely not. You still have two albums to fulfill." So I told Frank, but there was definitely a part of me that was relieved. I don't know if you know Frank Zappa's music, but boy, I'd have been very challenged."
A very Zappa thing to do.
Zappa picked some players who weren't - on the face of it, at least - an obvious fit for the Mothers/Zappa band. Jim Pons on bass - ex-Turtles - for example. He obviously had the Flo & Eddie connection but he must have had something that Zappa was after. Aynsley Dunbar and Alex Dmochowski are another example. UK bluesers; so another odd choice. Jeff Simmons is yet another. Spotted at a sound check, apparently.
DeleteI guess they just fitted via some criteria that he had for good band members. He must have just seen them and thought, "Yeah, they'd work in the band."
I can't imagine Zappa ever intended for Dolenz to be the only drummer - maybe a side drummer who sang - a good singer.
DeleteAll of "Because" reads like a Hallmark card, or motivational poster. John Denver wrote a better lyric with "sunshine on my shoulders almost always makes me cry" and that's dreadful.
ReplyDelete