Sunday, May 14, 2023

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 Emergealthough 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.




24 comments:

  1. It's at newalbumreleases (dot net).

    Good research here:
    https://psychedelicized.com/playlist/f/the-frantics/

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  2. It's also NOT The Frantics that became The Moby Grape
    https://www.discogs.com/artist/450525-The-Frantics
    But I'll give it a try. Thanks.

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  3. For lazy-ass bums such as I happy with @shitrate:
    https://workupload.com/file/85NKaQBBJ5N

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  4. As one of the freeloading bums who gather at Th' Isle O'Foam©, can I say "we are not worthy", your new cover is surely "fab gear", as I'd like to think a hip person may have said in '68.
    I look forward to giving this a spin later, thanks.

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  5. Thanks Farq!! being a LAZY ass freeloading bum I kin downloads it from 'ere, without movin"!!

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  6. Much obliged to you, thanks.

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  7. Thank you for the write up and bitchin' cover art -- definitely sounds like a winner that's right up my proverbial alley but I take umbrage at the derogatory, demeaning and reductive use of "A Dave". We Daves have feeling too ya know and while most of us are indeed incompetent nincompoops some of the Daves out there have skillz and stuff.

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    Replies
    1. There's a world of difference between A Dave and MrDave.

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    2. "Louise who?" asked Babs awaiting the punchline.

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    3. Louise Blake. She's probably in the kitchen. (*somebody* has to get this!)

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    4. Kitchen = Bake
      Blake - L = Bake
      Louise - L = ouise
      ouisse = first-person singular imperfect subjunctive of ouïr
      ouïr = present active infinitive of audiō (“I hear, listen”)
      "I wonder if I hear is here" -- hahahaha I get it!

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    5. It's a reference to a song on an (excellent) album, incorporating "real" dialog in a "is Dave here?"/Firesign way.

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    6. That Louise Wong’s got a balcony you can do Shakespeare from!

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    7. I think Mr Dave just won Dusty Bin.

      (Pick the bones out of that reference!)

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    8. either that or a Boot To The Head from Mrs. Sarnicky.

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  8. i thought this was gonna be the canadian comedy troup.

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    1. They are to comedy what the National Film Board of Canadia is to cartoons.

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    2. there was always something funny about their funny. the thing i never liked was the songs.
      the national film board of canada was ahead of its' time. depressing cartoons and animation are in. funny cartoons are to be frowned upon, or at.

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  9. see you went to cover art before we went into the music......they certainly are competent, but there is just something in the song making, that makes them sort of go Amboy Dukes/JeffAplane morph with every big solo finale ending. So as Bryan Ferry said in his greatest moment: "too much cheesecake to soon"

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    Replies
    1. There's nothing exceptional about the material, lyrically or musically. There are no Classic Rock songs here, no original lyrics. It's just an extremely well-made and entertaining album that does your ears good, and which would have merited a bit of proper artwork back in the day. Also, I'm not hearing "every big solo finale ending" at all. One of the things I admire about the album is its variety, not only in the pacing of the album but within individual songs. It's a fine Second Tier album, like hundreds here on th' IoF©, and leaves contemporary releases in the dust. Nobody plays or sounds like this any more, whether you think that's a good or bad thing.

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  10. I'm a bit late for the psychedelic Wonderland party, but I wanted to make sure you saw this, Farq... that cross-fade from One Truth into Chimacun Rain followed by the seamless transition to Cloud Song was fantastic. Seriously impressive work there.

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