Mission Statement: "To do very little, for very few, for not very long." Disappointing the easily pleased since 1819. Not as good as it used to be from Day One. "History is Bunk" - P.T. Barnum. Eudæmonia, hermeneutics, phenomenology, ontology, chronotope, heteroglossia and mnemetics out th' ass! Artificially Intelligent before it was fashionable. Fat Camp for the Mind! "Nothing lasts, but nothing is lost." Proudly Content-Free since last August!
"A.J. is an agent like me, but for whom or for what no one has been able to discover. It is rumored that he represents a trust of giant insects from another galaxy." W. Burroughs, The Naked Lunch
Well, okay, The Insect Trust - or TIT, acronimically - is named after a line from a Burroughs novel, not a title, but the connexion is valid, so shaddap awready. Dese guys - an' a doll - gots literature out th' ass, like AF-F® Max Field And His Parrishes. They even lifted some woids from out of a Thomas Pynchon book! Me neither.
I don't usually - wupes, typically - copy paste other peoples' screed here, mainly because they don't write as good as me. But the thought of editing web text into something that would make me look as if I know what I'm talking about is just too much for me to cope with right now, and this band is facksinating and deserves fackchewal-type coverage, so here's world-famous Rock Critic Ed [no relation - Ed.] Ward! Take it away, Ed!
"The band was an odd group of people: free jazzers, hippie rockers, old-timey and country-blues musicians. The guitarist, Bill Barth, had been one of the re-discoverers of Skip James, while one of the saxophonists, Robert Palmer, had grown up next door to a black kid named Ferrell Sanders, who went on to call himself Pharoah. Partially, at least, the band’s members started out in Arkansas, where, calling themselves the Primitives, they made a little splash by recording a 45 that was immediately taken off the market because Thomas Pynchon sued them. They’d taken the lyrics from his novel V. without asking permission.
The band, such as it was—Barth, Palmer and vocalist Nancy Jeffries—drifted to Memphis after that and named itself after a sinister group in a William Burroughs novel: The Insect Trust. A baritone saxophonist, Trevor Koehler, joined up, as did Luke Faust [yay! - Ed.], who’d made a name for himself around New York as a banjoist. Despite not having a rhythm section, the band played around town, and somehow got a recording deal with Capitol in 1968. The band’s album featured an odd mandala painted by Faust on its cover, and a bunch of songs that sounded like nothing else.
The Insect Trust got a second chance a year later, thanks to a new manager who got the band signed to ATCO Records. By this time, the band was squatting in an apartment building in Hoboken, N.J., with a commanding view of the New York skyline from its roof. Barth, Jeffries and Palmer got together and wrote the title track, a celebration of their new home. Hoboken Saturday Night was even better than its predecessor. They were stretching out and finding new ground, and recorded the Pynchon song again (“The Eyes of a New York Woman”), this time with permission from its author. Robert Palmer’s recorder solo in that song is his finest moment on record, in my opinion, and Nancy Jeffries gives the words all she’s got.
The band had a bigger budget on this album, too, and among the additional players are bassist Bill Falwell, who'd recorded with Albert Ayler, and one of the greatest drummers of all time, Elvin Jones. The band toured, and I got to see it twice — once at a disastrous concert I promoted at my college. They were even better live than they were on the record, although people still didn't get what they were trying to do. Back in Hoboken, the band quietly fell apart bit by bit. I was able to get Robert Palmer some writing work at Rolling Stone, and he went on to become a star at The New York Times; he wrote a couple of excellent books about music before dying in 1997. Nancy Jeffries got a job at Elektra Records, where she eventually rose to vice-president. Trevor Koehler battled drug abuse and killed himself in 1976, and Barth was living in Amsterdam when a heart attack killed him in 2000. Luke Faust continues to live quietly in Austin. To this day, though, nobody has come close to the heart of American music traveling from the direction The Insect Trust did. I wish someone would try." [lifted without permission from NPR - Ed.]
Thanks, Ed! Luke Faust - crazy name, crazy guy - did the swell artwork for both albums. It's Critical Consensus that the second album is somehow "better", but I'm here to tell you it ain't. They're both equally groovy. Does Ward's description of the band as free jazzers, hippie rockers, old-timey and country-blues musicians ring any bells? These guys were cut from the exact same cloth as the Dead; boho hobo, bop n' blues, Rn'B n' java hut avant-garde. And blessed with the crucial - and entirely lost - ability to have shitloads of fun taking shit seriously. Take a hinge at that incredible band photo [above - Ed.]. These days an identical-looking bunch would be singing meditations on loss or humorless indigenous musics and taking themselves very seriously indeed - wupes - super-seriously. These albums are art, make no mistake, but they're also a great good time. They'll cheer your bad self right up.
TIT yok it up for a publicity shot in bosky Hoboken!
Say, fellows - I haven't been able to find scans of semi-related Insect Trust Gazette [left - Ed.] on-line - can you help a bum out?
Living in exile (the Royal Family of Albania was kicked out by Mussolini in 1939), Crown Prince Leka III has no constitutionally recognized role, and only a minuscule chance of regaining the throne. So how does he spend the time?
King Zog I, in happier times
"I love going to collectors' record fairs in the U.K.! There's something deeply satisfying about competing for finds with a crowd of smelly, ugly, and badly-dressed men in a dismal town hall, preferably in some godfordsaken hole like Bedford, or Reading. One emerges into a rain-soaked street littered with unemployed people and discarded fast food containers, subsumed by an almost savage hunter's pride! Akin perhaps to the primal blood-lust experienced by the Neanderthal as he drags home a pterodactyl for the evening repast! I have to hide my trophies from my wife, alas. Sometimes I put low price bargain stickers on them, so she won't realise I'm blowing what's left of the Royal Albanian coffers on obscure rock vinyl!"
It'll be our secret, Your Highness! Say, fellows! Can you name the two long-playing L.P. 12" vinyl record 33⅓ revolutions albums displayed on Leka III's escritoire? There's a prize of an exclusive Moving Picture Experts Group-1 Audio Layer 3 file for the lucky winner!
The cover [not above, nor anywhere - Ed.] and title are absolutely the worst ever in the entire human history of worst ever. It's not like they were lost for words fercrissakes, they had literacy out th' ass; there are songs here called The Lighthouse Is Falling and The Untransmuted Child. The fault lies, as David explains below, with the label.
The music's in a niche all its own - closest I can think of is Mad River's second, possibly the Papa Nebo album - and you can hear the disparate threads of American music coming together like a gothic web spun by a spider on acid. Band members David Biasotti, Perrin Muir, David McClellan and Randy Groenke were helped out by - take a breath - Chris Darrow, David Lindley, Chester Crill, John Ware, Bernie Leadon, and John London. Wow.
David Biasotti [right - Ed.] and th' band
David Biasotti writes:"Many thanks to my dear friend FT3 for his the kind words concerning myself, and for remembering the Maxfield Parrish album. It's very true that the album title was a bad choice, to put it mildly - imagine me trying to explain it to my grandma, when the family gathered around Mom & Dad's stereo to listen to it for the first time. Imagine explaining it to anybody! The cover art, too, certainly could have been better. We would have preferred a group shot. There were a couple of photo sessions to draw on, both taken by Chris Darrow's sister, including one in that grand old LA central train station, with us & our instrument cases. How much cooler that would have been.
The thing is, the record was recorded in the summer of 1969, and wasn't released until 1972. When we made the record, the first Dillard & Clark and Flying Burrito Brothers albums were fresh. It was a transitional moment in music, and in our innocence we thought ourselves part of that. Happily, the weirdness of our more demanding songs would, I guess, set us apart. Muir and I were fairly distanced from the group concept by the time the record was released; the people that financed the record indulged their own fantasies in the whole thing, from cover art to track listings. But in the end the thing got released, which was kind of a miracle, really. I'm proud of it, zits and all, and I've made friends off the back of it.
We were a college band, and never performed much off-campus. Three of us were undergraduates in Claremont, California, and David McClellan was still in high school. There was a memorable gig at a minimum security men's prison - God knows how that happened (David Muir put it out there in the CD liners that it was a women's prison, but that was a case of him 'embellishing' things.) One of the more prestigious gigs we did was support to John Fahey. He didn't give a fuck about us [or anyone - Ed.], but Chris Darrow was in the audience. That's where we met him for the first time, and things grew from there. The gig I most remember was our very first under the name Maxfield Parrish, at the Smudge Pot, a basement live space at Pomona College. Our first set bombed horribly; we were quite a bit edgier than the kind of folk groups people there were used to. What I remember most vividly is the four of us getting together in the stairwell and working up the spirit to go back out there and slay them. And we actually kind of did. I'm guessing we pulled out some banjo-led crowd pleasers - me and Randy Groenke were always good for those - and the whole band stepped up a notch to deliver some of our own tunes. A stage triumph! Generally speaking, though, people didn't know what to make of us; mixed reactions were the norm."
Sometimes, an artist just hits perfection with the first album, and never gets it quite as right again. Naturally is not only perfect as it stands, from title and cover art to compositions, through performance to production, it was as influential as the Velvet Underground, playable as a deck of cards, and almost kick-started its own genre. Problem was, nobody else could rock the back porch as convincingly as J.J. He made it sound easy, but it wasn't. Like home-made apple pie, there's subtle secrets in the mix. Cale learned electronics in the military, and glossy production skills in the L.A. studio system, and knew exactly what he was doing. It was a strangely aspirational album, opening up a world where less was really, qualitatively, more, not just some airhead fake zen bumpersticker. It made you want to be happy with less out of life. Just an old guitar, a porch and a pooch and a bottle of hooch. And it had songs you wanted to learn to play and sing, in a fake Okie husk. Did someone mention Mark Knopfler? Eric Clapton?
He made a bunch of swell long-playing L.P. elpees, but none had quite the sawdust magic - or the songs - of Naturally. It always hits that sweet spot. Old rockin' chair got me ...
Included as a bonus, because youse bums gots Naturally already, is his "first album", as The Leathercoated Minds. You probably have this as well, also. If you're so hip, upload me some Mel McDaniels Lazy Me.
Leon Redbone's On The Track was one of the great Brothers Warner eccentricities, along with Song Cycle. It sounded like nothing else in '75, and still does. With his Groucho's lost twin style and a miraculous appearance by Joe Venuti, it was a wallow in nostalgia for the golden age of vaudeville he was too young to know. He released a bunch of albums, all worthwhile, but the first says it all, and says it best.
More to come, if I can think of any. The first Television album would definitely count, but we did that awready. Suggestions? Albums by one-album acts don't count!
Myers at his desk, yesterday. "I'm high on my work! But the drugs help. We're all on drugs, hahahaha! The guys behind me? They're not blurred, that's how they are!"
By day, Reed Myers is Senior Sales Representative Officer for S.R.S. Solutions®, a major on-line Sales Representative Solutions consultancy, Boise, I.D. "I guess I'm the luckiest guy in the world!" laughs Reed. "I love my job! My strengths are bringing excellence to customer service through commitment to timely response tailored to customers' needs. My analytical technology skillset is a means to enabling performance breakthroughs, and my people skills include persuasion, adaptability, and Emotional Intelligence. Driving deliverables to market in real-time narrative is my passion! I'm just sooooo happy! All the time! My eyes look like eyebrows! Plus, we all wear pastels, cool grays, or off-white ethical weaves!"
But by night, Myers becomes his alter-ego "The Funkinator", house DJ at the happening Club GenRG in the heart of Boise's hipper-than-hipster Linen District!
"I'm typically last to leave the campus, so I swing by my favorite third-wave artisanal roast shop and grab a shade-grown sustainable java for that pre-gig lift! Then I cycle to the club and typically do some poppers in the toilet before curating the evening's playlist!"
Myers, rockin' the house!
"I use A.I. to program the music to the clientele's demographic," he enthuses. "Driving on-time delivery of excellence in entertainment is my passion!"
One Buck Guy's epic Lowell George comp Blue Plate Special makes a welcome reappearance here, and why no big label ever got off their thumb to deliver this for real is one of life's biggest mysteries. It is probably the best fan-assembled compilation I know, bursting with yeasty goodness, and OBG deserves an adult bookstore reacharound for his due diligence [you first - Ed.]. Lordy, how I love this guy. Not you, OBG - take a step back there, fella.
Rounding out the box set is the bonus disqué Little Feat Covered, featuring forty-one - count -em! - versions of Feat songs by today's beloved stars! I don't know who compiled - wupes, curated - this swell collection, but it's one you'll want to play again and again!
THIS JUST IN! Realised the Factory album qualifies for this post. It's a fantastic piece a work later disowned by snobby band members ashamed of psychedelic roots (a typical stance of bands who suffered Th' Kurse O' Th' Kaftan - search box is yer pal here). It's the real first Little Feat album, L.A. candy-cane madness, and there ain't a duff track on it. I stripped out the xtry trx on the official release, because they're familiar early Feat songs, rather than late Factory, and they're comped elsewhere. This is a album.
These swell long-playing elpee rekkids are the ideal accompaniment to poolside brunch, conversation pit cocktails, or getting rimmed by a Lithuanian crack whore in your project Econoline!
Every couple of years, I screw around with Meddle, probably the "best" Floyd album. Why can't I leave it alone? Because football chants and novelty dog-singing-the blues, that's because. These aberrations are only tolerated through familiarity. The football chants were aded to the mix late in the day, as an in-joke acknowledgement to John Peel, a famous Liverpool fan. Well, okay, lol and all that, but I'd rather have the Gilmour guitar I embedded instead, at great personal expense. Seamus is a b-side. Not a major album track. It's filler. It breaks the mood. So fuck it. In its place you'll find Embryo, which fits so seamlessly [Seamusly? - Ed.], both musically and lyrically, your jaw will literally hit the floor and your dentures bounce across the linoleum like horrible old dice. I did a bunch of other stuff, too. Nuance out th' ass, and it plays as a continuous fifty-minute piece of music, because what weirdo chooses individual tracks to play from Meddle? You do, probably.
You will need headphones and an hour to yourself, and you will emerge strangely refreshed, full of heady optimism for the fate of humankind. I retitled it Echoes, because Meddle was always a shit title, and the 23 refers to this year, duh.
A word of comfort - owning and playing this swell Spatial Addition® will not delete the original album tracks from your collection. You can still listen to the dog and the football crowd if that strings your yo-yo. I don't care.
Note how exquisite cover design [above - Ed.] "echoes" original, and suggests Crystal Voyager, surf movie that used Echoes as soundtrack. The whole deal frankly makes the original look and sound pretty damn shabby, as I'm confident you'll agree.
Note how cover uses movie image from La Vallée [Fr. "The Valley" - Ed.] but you can actually see what it is. A broad in a tree! She's saying, "Please help me! Cannibals ate my pants!" Who could resist?
Pastoral is what it says on the tin. An album of primo Pink pastorality, harvested [oh, very good - Ed.] from the years when they could still make unapologetically gentle and beautiful music. You'll dig it, because it will remind you of happier, more innocent times, when you were young and sappy and stuck little stars on your bedroom ceiling, ya dope.
Note how haunting image [above - Ed.] out-hips Hipgnosis, asks age-old question, what th' actual fuck?
Last up (but by no means least up, as they like to say) is a recent loadup that you probably ignored, because that's the kind of bum you are. Saucerful Of Secrets is always dismissed as transitional by internet reviewers who think we give a shit what they think. All good albums are transitional, building on what went before and preparing the way for the next. I'd call it compromised. Watered down - SWIDT? It was sunny ol' Rog who replaced two perfectly good Ah Syd songs with his own manic depressive Corporal Clegg, one of the worst ever recordings by a major act, a mean, bitter, ugly rant that prefigured a personal interior journey that he forced everyone to follow. Syd's songs are edgier than anything on Piper, but they sound just fine here, balancing Rick Wright's shimmering summery pop and the cosmic spaciness of Saucerful. This is nothing more than a reshuffle, with no special edits, but it is quietly transformational, and you'll want to build a shrine to me in your dwelling-place, bedecked with showy blooms and costly votive offerings in gratitude for restoring this album to its rightful place as first-tier Floyd. Go ahead.
In a private email, Steven Wilson writes thusly: "You are something of a hero to me, Farq. I play these albums endlessly, marvelling at the qualitative improvements you achieve with no professional studio equipment and pirated mp3 files. My work fades into insignificance in comparison - I get paid many hundreds of pounds for nudging the faders to make classic iconic albums sound perceptibly worse, but your work is transformational!"
George n' Ira stand in the 5th Avenue duckpond for a publicity stunt. "Our shoes! They were schmutter!" laughs George today. "But Photoshop back then we didn't have." Brother Ira adds wistfully, "at least it was real. Kids today, with the yo-yo and the hula-hoop? Oy - don't get me started!"
Yeah, the 'sixties were groovy an' all, but if you want popular song at its apogee [blow it out yer ass - Ed.] you have to back up a little, to the 'twenties! No - wait - we backed up too far already. The 'thirties was when songwriting pulled itself out of the novelty market and became an art form as legit as any other. Not only was it art of a very high order, it was also popular, enjoyable, and anti-elitist. Before rock, and indeed roll, put an end to sophistication, the streets of Manhattan were shrill with Ordinary Joes whistlin' the latest swell tune!
George and Ira Gershwin need no introduction. So that saves me copy-pasting internet screed pretending like I know their story. The only salient fact worth repeating here is that George died at thirty-nine. Or maybe thirty-eight, I can't remember. But anyway - gee whiz, right? He wrote all that in the space of a couple of U2 albums?!?! Gee whiz. Kinda puts my own so-called achievements into some kind of shabby perspective. Yours too, ya bum. Anyway, while he was penning those fantastic songs, with brother Ira rattling out the lyrics on th' old Imperial in his underwear, he had a swell life. Great suits - he was the snappiest of dressers - dames throwing themselves around his neck, imported Champagne, and fresh toilet roll with the end folded into a point every day.
A recent post at the Hoofman board asking "When did music stop being a social activity?" drew some interesting responses, some predictable, but some thoughtful and considerate, among them the definitive answer, it didn't. Social media, and the brain implants we still call "phones" have shifted the context, but The Young People Of Today still have music at the core of social activity. A linked video supported this:
You can follow the internet trail to similar events, all showing thousands of TYPOTs having a fantastic time being sociable. The Hoofman commenter makes the point that these events started at a much smaller scale, with TYPOTs making discoveries on their phone and sharing links and files with their besties. Then getting together at clubs or raves or whatever to see their discoveries live, and ultimately joining the crowds at EnormoTent gigs like the one above by Hardwell (me neither).
So - all fine and good, right? We-ell ...
This Hardwell performance was from last year. It is contemporary music. Yet "this sort of" music - insert genre subset here - was around in embryonic form in the 'seventies, and fully developed in the 'eighties. It's decades old. A fan could claim to hear a world of difference, saying how the music's evolved out of all recognition, tracing its history through those much-loved genre subsets ("Big Room", anyone?), but that would just be nit-pickery. It's older than the audience, dude! Cooling to my theme; the many clips of similar events I watched on YouTube - d0 ur oWn rESerCh - have characteristics in common other than anonymous unoriginality.
The performers stand behind banks of computers, visible from the waist up. They dress like rando backpack phone-strokers, black tees, short hair or bald, geek glasses. Nothing new or even vaguely interesting here - there's no style like lack of style, right? "Performance" is limited to occasionally raising the arms to get the audience clapping along, like a singalong at an old folks' home. The music magically continues as they lift their hands from the computers. Sometimes they chat to each other on-stage, digging it. You'll see as much animation - and way more personality - from your local barkeep.
2, or B: Zero dynamics. Slight changes in b.p.m. are not dynamics. There's a shift between beat-less intervals, cleverly manipulated to set up the Pavlovian release into beats, but that's it. There's nothing inherently wrong in simple music, but this argues otherwise. It's musical bipolarity - GO CRAZY NOW!! BLISS OUT NOW!! Rinse and repeat.
TYPOT would also reasonably point out that "this sort of" music is just one color in the infinite spectrum of contemporary musical expression, and it's unfair to use it as representative. I'm not. I'm singling it out because an informed TYPOT himself - wupes, theyself - chose it to demonstrate contemporary music as social activity. I am saying the hell with it, though.
At the other end of the scale, our commenter might have chosen this:
I'm happy that Mama's Broke are making music, even if they do seem goddamn miserable about it, but familiarity isn't making this, or any of the innumerable similar acts of identical ability, stand out as anything special. I'm not looking for anything radically new from an age-old musical context, but I am looking for something special, an individual talent that lifts itself above competence into some kind of cultural significance. Too much to ask? Just one song I want to learn the chords to, fercrissake. How hard can it be?
Okay - here's some diversity, to demonstrate my inclusivity. Sabrina Bellaouel, like, ten minutes ago:
A Bandcamp review limns the new album thusly:
"The album arrives as a culmination of a decade’s worth of hustle and learning that saw [note music crit use of verb "to see" - Ed.] the French-Algerian singer, songwriter, and producer cut her teeth in the Parisian hip-hop scene. Early collaborations with acts like The Hopp and Jazzy Bazz [me neither - Ed.] showed Bellaouel the codes and discipline of self-made artistry, while foundational records by R&B vanguardists Jill Scott, Kelela, and Sevdaliza [me neeza - Ed.] taught her to push her craft beyond genre limits. Extraordinarily candid, Bellaouel ... "
Etcetera. It's a long review. The text accompanying pop releases has become as important as the product it accompanies, following the form of contemporary "fine art", where a gallery show is absolutely nothing without the catalog essays. Apparently, we need to understand the context before we can appreciate the content, and then we can just shut the fuck up. Key signifiers here are French-Algerian, Parisian hip-hop, and, elsewhere in the review, pandemic, echoing qanun harmonies, blasts of dayereh. Gotcha. We're in! She's a Muslim woman of color with a great resumé, so how can this be anything less than significant?
The clip is okay. Perfectly professional, to real R&B what Nescafé is to real coffee. It ticks the boxes, does what it says on the tin. Does it merit the Bandcamp eulogy? Of course it doesn't. It's competent genre product, bland, anodyne, and, without the video, completely anonymous. Artificially intelligent, created from prompts. The question isn't so much will anyone be listening to it in fifty years, than will anyone remember it in fifty weeks. Question mark unnecessary.
So, to sum up ... nah. Fuck it. Let's dig the Buffies lip-synching For What It's Worth.
There's something happening here - what it is ain't exactly clear. I think it's time we stop, children - what's that sound? Everybody look what's goin' down.
Our first Legacy Box Set is Pop-Psych, UK Style! Here's what you get:
Chasing Rainbows - Nirvana
"Maybe if we'd released this I'd still be alive!" - Kurt Cobain
Replaces everything in their catalog except Simon Simopath. No filler! Included at no extra cost is the full, twelve track edition of Simon Simopath, unavailable in stores! You can safely trash everything else in your collection by this enigmatic and inconsistent Swingin' London duo!
Petals - The Hollies
"Hey! Allan! Fuck you!" - Graham Nash
Instead of making this, they made the shit Hollies Sing Dylan in a shit sleeve, and suffered the consequences. Dumbasses. Graham Nash had clearly been listening to the Beach Boys' Friends, and the amazing King Midas In Reverse finds a home at last.
High As A Kite Over Maryon Park - The Small Faces
"Hahaha-aaargh ... hualp!" - Steve Marriott
Twelve cute n' sparkly cuts of pure Carnaby Street blotter acid. What you always wanted from the Smalls but never got. Until now. Blow Up fans will recognise title reference.
Liquid Sunshine Donovan - Donovan
"Just don't mention the Stromberg Twins" - Donovan
A glowing harvest of his psychiest songs, carefully omitting your favorites. This is everything the miserly little goblin ever did that I want to hear again, but your mileage will differ. Note hidden drug reference in title.
Aloha - The Beatles
"The best album we never made" - Paul McCartney
It is universally agreed - at least in my house - that the Beatles went to shit after Sgt. Pepper, losing the plot and their grasp on contemporary culture. Here's what they should have been doing in '68, a year lost to vanity projects, record label marketing initiatives, and bickering. And heroin.
All the songs [see back cover, left - Ed.] were recorded between Pepper and The Gray Album, and none was released on a Beatle-created album. Aloha sounds exactly like what it is - the Great Lost Beatles Album, and why the idea hasn't occurred to anybody else is a magical mystery to me. Imagine this in the racks of your friendly local record store - would you clasp it to your hollow bosom with a glad cry? Of course you would. Better than Pepper? Better songs and bursting with hits, so yeah.
Omen & Illiad - The Zombies
"Didn't we just do this one?" - Ken Massive
This is here by mistake. So you get two copies awready - quit yer gripin' n' whinin' n' eat yer goddamn peas.
Box Set Numero Deux, for your listening pleasure:
The Charlatans aborted first album on Kama Sutra - nine tracks is all we have from the original sessions. The cover is a rare original "printer's slick", never used. A damn shame!
Buffalo Springfield's first - a wonderful album, bafflingly underappreciated, in the cover it deserves. Mono/stereo versions, thirteen tracks, essential.
The Byrds Captain America - the original title for the Ballad Of Easy Rider album. "Complete" thirty track edition.
Grateful Dead, pre-first album. Sounds like a great record to me. The famous Herb Greene photograph married to contemporary Bridget Riley Op Art, with a little added distortion.
Kaleidoscope - all fourteen (!) of their non-album studio tracks collected for your listening convenience! Ultra-swell.
The Chocolate Watch Band album purists will hate - these are the impeccably produced Ed Cobb tracks, using session musicians. Groovy!
Further Spatial Addition® Gift Sets to be added right here, to this post, if I get my shit together.
RW Thank you, Farq. One dresses more formally these days, as behooves a winner of the prestigious Nobel's Peace Prize, which a little bird has told me I will almost certainly receive this year!
FT3 Kudos! But tell us about Dark Side Of The Moon! [left - Ed.] I understand you wrote everything and played every note!
RW [laughs] Not quite true, Farq! I did employ a team of studio musicians to play exactly according to my instructions. For me, team work is a group of people doing what I tell them. And being grateful.
FT3 Perhaps we could discuss the album track by track? Let's kick off with the opener, Back To The Wall, which prefigures your iconic solo album The Wall.
RW It is? It does? [phone alert: screaming orphans eaten by hyenas] Excuse me, I must get this ... hmm ... another resentful, bitter, envious tweet from the elderly wife of some has-been who wants to join my band. Dream on, Davey-boy!
FT3 The second song, In Your Eyes, is another stripped-back production featuring some great bass playing-
RW [cutting in] Why, thank you.
FT3 -from Keith Relf.
RW [snatches album cover] Where did you get this?
FT3 On an internet. I thought ...
RW [taps irritably at phone] I. Am. Calling. My. Lawyer. Gilmour's behind this. I'm going to sue that thieving fucker for everything he has. Hello? Yes, this is Roger Waters. Put me through to ... what? Waters. W ... a ... t ...
There have been a few attempts to create a companion album to the Zombies' Odessey & Oracle, including the official Into The Afterlife, but they don't get spun much on th' Isle O' Foam™, mainly for the K4 reasons: (lack of) Kohesiveness, Koncision, and Kwality Kontrol. I've been tinkering with - wupes, *curating* - this collection for what seems like years. I finally drove myself to complete it by coming up with a title, which is damn clever *shit-eating grin*, and this here cover design [above - Ed.], which I'm confident you'll agree is the most beautiful sleeve design, like, ever. But enough of your praise.
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