Say The Word I'm Thinking Of Dept.

Can you guess what it is, fight fans? Take a hinge at the above gentleman's etching for a clew! That's right - the word is love! Say the word and you'll be free! Say the word and be like me! Reel To Real, here ryclept Real To Reel to avoid confusion, is one of Arthurly's least understood waxings. And possibly least liked. The original cover [below left, probably - Ed.] didn't help - a pinky-whitey babykins in a bubbly-wubble fwoating in a pinky-bwoo sky! With a flying tape reel and the Love logo made out of pink jelly! It's the thing of nightmares.

It's also the only known cover art - or anything - credited to Ron Durr. Help me, Ron Durr! It could not be less representative of the music if it tried. But hey - this is the business we're calling the music, where cover art is welded to the contents forever and nobody gives shit one if it's good or bad or fucking hideous, which it not infrequently is. Well, I care, consarn it. So here's a replacement cover what I did [above - Ed.], and being of above average intelligence you will immediately grok why it's the cover the album's been crying out for all these decades. Real To Reel is unapologetically, in-yer-face, deal-with-it, hold-my-beer black music. Not for wickle pinkie babies. There's Arthurly in the studio showing us white folks just how great it is to be black, and that's not Bryan MacLean behind him getting all sensitive about shit white people get sensitive about. And the hippie logo evolves into something more street level.

The deliverable is a personal selection of tracks recorded for the album that get the funk outta my face, not intended as definitive or deluxe - just very listenable. And not too long.

That track list in full:

Time Is Like A River
Who Are You?
Good Old Fashion Dream
Which Witch Is Which
With A Little Energy
Be Thankful For What You Got
Everybody’s Gotta Live
Do It Yourself
I Gotta Remember
Stop The Music

In a comment down there somewhere, Four Or Five Guy© Torgo (in my mind, the hellspawn of Tor Johnson and Mongo) roughly demands a re-up of one of my most brilliant *re-imaginings* of *iconic* albums, which went enthusiastically unnoticed by youse bums a couple years [four - Ed.] back. It's an alchemical transubstantiation of the *sprawling* Out Here into the non-sprawling single album it shoulda oughta bin. Go here for the full, heartwarming story! And this time round, it comes with a new cover [above - Ed.], which features a real good paintin' by the real fine hartiste what painted the original, the mighty Burt Shonberg. He also did the cover for Spirit Of '76 (he's the "Jack Bond" referred to in the lyrics) and his vision will enrich your meager life. The deliverable is cunningly ryclept In There to avoid contusion with its lesser sibling, which you need never waste time on again. Here, less really is more.

That track list in full:

Soft Side (about 23 mins.)

I Still Wonder

Gather 'Round

Listen To My Song

Love Is More Than Words (Or Nice To Be)

You Are Something

Willow Willow

Run To The Top

Doggone

Hard Side (about 16 mins.)

Stand Out

Instra-Mental (Better Late Than Never)

Everybody Fight About That Spoonful Dept.

Printer's slick, design by Peter Max©

The Lovin' Spoonful broke up because a bunch of reasons, any one of which would have been enough to rain on the parade of pop's most undervalued group. Busted and threatened, Zal Yanovsky and Steve Boone made a deal with the Feds - never a good look - to set up their friends for a narc, and internal musical differences contributed to a chaotic free fall.

Rolling Stone's "John J. Rock" gets the knives out early

John Sebastian was getting tired of being the guy who wrote all the tunes and decided the time was right for a solo career, and the other guys started bellying up against each other in the bar. The 'sixties were drawing to a close without the anticipated dawning of the age of Aquarius - the center cannot hold, man, and everything put together falls apart.

And this is where it gets complicated - a final album, clumsily yclept Revelation:Revolution '69 and credited to *cough* "The Lovin' Spoonful Featuring Joe Butler", limped out late '68 to a universal fooey on this. But it needn't have been this way.

The intended album, 68, smartly credited to the streamlined Spoonful, would have been a different kettle of meat.

Kama Sutra was desperate to wring any revenue out of the band as quickly as possible. Hit machine Bonner & Gordon supplied four songs,  new member Jerry Yester (whose production skills had rescued the previous album Everything Playing from oblivion) co-wrote, arranged, and played, getting in John Stewart and Red Rhodes alongside original band members Zal Yanovsky, Steve Boone, and Joe Butler. The icing on the cake was to be Peter Max©'s cover, intended to appear in a number of color variants like a limited fine art edition. Only one was proofed up [above - Ed.]. A hopeful ad appeared in Billboard [left - Ed.] to give the biz a boner.

What could possibly go wrong?

Loose cannon Yanovsky got canned and/or quit, taking his songs with him for his nose-dive solo album Alive And Well In Argentina. Producer Chip Douglas may have replaced Boone's bass with his own, and the album was already a cake left out in the rain. To fill the hole left by Yanovsky, Butler answered the question "War? What is it good for?" before anyone asked, with the music-free sound collage War Games. Because 1968 was almost last year already, the album was renamed after the album opener, 'Til I Run With You, inspiring a dopey new cover. The possibly power-crazed Butler reclaimed the Lovin' Spoonful brand, renamed the album after one of his two contributions to the album (*cough* co-written with hack tunesmith Bob Finizio Jr.), excised every other musician's credit and photograph, "featured" himself on the front and back cover, and wrote the sleevenotes. Peter Max© got the thankless gig of doing the layout for Alive And Well as recompense.

Questions?

Anyhoo, here's Spoonful's original 68, which if not the lost classic we'd like is a whole lot better than its misbegotten replacement. It's clear the band needed Sebastian more than he needed them (spoiler: not at all). Some swell songs, bitchin' playing - it's a mirror of the fractured times.

This post sponsored by The Frances A. Yates Aluminum Cookware Co., Balbec, WIS.

Thirty Minutes Through The Looking Glass Dept.

Here ya go, pals! When your grandchildren cluster at your slippered feet, gazing up with eyes undimmed by life's bitter travail, and ask "gee Gwampy, what was fychodoolia?" You can play the li'l tykes this, because this is what was.

You will need headphones. You will need a half hour to yourself. While you immerse yourself in the fractal fringe of the fun zone, try to discern the Cheshire Cat on the album cover! And th' Eye of Agamotto! Hoo boy! Some fun, huh, gang?

Th' Pat n' Lolly Vegas Story Part Two Dept. - Part One!

"We're here 'til Thursday! Try the schnitzengruben!"

Sitarswami - for it is he - has *curated* this very special presentation of early Pat n' Lolly Pops not just for you - Mr. and Mrs. Freeloadingbum from Anytown USA, but posterity [Latin ass - Ed.]!

Who are Pat n' Lolly Vegas? Hoo hah? Come back with us in time - back ... BACK! - to May 12th 2023. Yes, it's all a long time ago. You had hair! And teeth! And probably a sexually transmitted disease which should have cleared up by now. Anyway, it's something of a mission here at th' IoF© to give the Vegas Bros the credit they deserve. You don't care. They don't care that you don't care. We care. Sitarswami and me. And Mr. Swami has labored long, traveling kalpas and eons on the astral plane in search of mythic pre-Redbone recordings for this unique and long overdue compilation.

Know what? I'm tempted to not give you the link for this. You don't deserve it, ya bum. But there it is anyway, in the comments.

Sleeve art [above - Ed.]: Concept, creative direction, picture research and rights negotiation: Sitarswami. Font work, grunge tint, joke: Farquhar Throckmorton III.

Cover Story Dept. - The Frantics

One great album: two free fonts, two free images, two free hours work ... asking too much?

So-called archival releases generally get their shrift shorted, even on so-called major labels, by so-called cover art that makes them look like dump-bin bootlegs. Case in point: the recent issue of Birth, an album recorded in 1968 by The Frantics (not to be confused with the Frantics who morphed into The Jefferson Aeroplanes). They came, as the name implies, from the garage rock scene. The Beatles? The Velvet Underground? Nope - the Stones and the Yardbirds were the most influential bands in America - fight me. Hundreds of spotty, gangly teens thought we can do that! and got together in someone's garage [probably Joe's - Ed.], the Frantics among them.

By '68 they were successful enough and together enough to record an album, at Norman Petty's studio. The contractual kicker was, the studio got to keep the tapes until a label bought them. When a label got interested in the band, they wanted new material, so the tapes remained locked in Norm's archives for fifty freaking years.

The point is, and thank you for bearing with me, is that it's a fully-formed rock album from 1968, impeccably produced, brilliantly played, with only echoes of the raw garage-punk years. So what happens to it?

This.

Or this.

And *ulp* ... this.

This last is the most recent, using Petty's pristine master tapes, mono and stereo, for the first time. It's a shocker, the worst cover yet. Would any of these designs be approved in '68, after the band went to all the trouble of recording a state-of-the-art rock album that owed little to '66?

What's the problem with getting A Designer, as opposed to A Dave down at the copy shop, to come up with a cover that might have done the album justice had it been released at the time? Enough with the rhetorical questions awready.

I've been put off listening to the music by the covers, not being the world's greatest fan of raw garage-punk bands. When I eventually got around to it, I was amazed. Yes, it's a product of the times, but that's what I want to hear. It's full-on psych-rock, experimental, varied, occasionally head-widening, tending to the hard rock that by '68 had largely supplanted the shimmer of '67. Think Clear Light on Elektra, or The Litter's Emerge, although right now I enjoy this more than either. It's tighter, for one thing. These guys stick together through some pretty tricky arrangements. And the production is awesomeness - detailed, subtle, powerful, and imaginative. I listened to this album four times straight through, and my attention wasn't lost once. The lyrics rarely rise above the good enough, but that's good enough.

If the music business, what's left of it, put a little more care into the packaging of archival discoveries they would sell more, so yes, this stuff matters.

Vegas In L.A. Dept - The Pat N' Lolly Story!

Oboy! Have we got some swell *content* today! We gots readables, watchables, and listenables, and a bunch of deliverables, all *curated* with you, th' freeloadin' bum, in mind!

In the 'sixties, brothers Pat and Lolly Vegas (Patrick and Candido Vaquez-Vegas) wrote hits (e.g. Niki Hoeky) for big L.A. acts, sessioned for everyone from James Brown to Sonny & Cher, and recorded this here album At The Haunted House [left- Ed.], which is the swellest go-go music you're going to frug to all week! Half their own compositions, half covers of nightclub dance hits. Tough, hi-octane sound with quality vox, and I'm going to shut up here and copy out the liner notes:

❝ The most exotic discotheque in LA (where it all began) is the eerie Haunted House. The hottest new singing team on the West Coast is composed of Pat and LollyVegas. Put them together and what do you have? A great album, for one thing.

Recorded live above the dance floor of the Huanted House, these songs by Pat and Lolly Vegas capture all the excitement of the brand new California “bag.” Combining the soul of rhythm and blues with a go-go beat, this new sound has been an overnight sensation and has helped make the Haunted House into one of the most wildly successful nightspots in the country.

The House, located at Hollywood and Vine, has a most unique appearance. Its entrance is a complete chamber of horrors equipped with life-size wax figures of such infamous creatures as Frankenstein, Dracula, the ghoulish characterizations of Vincent Price, and many other terrors. The figures are so real-looking that Cassius Clay once remarked: “They even scare me. And, man, that means they’ll scare anybody.”

The ingenious bandstand, designed especially for Pat and Lolly’s act, features a monster’s head fashioned into a shell which pushes the sound up and out - making a microphone unnecessary. The actual sound comes through the monster’s nostrils, which blows hot steam which makes the sound even louder.

Because of the great success the House has achieved since its opening, the owner, Mickey Crouch, is planning similar Haunted Houses in London, Las Vegas and New York.

Although Pat and Lolly Vegas have been working together for more than six years, they are still young boys - Pat is 21 and Lolly is 20. Both are very talented musicians and songwriters. Half the numbers on this album are Pat and Lolly originals, and one of their previous creations,”Look At Me,” was made into a great hit by their close friend Doby Gray.

Working hand-in-hand with Doby and other young artists in the Los Angeles area, Pat and Lolly have been responsible for the creation of a new blues-rock sound that has already conquered the West Coast and is starting to make the biggest nationwide smash since the invasion of the Beatles.

So come now, past the hallway of horrors, and into the inner chamber, and listen to the magical talents of these two young men. You will have to agree that although this is their first album, it is not likely to be their last. ❞

1967 - the year of Peak This! The actual sound comes from the monster's nostrils! In the same year, the guys showed up in It's A Bikini World, because of course they did, bottom of the musical bill after The Animals, The Toys, The Castaways, and The Gentrys. This movie classic is deliverable in the comments, in Fuzz-O-Vision™, the only quality available at this time. Imagine you left your glasses at home because you want to impress your date, or you're at a drive-in with a steamed-up windshield, and you'll be okay.

A

 A Golden Age of stupid fun - Pat n" Lolly made title sequence [see banner above - Ed.] but not lobby card

You'd of thunk the bros would be able to retire after this much achievement (already so much greater than thine or mine), but no! On the encouragement of Jimi Hendrix, who admired Lolly's playing, they formed Redbone, released some fucking great albums, and grabbed some global hits! Go bros!

First *eponymous* album was a double - rare for a debut at the time, although it rarely appears in lists of debut doubles. Note distinctive choogle-funk beat, with a little Norlins syncopation sauce, setting groove that carries you through four instrumentals, where they get to stretch out a little. Wah-wah guitar through a Leslie cabinet passes the time like cold beer in the shade.

Completely ignored by Allmusic staffers, sneered at by Christgau. Rated SWELL+ by IoF©.

Second album Potlatch, appearing same year (1970) delivers more of similar, with first Big Hit, the funktacular Maggie. Energy that lit up the Haunted House night after night dialled down half a notch to reflect fickle public's disinterest in frugging and go-go. Disc throbs along nicely - if it was a motorcycle it would be a Harley.

Amazon features my favorite review of all time: "I love it but ordered the wrong one. I wanted Beaded dreams. I will order it as soon as i move. I am moving on the 28th."

Third album Message From A Drum (retitled Witch Queen Of New Orleans outside U.S.A.) from the following year - making four elpee discs in two years - was the one that broke them in Europia.

The band had a long life, inevitably fluid lineups, Greatest Hit Come And Get Your Love in '74, but we're stopping here on account which me typing fingers is atrophied, and I have spooky feeling their best work - i.e. the stuff I like - is done by this point (prove me wrong).

Reviewed by Dudia at rateyourmusic: "Kolejny ciekawy album zespołu Redbone. Mamy tu ślady rdzennego indiańskiego rytmu, a także kilka ciekawych funkowych klimatów."

The wrap: it's hard to understand the relatively low profile of Patrick and Candido Vaquez-Vegas. Impeccable track record as songwriters, session men, performers. Energy in abundance. Helmed a great band and got funkified before it was fashionable - the connection from go-go discotheque to funk - possibly to disco - I bailed here - is logical and beautiful. Top tier early seventies rock. 

Sitarswami Dept. - It’s Enough To Blow Your Mind!

A young Sitarswami, second left, has his mind blown safe at home thru th' miracle of televisual entertainment!

From his mystic lamasery high atop the cloud-girt peaks of fabled Koreatown, Sitarswami transmits his latest Karmic Kompilation across the æther!

Husbands & wives, brothers & sisters, friends & lovers, even fathers & daughters. Sonny & Cher, Steve & Eydie, Nichols & May, April & Nino, Rob & Laura, Frank & Nancy & Lee.  Men & Women, sound & vision, music & comedy, duos everywhere you turned or tuned-in. Paul & Paula, Ned & Nelda, Stiller & Meara, Ian & Sylvia, Bonnie & Clyde, Dolly & Porter & Norma Jean.

Let’s explore the discography of fourteen couples deserving of another listen. Some became famous, others only footnotes, all are worth remembering.

Tony & Terri were Memphis based Tony Rossini and Donna Terry Weiss who released four near perfect 45s. In 1960, 13-year-old Tony came to the attention of Elvis’ guitarist, Scotty Moore, who introduced him to Sam Phillips. Desperate to enter the youth market, Sun Records imagined Tony as the next Ricky Nelson. Despite backing by Scotty, Steve Cropper, Booker T. Jones, and Al Jackson, among others, Tony couldn’t dent the charts. He chanced to meet Donna, an up & coming songwriter whose punky, garage songs had been recorded by local bands The Breakers and Randy & the Radiants. Tony & Terri released one single per year from 1965-1968 while Donna continued to write for other artists. She also became a backup singer for Bob Dylan & Joe Cocker. In 1972 she entered a yearslong writing partnership with Jackie DeShannon. One of their compositions, “Bette Davis Eyes,” later earned a Grammy for Kim Carnes. As part of a local top-40 disc jockey’s appearance in my eighth grade music class, he brought along a large box of radio station promo 45’s and told us to take a few. I walked out with four great finds including Tony & Terri’s magnus opus “Mr. Flower Vendor Man.”

Nino Tempo and April Stevens. Antonino LoTempio, his older sister Caroline, and their parents relocated from Niagara Falls to Los Angeles in the mid-1940’s. As a seven-year-old prodigy, Nino once shared a television stage with Benny Goodman and after moving to LA he appeared uncredited in bit parts in Hollywood films. Beginning in 1950, 21-year-old Caroline, as April Stevens, recorded prolifically before meeting an older man who insisted she quit and set up house. Nino Tempo’s recording career started in the mid-50’s and his film career peaked with a supine, honking, two-minute appearance in the early rock n roll comedy “The Girl Can’t Help It.” Late in the decade Nino wrote, produced and sang backup for a recently liberated April who had resumed her singing career. During this period, he also appeared in films with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. April & Nino finally recorded together in 1961 issuing a couple of teenagers-in-love 45s. Nino moved to NYC and found himself rooming with a young Phil Spector when both served apprenticeships with Leiber & Stoller. At a Bobby Darin session, Nino met Atlantic head Ahmet Ertegun who offered Nino and his sister a contract. Beginning in 1962, April & Nino recorded a string of 1920s and 30s tunes that culminated in “Sweet & Lovely” and “Deep Purple.” The latter recorded as a lark during the last 15 minutes of a session – Nino didn’t know all the lyrics, so April recited them before he sang each phrase. After returning to LA, he ran into Spector who asked Nino for input at his next recording session. Nino soon became Phil’s right-hand man while also singing backup, and playing sax, guitar & piano on his sessions. “Deep Purple” became April & Nino’s only #1, but its success pigeon-holed their act even though their recordings covered a wide range of styles.

Cute n' cuddly Esther n' Abi declined to participate in Sitarswami's piece, citing prior engagements

Larry & Kathy. Born in Kentucky, Larry Barnes moved to Nashville in 1960 to find producer/guitarist Chet Atkins. Chet promptly brought Larry to the attention of fellow Kentuckians, the Everly Brothers. Larry’s first single was released on the Everly’s own label with one side written & produced, pseudonymously, by each of the brothers. Next, he recorded two 45s as Quantrell Raider for Chet at RCA, and in 1965 Smash issued his last solo single (produced by Jerry Kennedy who also co-produced Tony & Terri’s first 45). In 1967 Larry and his sister Kathy, ten years his junior, headed west and recorded two 45s for Gene Autrey’s Challenge Records. Larry continued to perform for a few years, while Kathy went on to record gospel-country-pop sides for Autrey’s Republic Records in the mid-to-late 70’s.

Tony & Siegrid. Before becoming a successful UK producer (see: T. Rex, David Bowie), Tony Visconti, and wife Siegrid, was an aspiring singer-songwriter based in New York City. The pair issued two singles on RCA which sound like songwriting demos in search of an artist. Based not on his singing or writing abilities but on his records’ sound, Tony was hired as an in-house producer by his music publisher. He was sent to London to assist on a Georgie Fame record and scout talent. He managed to place three Tony & Siegrid songs with Danish folk artists Nina & Frederik who were looking to update their sound and image. Baron Frederik van Pallandt first sang with Nina Møller when they were preschoolers.  They reconnected in 1957, married and became a sensation on the European college circuit. After splitting in the early 70’s, Nina became an actress (appearing in three Robert Altman films) while Frederik supposedly engaged in unlawful activities which may have contributed to his mysterious shooting death* in 1994. 

Lee Hazlewood’s story is pretty well known. Discharged from the US military in the mid-1950’s, he settled in Arizona producing and writing for Duane Eddy and others. Success led him to LA and an invitation from Frank Sinatra to produce his daughter, Nancy. Lee wrote & produced all of Nancy’s hits, concurrently forming a personal & professional relationship with Hillary Hokom (later re-christened Suzi Jane Hokom). Lee recorded duets with both Nancy & Suzi Jane while attending to his own, and their solo careers. When Lee formed LHI Records, Suzi Jane served as both artist and producer – her producing credits include the International Submarine Band lp, “Safe at Home.”

Hazlewood also produced Frank & Nancy’s duet which reached #1 in early 1967. The song was written by Van Dyke Parks’ older brother, Carson, who had previously recorded it with his wife Gaile Foote. The Parks brothers and Gaile recorded several albums together as the Greenwood County Singers / Greenwood Singers / Greenwoods before Carson & Gaile released their lone lp.

Spokespersons of their generation Ian n' Sylvia sticking it to The Man!

Too much information is readily available re: Sonny & Cher. To summarize: Sonny Bono began his recording career in 1959 cutting five singles as Don Christy plus one each as Little Tootsie and Prince Carter. He met 16-year-old Cherilyn Sarkisian in 1962 and they married some years later. Sonny told Cher of his admiration for Phil Spector and Cher pushed him to arrange a meeting. Cher’s first single, as Bonnie Jo Mason, was a Beatles novelty song “Ringo, I Love You,” co-written (and possibly produced) by Spector. Sonny became Phil’s gofer and played percussion on sessions while Cher contributed backing vocals. Eventually, Sonny sat in the producer’s booth with Phil, learning his lessons well. All through the 1960’s Sonny & Cher’s singles were sincere Spector recreations.

Smokey & His Sister were Larry Mims and sister Vicki from Cincinnati, Ohio. They moved to NYC in 1966 where Larry got a deal with Columbia Records. They cut two singles and several unreleased tracks for the label (produced by David Rubinson – see: Chambers Brothers, Moby Grape, and the United States of America) before getting dumped. They signed with Warner Brothers who released one single and an album. Obscurity followed, until 2007 when Sundazed issued all of the Columbia material.

Tina & David. David Meltzer was an established jazz guitarist and (beat) poet of note before forming the group Serpent Power with wife Tina and two guys from the Bedouins (who were the first band incarnation of the Grassroots). Like labelmates Country Joe & The Fish, Serpent Power were based in San Francisco and shared that psychedelic guitar sound peculiar to the area. The group disbanded after one record leaving Tina & David to issue a second album for Vanguard. Ex-Animals guitarist, and new Capitol Records A&R man, Vic Briggs recorded an ornate third album, which got shelved when he was dismissed during a regime change at the label. The tapes were first issued in 1998. Unlike the other acts in this series, the Meltzers did not release any 45s.

Jeff Blackburn & Sherry Snow were another SF act. Backed by many local musicians they recorded two singles for Verve, and an album’s worth of demos. All their recordings would be issued in 1999 by Big Beat. When Signe Anderson left Jefferson Airplane in 1966 the band asked Snow to fill the open female vocalist position, but she declined. After the duo dissolved, Sherry became one of Dan Hicks original Hot Licks. Blackburn, meanwhile, resurfaced in the late 70s in The Ducks and with co-member Neil Young co-wrote “My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue).”

 Bikini twins Rholonne n' Sii-Briizz Déodoranté have no current plans to record, but are "keeping their options open"!

Lyme & Cybelle’s Warren Zevon & Violet Santangelo met in high school and scored a contract with White Whale Records, the home of The Turtles. This duo recorded two singles produced by Bones Howe, who also produced The Turtles. A third single was released, but without Zevon’s participation.

Roger & Terrye Tillison’s familial ties were a fiction manufactured by their label’s marketing dept. Terrye Newkirk and Roger Tillison met in Oklahoma and travelled together to LA. In 1966, Newkirk and Tillison, who was deep in the throes of a Dylan fixation, hooked up with fellow Okie, Leon Russell and his studio pal, Snuff Garrett. The two duos recorded only one single, as Gypsy Trips (with another Okie, JJ Cale, on guitar). A second 45, credited solely to Roger, followed. The next year Cale, Russell & Garrett, with Roger & Terrye along for the ride, teamed up for “A Trip Down The Sunset Strip” by The Leathercoated Minds – and that’s Terrye & Roger pictured on the jacket sleeve. Roger released one solo lp for Atco in 1971.


*[from wiki: "According to his first wife's memoir, van Pallandt became involved with an Australian syndicate involved in the trafficking of cannabis, using his yacht the Tiaping to transport the shipments. On 15 May 1994, both he and his Filipina girlfriend Susannah were shot dead in a hut at Puerto Galera in the Philippines. The murderer is believed to have been another member of the syndicate." - Ed.]

This post manifested on the physical plane by Madame Blavatsky's Homemade Ectoplasm™, now in Blintz n' Borscht flavors!

Posh Boy Takes IoF© Criticism To Heart, STFU Dept.

 

In a private email, Robyn Hitchcock writes thusly:

My Dearest Farq

Your recent criticism of one's lyric writing gave one much "food for thought"! At first one "bridled" at having one's genius dragged "across the coals", but subsequent rumination revealed you to be "spot on"! Hélas! One is no lyric writer! The "eccentricity" much vaunted by one's fans is nothing but whimsical trickery to cover up the fact one has nothing to say! This revelation - thanks to you - came with Biblical force, and has led to a complete change of approach! One rushed "headlong" into the studio to record a long-playing record without lyrics! No singing, no words, just the MUSIC coming through one like one was an antelope licking Marmite off a bus seat! WHOOPS! There one goes again!

Anyway, please accept this copy of one's latest recording with the greatest of thanks! Hope you like one's new direction!

Ever thine,

Robyn

(PS Were you my fag at dear old Winkie?)

Bikini Babe Reluctantly Agrees To Clickbait Post About Some Guy She Never Heard Of Dept.

Say, fellows! What is the element common to all Mike Nesmith's albums, from The Wichita Train Whistle Sings, right up to his last, Tropical Campfire's? Yes, I know, he recorded a handful of studio albums after that, but they're listless, uninspired offerings that can safely be moved quietly to one side without troubling his otherwise impeccable œuvre [Fr. egg - Ed.]. Come back with me now - back, back - to the beginning of this paragraph. Do you know or can you guess? I'd hate to think you don't give a shit. Let's take a short break here to gaze at this swell Young Adult Seal Of Approval pitcher [above - Ed.], giving the monobrowed mouthbreathers among us time to think. Or something.

It's a trick question! Ha ha! Joke's on you! Our common element isn't present on Infinite Rider [left - Ed.] our FoamFeatured™ Album Du Jour O' Th' Day. But Red Rhodes, for it is he, is all over Nesmith's catalog like white on rice. Except the ones we slid to one side on account of him not being around any more (cue comment "Hey! Them is my favorite albums! XXXX is underrated!"). On a couple of them, he's the only other musician. Who? Red Rhodes. Do keep up, please.

Apart from the uberswell Infinite Rider (here presented with two swell boners trx what should of been on the album - oboy!), Rhodes was like Nesmith's spirit animal or something. Before hooking up with Nez, he recorded a bunch of gas station rack steel guitar albums, and paid the mortgage with session work. Look it up on wiki, why doncha - what am I? The internet? But it was his long and inspirational partnership with the guy nobody's calling Ol' Woolhat any more that got him known outside of L.A. studios.

Nez signed him up for his liminal Countryside© label for the splendid Velvet Hammer In A Cowboy Band album [left, AF-F® - Ed.], which unsurprisingly sounds exactly like a Nesmith instrymental album, what with him producin' an' supplyin' a tune an' shit. If you missed it last time, around, here it is again. If you gots it already, why not gift this download to a beloved partner or pet?

This post sponsored by Rabbi Ralph's Bikini Barn, Pismo Beach CA.

The Perfect Pop Group Dept.

Imagine, if you can, a world where Richard Dean Anderson suddenly decides he's MacGyver in real life and becomes a problem-solving secret agent risking life and limb on dangerous missions. Or Jane Seymour says, heavens to Betsy, the heck with this, I'm a real doctor! and begins treating people on the set of Doctor Quinn. Or - you get the point.

The genesis of The Monkees, far from making them a show-biz plastic cash cow, is what makes them uniquely authentic. Hired as a bunch of kids to act as pop musicians in a T.V. show [The Monkees - Ed.], they became a real group, performing their own songs, going out live, and selling more records than anybody - least of all their management - expected. All the while making massively popular weekly T.V. shows. Nobody, but nobody, worked harder or showed more commitment.

It wouldn't have happened without Michael Nesmith's dogged, argumentative insistence. Nor would they have made it without Davy Jones' teeny-bopper appeal. Or Micky Dolenz's slapstick energy. Or Peter Tork's ... uh ... Peter Tork? But mostly it wouldn't have happened without a shitstorm tsunami of talent.

Of course they used L.A. session musicians. Everybody did, but only The Monkees got slapped around for it. Not by their millions of fans, and not by the L.A. hipsters and scenemakers, who knew exactly what was happening and gave them credit for it. No, the band's critics were sour, joyless types - resentful guys out of their teens - who assumed their prejudice was authority. Beatles fans, mostly, who believed that The Monkees were nothing but the fakest of fake Fabs. Of course the Beatles were the original inspiration for the T.V. series, and of course a couple or three Monkees songs, out of the hundreds they recorded, sound like Beatles knock-offs. But they overwhelmingly don't. They sound like Monkees songs. The group had its own identity, locked in from the first album, but it was Headquarters that made the statement overt.

The original cover is okay. But not okay enough. It uses a rough crop from one of their countless grinning-for-the-camera shoots. The cover remix [above - Ed.] shows them as the independent individuals they were, with Nesmith not taking any of your shit. The deliverable is, appropriately, the wonderful-sounding 2022 remix, with the essential B-side A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You making up the perfect pop album from the perfect pop group. Want your heartstrings stretched to snapping point? Shades Of Gray. Want bonkers rock n' roll fun? Randy Scouse Git. Want filler? Zilch. Wanna dance? For Pete's Sake, dance!

This post funded in part by Lawyers On The Lam®, a non-profit organisation and IoF© in-joke.

Dr. Quim's Prescription Dept. - Heavy Metal Medicine

More shaggable than Miss Michael Learned, anyway ...

You'll know TV's comely yet capable Dr. Quim, Medicine Woman from the long-running series Little House On Walton's Prairie, but did you know she's a passionate advocate of large doses of Heavy Metal? "Most times," laughs TV's Dr. Quim, "dispensing my signature womanly wisdom is enough to set a pesky cattle baron arights, but if they're resistant to my moral authority I prescribe Black Sabbath's Paranoid album - it induces frenzied air guitar that makes the hornswogglers forget all about diverting the creek from the homesteader's, uh, homesteads."

As ever, the Doctor is right on the money! Paranoid is a sovereign tonic for the human condition. It is, in spite of everything the critics led you to believe, a massively powerful and positive booster vaccine against the blues, and not the bag of Quaaludes you might expect from the lyrics. Let's be clear here: the boys are saying war, and heroin, and whatever, are wrong. They're hippies. Not blood-gargling satanists. The title track is two minutes and forty-eight seconds of raw energy that prefigures punk. Take a hinge at the lads lip-synching it on Belgian TV (ignore the shitty "official" graphics at the beginning):

Paranoid took less time to write than it does to play. Ozzy gives off an authentic Nigel Tufnel charm, backed by various incarnations of Derek Smalls. It is fantastic. It is also very well-played. The entire album is a lesson in stripped-down minimalist attack. It rocks out. Then it rocks back in. Riff after riff, they nail the beat and hit the middle of the note. There are dynamic arrangements, and solos don't outstay their welcome. The tunes are as bone-headedly simple as the lyrics (rhyming "masses" with "masses" is a high point) but anything more complex and we'd land in a swamp of prog, or worse, jazz. Nope, this is perfection, and a metric shitload of fun. If you've ignored it for as long as I did (to my shame), now's your chance to dust off that air guitar ... duhduhduhduh duhduhduhduh DUHder DUH ...