Wednesday, November 20, 2024

It's A Beautiful, Beautiful Day

It sure is.

For anyone outside San Francisco, It's A Beautiful Day created their unforgettable impact with the cover of their first album. Unashamedly nostalgic, and not at all psychedelic, it crystalised the feelings and the hopes of the late 'sixties. Music impressario and thieving son-of-a-bitch Matthew Katz came up with the name. He would drag the group (and Moby Grape, and Jefferson Airplane) through the courts for decades, trying to wring every last cent out of claimed rights and preventing re-releases. He died last year, too late. So forget him this way, with It's A Beautiful Day.

George Hunter (The Charlatans founder) designed the cover, and the painting is by Kent Hollister, based on - well, okay, copying - Charles Courtney Curran's Woman On The Top Of A Mountain [left - Ed.]. Looks to me like he painted directly over a print, extending the sky. His slightly coarser brushwork and more saturated palette improves on the chocolate box insipidity of the original. The hand-drawn typography is adapted from period advertising, and the use of the old Columbia logo was a deliberately nostalgic touch. Hunter and Hollister also created the cover for Quicksilver's Happy Trails.

So before we even get to listen to the music, we have all these disparate influences coming together in unlikely synchronicity to produce a work of art that transcends its sources to become genuinely iconic. How could the music live up to that promise?

It does. And at the heart of it is David LaFlamme, who died just weeks before his nemesis Katz, and died as he lived; loved. He formed IABD in the summer of '67 (when else?) with his wife Linda, after an apprenticeship gigging with Garcia, Joplin, and the strange Orkustra [here - Ed.]. After a go-nowhere first single, Love For You, Katz abducted them to Seattle, to "polish their act" at his low rent concert hall. It was midwinter, a universe away from the Summer of Love, and Katz held the band virtual prisoners in a freezing attic. LaFlamme, as ever, accentuated the positive:

"Where the White Bird thing came from - we were like caged birds in that attic. We had no money, no transportation, the weather was miserable. We were just barely getting by on a very small food allowance provided to us. It was quite an experience, but it was very creative in a way ..."

White bird must fly, she will die ... That yearning for freedom would perhaps never have been expressed so soulfully were it not for Katz's grifting. So we have him to thank, perversely, for their signature song. On their return to San Francisco, the band built a fervent following in live performance, the name becoming a regular feature on the psychedelic posters of the era. Rock violinists were then as now thin on the ground (and the ground is pretty arid these days), but LaFlamme also had the compositional chops to go with the virtuosity. Katz finagled them a Columbia recording contract weighted heavily in his favor, and White Bird made its first appearance on record. LaFlamme wrote, and co-wrote with wife Linda, all the songs on the album, and his classical/zigeuner melodic gift is everywhere.

White Bird was a hit single on the West Coast, and the album did well, keeping Columbia happy. Marrying Maiden did even better, although the atmosphere of the first was lost. The last track is a heartbreaking elegy to a summer already passed into myth:

Do you remember the sun? He remembers you.

You can forget what you came into the room for, but don't forget this. It's a beautiful, beautiful day.

 

 

THIS JUST IN!


 

One Buck Guy kindly donates a hen's teeth recording of IABD demo'ing four tunes at the Avalon Ballroom in 1968. Impeccably recorded, there are three songs from the first album, including a stretched Bulgaria, and the rare Countryside. I've crayoned up a sleeve [above - Ed.] and the mini-album - thirty three precious minutes - is available in the comments.

 

 

 

 

 




63 comments:

  1. This IoF© Spatial Addition of the first album opens with the first single, Love For You, and closes with the mono single edit of White Bird. Hotcha!

    https://workupload.com/file/Qc9NURmDM3r

    ReplyDelete
  2. helluva a parting gift; don't stay away too long--I had, I confess, forgotten what a gift this place was, you and your merry minions. Much obliged.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Stephen Gaskin gets named checked as spiritual advisor on the back. What a hoot. David L. had a huge crack problem there for a while and gave it up for meth. Last I saw him he was merrily puffing away in Malibu ... November 2013. I missed the Beatles songs I should never have to hear again, so that means they worked. Thanks, Farq, for clearing that commercial dreck from my ears and consciousness.

    ReplyDelete
  4. There needs to be a special corner of hell for people like Katz . . . and Zaentz . . . and Klein . . .
    Maybe Celine Dion on repeat for eternity.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The arts have always attracted artless vampires, and the music biz has more than its fair share.
      Info on Zaentz/Fogerty: https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Saul_Zaentz

      Delete
  5. I've got an old LP but no working turntable so it will be great to hear this again. And with 2 bonus tracks!! Many thanks.

    Brian

    ReplyDelete
  6. As I’m sure is well known here, Deep Purple blatantly copied the intro to Bombay Calling, on their song Child In Time from the In Rock Album.

    Hopefully see you soon Farq.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ... and LaFlamme responded - brilliantly - by nicking Deep Purple's Wring That Neck for their second album, and retitling it Don And Dewey. That's how this sort of thing should be handled!

      I'll always be around, Bambi, responding to requests and comments and keeping the lava lamp lit on th' IoF© for as long as I can. Just not making any new posts for the foreseeable.

      Delete
    2. I didn't know that about Wring That Neck, ha! wonderful.

      Delete
    3. Deep Purple's Wring That Neck is a note for note copy of Don & Dewey's Stretchin' Out.

      Delete
    4. Don and Dewey, 1959:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-mTjjDeyYU

      Deep Purple, 1968
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iI41w6EqQk

      It's A Beautiful Day, 1970
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoz4aNwIB5w

      So in a sense LaFlamme stole it back, and even called it by the names of the original performers in tribute, but he claimed the writing/publishing credit, which seems odd. Katz may have been "instrumental" in not crediting Don and Dewey, as he wouldn't have scraped off his percentage.

      Delete
    5. Don was Sugarcane Harris - he played with Zappa for a while. (Dewey was Dewey Terry, pretty obscure). Their Specialty records are pretty good - wild - "Justine" , soulful - "Leavin it up to You"
      Goin to the barber shop
      Gonna have a do-me-up
      Gotta get clean for my little buttercup
      usw

      Delete
  7. Thank you, Farq. The first IABD LP is just about the most perfect rock album there could be.

    ReplyDelete
  8. LaFlamme also survived an early stint with Dan Hicks.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I remember him playing a restaurant violinist on Seinfeld (I think), but I can't find a clip.

      Delete
    2. I remember that (I think). And his time with Dan Hicks. Gotta luv a fiddle player. They come from another galaxy!

      Delete
  9. a reputable source--an actual Lickette, as they were once known--suggested no one entirely survived a stint with Dan Hicks.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Here's Marrying Maiden, Choice Quality Stuff/Anytime, Live At Carnegie Hall, and the 2013 copyright claim album Beyond Dreams. Usual opinions apply. Not included: Today, which is an IABD album in the sense that Feedback is a Spirit album. And not overdue for critical reassessment.

    https://workupload.com/file/gux2GzksMcN

    ReplyDelete
  11. I remember the original LP as very hard to find. Was told you had to buy it as as an import-- about twice what a regular album cost at the time. Had to borrow a copy & tape it...Too poor/cheap at the time.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I bought it off a pal a year or so after release in the UK. It became a high-priced collector's item, as you say, which is pretty odd for a major label album. I remember seeing it on the wall at COB Records and being surprised at the price (which I can't remember). I found a nice import copy (with that old logo on the cover) later, in some junk shop. I use to spend all my lunch hours going on a circuit of junk shops. Albums for a quid or less.

      Delete
  12. "White Bird" was a genuine hit here in the Bay Area, hitting #3 on KYA (ten weeks) and #5 on KFRC (six weeks), plus NorCal airplay in Sacramento and Fresno down the valley.

    In 1985, Linda LaFlamme was my downstairs neighbor in an Oakland building. Nice woman, had a teenage daughter. I had noticed her name on the mail left on the table by the door, and asked her if "she was THE Linda LaFlamme." Her eyes thanked me for doing this in front of her offspring. She passed away last month. I recall she drove a Volkswagen bus decorated with pine tree branches with pinecones on them.

    Thanks for this edition; I've been looking for the mono edit of this for a couple of years.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Thanx as ever, Farq!! Looking forward to your return!! It's bin emotional!!! 555!!

    ReplyDelete
  14. How can I come back when I ain't goin' nowhere?
    I'll spend a few minutes here every day, seeing if there are any comments or whatever, but mainly to yok it up at me own gags.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. hopefully you'll sleep better than Genghis Khan did...

      Delete
  15. Oboy. Check this out - the storming 1970 lineup at Tanglewood, with the smoking hot Patti Santos:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-Gv83I_v_Q

    ReplyDelete
  16. How can we miss you, if you won't leave?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YrNQaXdOxU&t=5s

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUiFYWd6xNs

      Delete
  17. Here's a bunch of live IABD, quality inevitably variable, from '68 to '78.

    https://workupload.com/file/WTcEPtVPWkG

    ReplyDelete
  18. White Bird was a huge radio hit in Boston and should be much better known today than it is.
    Have a good hiatus, Farq.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Have a day.

    https://youtu.be/JjyFwbSNh4o?si=BB19G88grc89xHuM

    Cheers

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ooff. That seemed like Thirty Minutes, not four. But the repetition of OH NO is an obvious clue for you all: Yoko Ono. Her father Eisuke Ono was a wealthy banker and head of the Japanese Illuminati. Grandfather Zenjiro Yasuda was an affiliate of the Yasuda clan and zaibatsu, from a long line of samurai warrior-scholars. Eisuke was brought to the USA through CIA's Operation Paperclip and instrumental in embedding his daughter into the radical avant-garde scene. Both father and daughter (then in her thirties) are briefly visible in the Zapruder film.

      Delete
    2. for whom the Japanese belle knolls

      Delete
    3. ... don't get me started on who actually owns the Dakota building and the real significance of "Apt. 7A". Oh, too late! The Dakota was built by Edward Cabot Clarke, a Freemason on the government board responsible for founding the US Secret Service. During WW2 a suite was made available to the CIA as NY HQ for the MKULTRA program. The suite was numbered "Apt. 7A" which bore no relation to the numbered plan of the building but stood for Administration for Psychological Training and was the seventh such nationwide premises in the US. The suite was renumbered after Ira Levin (Rosemary's Baby author) learned its secret. ""That building was breeding monsters," he said in an interview, "they [the government] were breeding monsters in there." The secrecy still surrounds the building, masquerading as privacy policy for its uber-rich occupants, and its ownership - with its Eisuke Ono connections - is hidden under layers of shell companies.

      Delete
    4. OK---where & when do the UFOs/aliens fit in?

      Delete
    5. The idea that there's a complex US Gubmint cover-up to cover up a US Gubmint program is just a US Gubmint cover-up program to cover up the fact that they really have no fucking idea what's going on. Do objects flying around in the sky that nobody can identify exist? Of course they do. That's all anyone can say about them with any certainty. We understand as much about them as anything else, which is to say, we understand very nearly nothing. Every attempt to understand the phenom is doomed to be made from an inadequate set of preconceived ideas. It's like trying to open a Yale lock with a feather. "There are some things," as the Enlightened Sage James T. Kirk must have said, "that man is not meant to understand." This applies to plot holes in Netflix series and Black Holes equally. Understanding's not so great, anyway - wonderment is far more precious and valuable.

      Delete
    6. Amen. (And James T. Kirk is full of shit!)

      Delete
    7. This shit is more than worth the price of admission; this is the content I'm here for... well, and the amazing free music and wisdom of the collective....

      Delete
  20. Thanks for the backstory and enjoy your hiatus!

    ReplyDelete
  21. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUAruos05uE

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's a treat, isn't it? Great line-up. David in great voice. Nice to see Bruce Steinberg up there, too (well worth a Discogs trawl).

      Delete
    2. Larry Blackshere (keys, mallets) was murdered in 2002.

      Delete
  22. Thanks again Farq, too bad we couldn't meet up last week...

    ReplyDelete
  23. Hey Farqster!

    I was alerted to this Shawn Phillips meets Mike Weaver (Wynder K Frog) music on yewtube. The Theme from World In Action recording session. I know it’ll be of interest to you and some of the 4or5 guys. Quite a controversy, Mr Frog has never been credited or paid for his contribution. The music has never been released officially.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrlEQXKiqv4

    Here’s the familiar version

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uLPDhCgS8M

    and a long version

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f35K-sGe9mo

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Very thoughtful of you, Bambers! These are on a "Shawn Phillips Rare" set that I nailed together, available on request (as is everything else he did, damn near).

      Delete
    2. It's a great piece of music (the long version especially). I'm ok for Shawn Phillips stuff atm thanks, trying to listen to as many of this years downloads as time allows.

      Delete
  24. I first heard "White Bird"...on an episode of Knight Rider! (The one were the Hoff falls in love with a rock singer played by his real-life wide...).

    ReplyDelete
  25. I just stumbled on a demo tape from IADB from 1968 on my hard drive, four songs, three of which are on the debut, all in excellent sound quality.

    Does someone want or need this?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There you go

      https://workupload.com/archive/Ne9aHBezwx

      Recording information is stated before the first track

      Don't recall why I only have these four or if there are more...

      Anyway, enjoy...

      Delete
    2. This is brilliant stuff, thank you. "Countryside" is completely new to me. (NB to downloaders - these tracks don't have an artist tag, so look for them under "unknown artist")

      Delete
    3. Akshully, they play "Countryside" a couple of times on your many live comps I sampled...but yeah, as a semi-studio version it never made it

      Delete
    4. It's been a long while since I listened to any live IABD other than the Carnegie Hall album. The spoken intro by one Robert Cohen sent me on a rewarding search:
      https://lumiereprod.com/ and https://lumiereprod.com/bio/RobertECohen_bio.pdf are good introductions.

      Delete
  26. Here's the demo tape, tagged and bagged:

    https://workupload.com/file/ZazVavxCb7B

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gee, that's a mahdy purdy cover you've done there, sir!

      Delete
    2. Of the two dames, guess which one was a classically-trained celeste player, and which one shook her maracas.

      Delete
  27. well lookie here! Thanks for this !

    ReplyDelete