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.
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)
Oh, man o Manischewitz, dear Farq, your link yesterday had me spending 10 bucks on a book. Now this. Rock on Farquhar 451 ... hey ... the man is on fire.
ReplyDeleteTruer than you know - I bin battling a fever for the last couple days.
DeleteBabs: Just how big is your music room??
ReplyDeleteThe two albums:
ReplyDeletehttps://workupload.com/file/R7b3rFxFqHU
(If you dl'd earlier - trash that!)
I care about cover art too. I avoided listening to Pet Sounds until this century, because of the awful cover.
ReplyDelete"Hellspawn of Tor Johnson and Mongo" is pretty close.
ReplyDeleteTorgo was played by an otherwise unknown El Paso area actor named John Reynolds. The character was a slow-moving satyr. Reynolds committed suicide the month before the film (Manos, The Hands Of Fate) made its theatrical debut.
The film had gone down in a blaze of obscurity until it was used as the season 4 finale of Mystery Science Theater 3000. That MST3k episode also shared a short feature with the previous episode - Bride Of The Monster, an Ed Wood epic which featured Bela Lugosi and... Tor Johnson.
The story behind the making of Manos is interesting, and other than the tragic loss of Reynolds, highly amusing. Basically, the writer/producer/director/lead actor was a fertilizer salesman who was active in the El Paso community theater scene. He had met a well known screenwriter, and he claimed one night that horror movies were not difficult to make and bet this screenwriter that he could make a commercially viable horror movie on his own - and immediately began outlining his magnum opus on a napkin.
He pulled the cast from the El Paso theater groups and a local modeling agency. It was filmed with rented equipment on the ranch of someone he knew, mostly at night and on weekends as the cast members had day jobs.
The cast was offered a portion of profits in lieu of salary. In the end, the only cast member who was paid at all was the little girl who played the daughter of the main couple. She got a bicycle for being in the movie. She reportedly cried at the premiere because her voice was overdubbed. (In fact all dialogue in the movie was overdubbed by design, rather than going to the expense of renting microphones and recording equipment while filming. For whatever reason, they still used a clapboard while filming though.)
It is widely listed as one of the worst movies ever made, typically coming in at #2 behind Plan 9 From Outer Space - Ed Wood's follow-up to Bride Of The Monster which also features Tor Johnson.
I'll take "Manos: The Hands of Fate", "Bride Of The Monster", and "Plan 9 From Outer Space" over a Tom Hanks "vehicle" any day.
DeleteTom Hanks is a genuine Good Guy. But there's something about the *worthiness* of his performances that leaves me at a distance. I feel the same way about (*gasps of horror*) Jimmy Stewart. Gee whiz.
DeleteCouldn't agree more.
Delete"Blaze of obscurity" is very good.
DeleteI really must give these an audition. Apparently like Spirit, Love (prosaic name or what?) was a long-running West Coast act seemingly too bolshy or disorganised to sit up, beg or roll over on command, and thus deprived of the carefully-curated legacy associated with their higher-flying Hall-inductee contemporaries.
ReplyDelete'Forever Changes' is the best starting point.
DeleteIt's also a perfectly acceptable finishing point, unless you want to include the song side of Da Capo. Arthurly is always interesting, passionate, intense, but he never got the magic back. Neither did anyone else. Prof Stoned has the go-to mix.
DeleteI still like My Little Red Book from the Love Does Bacharach album.
ReplyDelete