Perfect Tens Dept. - The Inner Mounting Flame (TL-DR)

This, the latest in a series of under-performing and strangely futile posts about albums that have no imperfections whatsoever, attaining a timeless status of outstanding artistic accomplishment, is ... er ... I'm not sure where this sentence is going, so we might as well bring it to a shuddering halt right here and, with a fawnlike grace, step lightly into the next paragraph.

The Inner Mounting Flame looked the business from the get-go. That powerful image of a flame burning in darkness, the band at its core, was art directed by the great Ron Coro (we are truly not worthy - 572 credits at Discogs) and designed by Chris Poisson [Fr. fish ha ha - Ed.], who went on to design four more albums for McLaughlin. The composition is balanced by the elegant typography, which always gives me a frisson of delight, because that's the kind of nervously sensitive type guy I am.

The back cover [above - Ed.] did everything a back cover is supposed to do, giving you more to study and enjoy in a way that complements the front. The whole package exuded class, confidence, and professionalism. Beautiful. When a label spends this much time and skill packaging an album, you can reasonably expect their investment to be justified. I had no idea what the music was like, and I was, like, blown away. I'd never heard anything remotely this ferocious. And it was uncategorisable. Jazz-rock? You mean like Chicago, or Blood Sweat And Tears? Absolutely nope. Like Soft Machine? Colosseum? Bitches Brew? None of the above. What about prog, then? Those dizzying time signatures, the complexity ... prog sounded laughably club-footed in comparison. This was '71, astonishingly, and nothing quite like The Inner Mounting Flame had ever been heard before, unless you'd picked up Larry Coryell's Spaces from the previous year, which not many had. As excellent as it is, it couldn't prepare you for the massed sonic onslaught of the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

Calling it an orchestra seems right; it's not pompous or pretentious. These guys played at a level of virtuosity that produced a symphonic effect, from complex charts that allowed for little extended improvisation in the jazz sense; the uniqueness of the music had its roots in composition, themes like nobody else was writing, played at a speed that left thought behind. Time signatures came and went before you could tap a foot.

Note how image balances layout, breaking up text

It wasn't just a showcase for McLaughlin, either. Billy Cobham's drums made an equal impact, with his signature tash tash cymbal sound and hailstorm delivery keeping up with McLaughlin's blistering flurries, beat for impossible beat. Jan Hammer, a man possessed, scattered wild squalls from his keyboards, seemingly incapable of playing anything uninteresting. Jerry Goodman I knew, of course, the Flock violinist on the cover of Fill Your Head With Rocks, but this line-up un-clipped his wings, and he flew as high as McLaughlin. And then there was a bass player who'd got John's number from a card at the Job Centre. Maybe a showy, virtuoso bass player would have been too much, and the band needed a solid, unimaginative grounding. Whatever, no-one was complaining, least of all Rick Laird, the luckiest guy on the planet.

So: not jazz, then, and not rock. Neither jazz-rock as we knew it, nor prog. I'm not sure if the term fusion existed in '71 (except for the Indo-Jazz thing, something else again, that McLaughlin came back to later) but it's the best attempt at definition, with its associations of exciting electro-chemical reaction. Working back through McLaughlin's œuvre [Fr. egg - Ed.], as many then did, everything seemed like preparation for this blinding explosion. My Goal's Beyond even featured Cobham and Goodman in an unplugged format which was sadly never repeated.

The Mahavishnus went on to record some impressive albums, but the impact had been made. Birds Of Fire delivered the expected, but Inner Mounting Flame had delivered the unexpected. The genie was out of the bottle, making room for the lightning, and music was never quite the same again.

 

This post homologated by The National Association of Daves of America (NADA).

Skydog Soul Dept.

Sleeve: IoF© Art Department Of Art Dept.

There's no shortage of Duane Allman compilations out there, but this is a little different for what it omits; none of the (over)familiar cuts from Clapton, Scaggs, Delaney & Bonnie, no Allmans or contiguous lineups. And although it's called Skydog Soul, there's enough blues happening here to blur the lines. Forty Skydog minutes to fly by!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks to  D. in California for starting this ball of wax rolling!

 

Re-Routing The River Dept.

The problem with box sets, apart from the expense, and the duplication of material you already have, and the frustrating omission of tracks that should be there dammit, is that they're just not very playable. You want to hear an album, you pull it off the shelf, cue it up, et voilá! But what do you want to hear from a box set? The outtakes? The live stuff? The alternate versions? The remastered-if-you-say-so original album? The strangely lifeless BBC sessions? The blurry DVD of a past-their-best concert? Or, god forbid, the fascinating demos giving a rare glimpse into the creative process and preferred by connoisseurs to the over-produced studio versions? Most of the box sets I ever bought stayed on the shelf. Comforting to own, sure! Yup! I now have it all! The complete archival material, right there! Beautifully packaged with unopened limited edition fridge magnets and Croc buttons! Gee ... I hope somebody comes by who understands how impressive my collection is ... one day, I'll leave it to a museum ... maybe they'll name a wing after me ...

Who are we kidding? We buy box sets because they make us feel good, not because we're going to spend a lot of time opening them up and prising out the discs and deciding what bits we want to listen to before we lose interest. Case in point: Springsteen's mammoth The Ties That Bind: The River Collection, which luckily came out years after I jettisoned all my physical media. But even as convenient, at-a-glance MP3 files, I wasn't spending any quality time with the music.

So using readily-available household materials and some items found under the sink, I curated the songs I wanted to hear more of - not the live recordings, thank you - into handy album-sized portions, and crayoned up some covers, and now I'm not intimidated by the sheer work involved in hearing these swell tunes. I put a lot of thought and judgement into sequencing the songs. Well, no, I didn't. The order of the tracks is exactly the same as presented in the box. It works well - the "new" albums all clock in at under forty minutes, and lead off with the title track. I didn't put too much thought into the covers, just like Bruce doesn't. Roulette uses a nice pic of the Asbury Park Casino (casino? roulette? oh, forget it), and Meet Me In The City shows, like, a city, duh. The Ties That Bind cynically recycles an outtake shot from Born To Run, or Darkness - just like Bruce did for the appalling cover to The River.

So there we have it. You'll find this a fun, fuss-free way to explore the great man's profligate fecundity during this incredibly rich and productive period! Or not! It's your trip, baby!

 

 

 

 

Can't think of anything to type here.

 

Mother Theresa's Primal Scream Prayer Answered!

 

Mo' Tezza, yesterday. Foam-O-Graph© courtesy Artificial Ignorance Corp.

It seems incredible that someone as intimate with God as Mother Theresa should have her prayers ignored, but this was very much the case back in 1991 on the release of Primal Scream's award-winning Screamadelica. Mo' Tezza, as she's known on OnlyFans©, dropped by False Memory Foam Island© on a recent soul-seeking tour, recruiting young dead women for her Nunnery of Eternal Redemptive Pain in the ninth circle of hell, where she now resides.

She revealed the whole story for the first time for your Foam Exclusive™, chatting poolside whilst [grammar - Ed.] Kreemé served signature bin water and tomato mold smoothies.

MT Can I take that girl with me?  She's been bad and needs punishing.

FT3 Ha ha! So, tell us about your Screamadelica prayer.

MT Well, I wanted a kind of shorter version, with just the spacey, blissed-out tracks. My busy schedule blessing starving orphans made chillaxing with the entire album difficult. So I prayed to God for a mix of the Andrew Weatherall tracks without the Stones knock-offs.

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FT3 And he didn't answer?

MT The fucker never answered. Just sent me more starving orphans. I was like, gee, thanks, God! More starving orphans to bless! I never got the Dodge Ram Truck, either.

FT3 It was a test of faith, right? 

MT Yeah, right. Like He was showing his love for me by putting me through to voicemail every fucking time. Fuck that, and fuck Him. Have you seen where He put me for all eternity, to continue His good works? Everything's on fire! He sends Jesus down with some sandals, that's the thanks I get. Not even the right size.

FT3 Well, Mo' Tezza, I'm here to tell you that one prayer at least has been answered!

MT I get the Ram Truck?

FT3 Next best thing! An exclusive personalised FoamMix© of Screamadelica, just the good bits! And it's housed in a limited edition sleeve variant to add to its collectability!

MT (tearing up) Why, bless your wrinkled old sphincter! 

This post brought kicking and screaming into the world with BabyGrease©, now in economical quart tubs!

 

Better Than The Beatles? Dept. - Susanna Hoffs

Nothing encourages visits to Th' IoF© more than "Beatles" in a headline! Running a close second is an Art Study of Susanna Hoffs [above - Ed.], so I'm expecting to break an internet with this one! Why do I resort to such ignoble flim-flammery? Because if Mac Gayden's name was the hook for this piece, hardly anyone would bite. Mac's been on th' Isle© before, but he has a new album which I nearly missed, so that's a good reason for another FoamFeature© dedicated to his unique genius. Especially as the album's better than I expected (after the disappointmink of his previous, Nirvana Blues). The new one's called Come Along, and here's what it looks like:

 

Sweet cover, right? Already you're feeling good about it, and the music is well up to the expectations it sets, recognisably by the same guy who made that beautiful string of albums all those years ago. His signature guitar playing is all over it - and there's not that many players you can name after just a few notes. The songs are no embarrassment, a few are even gawjuss, and the whole thing hangs together as a proper core album. Yay!

Flashback fifty-two freakin' years to that lost first album, McGavock Gayden.

 

It really is lost, too - at least the tapes are, which is why it's never had a CD release, although Mac issued a CDR needledrop a while back. Produced by Bob Johnston in Nashville '73 and issued only in the UK [we're, like, WTF? - Ed.], you'd now pay up to a couple or three hunnerd bucks for a copy, which is probably more than the album made on release. Seriously. It disappeared from the shelves before it reached them. Unlike many impossible-to-hear "lost classics", McGavock Gayden is just that, a brilliant, exploratory, and beautiful piece of work that puts him in a different league to the denim-clad horde of singer-songwriters of the time. The Freeload™ contains a slightly crackly but entirely listenable needledrop @192, which is how I got it (where, I forget). Individual tracks are scattered across YewChewb, maybe at better quality, so if you want to assemble the entire album from there, good hunting and good luck! And if there's anyone out there with the keys to SoulSuck, you might want to check if they're clutching a better version to their ample bosom, and sneak out a copy for the common good. Please and thank you!

Freeload® contains everything he's released under his own name. Those who clicked for the Fabs and La Hoffs won't be disappointed. And if they are, fuck 'em.

This post funded in part by the Amalgamated Albuquerque, Azusa And Amarillo Armadillo, Aardvark, Anteater, Axolotl, And Albino Alpaca Appreciation Association (AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA). My thanks to "Tufty" Schnorblatz.

"I Wus Always Into Them" Dept. - The New York Dolls

It's 1973, dig. All my dumb friends are listening to New Riders and Steely Dan and the fuckin' Doobie Brothers. Gary the record store clerk, who's always the first to know, puts this album in my face - "Check it aoooouuuut, dude!" I'm, like, "WTF, dude? Who are these guys, if guys they be?" Gary slaps the disc on the turntable, drops the tonearm, and we're staring at each other goggle-eyed, our jaws to the floor, and somehow we're both screaming like girls and he turns the volume right up. "THE NEW YORK DOLLS, MAN! IT'S THE FUCKIN' NEW YORK DOLLS!" and a couple of customers are already out the door, they can't take it, but I have to buy this album, man, it's twanging my genome string into a Day-Glo© cats' cradle and my synapses are popping like firecrackers because I HAVE SEEN ROCK AND ROLL FUTURE!

It wasn't to be. The Dolls made a second album, by which time Gary was with the Children of God in a forest somewhere eating mud for Jesus, and I was selling home vinyl repair kits door-to-door, like for upholstery or whatever, which is how I met Janice or whatever her name was.

Swell album. I may lissen to the second.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Angelyne Introduces Dept. - Bread, Love, And Dreams

 Copyright Foam-O-Graph© "Tastin' good, like good taste should!"™

Sudge was the enthusiasm engendered by the Bread Love & Dreams piece [page views nudging into double figures, Boss! - Ed.] it behooves us to build on the momentum with this timely and provocative op-ed piece featuring three more swell albums by Bread, Love, and Dreams! Which we axed famed talent vacuum Angelyne© [above - Ed.] to clickbait the elderly glamor enthusiasts over at Ryp's twilightzone blog!

Angelyne® and me lounged poolside whilst Kreemé [left, and eighteen my ass - Ed.] served her signature prison drain water and iguana eyeball smoothies!

FT3 Angelyne™ baby! Lookin' hotter than Mexican pavement pizza!

A© Likewise I'm sure, Farq! Uh - why am I here, again?

FT3 Which you pretend to brung three albums, for th' Three or Four Guys© to fight over!

A© And I get like what outta this stupid mess?

FT3 (gestures expansively) Publicity, baby! Why, th' Isle© gets, like, zillions of visits!

A© Hmm. You said like, three or four? Just now? Ya think I'm stoopid or somethin'? 

FT3 (thinking fast) Three or four zillion baby!

A© Well, that's okay, then. (spits gum into pool) Whom does a gal gots to blow?

(tape runs out at this point) 

 

This post sponsored in part by Chuck's Chicken Charm Farm©, FLA "Try our Sunday Special™!"

 

Thirty Minutes Dept.- Frat House Frug!

Hi, teens! I'm Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau! You'll know me from my swingin' hits on the happening Deutsche Grammophongesellschaft label! My dear friend Mr. Throckmorton has asked me to pen introductory screed to his latest collection of groovin' party tunes! Let's go, daddy-o!

Louie Louie, ich muss los. Louie Louie, ich muss los. Feines kleines Mädchen, sie wartet auf mich. Ich erreiche das Schiff übers Meer. Ich segle ganz allein auf dem Schiff. Ich glaube nicht, dass ich es je nach Hause schaffe. Louie Louie, ich sagte, ich muss los. Louie Louie, ich muss los. Drei Nächte und Tage segelte ich übers Meer. Ich denke ständig an das Mädchen. Auf dem Schiff träume ich, sie sei dort. Ich rieche die Rose in ihrem Haar. Louie Louie, ich muss los. Nun, Louie Louie, ich muss los. Ich sehe den Jamaica Moon über mir. Es wird nicht lange dauern, ich sehe meine Liebe. Ich nehme sie in meine Arme und dann sage ich ihr, dass ich nie wieder gehen werde. Louie Louie, ich muss los. Louie Louie, ich muss los. Ich sagte, ich muss los. Ich sagte, ich muss los. Also, ich muss los.

This, I'm sure you'll agree, evinces an emotional rigor worthy of Goethe, whose Die Wahlverwandtschaften engages the same transient melancholy, partakes of the same weltanschauung!

(Will this do?) [It's better than your usual garbage, Farq - Ed.]

 

As a free FoamBonus®, here's D-D's latest long-playing LP album, available wherever boxes of shit albums are to be found under a pile of damp clothing!

 

Forgotten Superheroes Dept. - Captain Nice

Captain Nice was a ... oh, fooey on dis writin' game. Look it up yerself, ya lazy schnook. I ain't here fer yer edification. Freeload is Episode One, in glorious Blur-O-Vision™ and CrapColor®, but you're lucky to get that, you whining ingrate. This can be a weekly feature, should youse bums be desirous.

 

Post made possible by an unswerving devotion to US pop culture of the 'sixties.

Gina Lollobrigida's Scottish Folk-Rock Nightmare! Dept.

La Lollo, "on set" at Scotland's famed Gorbals Castle - roll 'em! Action!

Gentlemen of a certain age, and skeevy geriatrics such as like you, will remember "La Lollo" [above - Ed.] with wistful fondness, from an age when dames wus dames and us guys wus just a buncha chumps wit' us tongue hangin' out. But did you know she nearly joined a contemporary Scottish folk music group?

Let La Lollo tell the tale!

"We were filming Haggis - Italian Style! in the wonderful English Highlands, with all the wonderful actors, like Lord James Robertson Justice and Sir Gordon Robertson Jackson. I am autographing to the musicians who make the wonderful tradition music for the banquet scene, and they propose I am making a record with them! I had a natural, how you say, feeling? For the proud Scottish culture. The Scottish and the Italians are so much alike! Italians are beautiful, passionate, live life to the full. We have the best food and cars and buildings and art in the world, and the best and most beautiful cities and countryside and beaches, and ice cream and sunshine. The Scots have ... they ... well, they are ... anyway ... unfortunately, we must to return to Roma! I was heartbreaking! But I will never forget my weekend filming in your wonderful country and the wonderful friends I made there!"

 

 

Bread Love And Dreams, the banquet scene musicians, attempted to exploit their brief association with the sultry sex bomb from Sienna in trade advertisements [above - Ed.], but swift legal action prevented further use of her name and/or image in any context and for any purpose whatsoever. "Feck tha' bitch," said vocalist Angie Davis at the time, "she needs us muir tha' we need heer."

The band retaliated by removing (Theme From) Haggis - Italian Style! from their album, although it appeared briefly on the import-only soundtrack recording [below - Ed.].

Sadly, Bread Love And Dreams are currently residing in the where are they now category, although they doggedly released three swell albums before taking up full time sporran farming and alcoholism in the Outer Hebrides. 

 

If you like albums, you'll like these. Fireside and candle listening. Skin one up, listen to the rain against the window. References - ISB, the Strangelies, Pentangle ...

This post made possible by an insane amount of technology wedded to an almost supernatural yet fundamentally misguided intelligence, and don't kid yourself.

 

Win One Million Dollars PLUS Boiled Ham Dinner In This Grand Competition!

 

What do these albums have in common? The lucky Four Or Five Guy© who, in the opinion of the judges, gets the most complete and correct answer will win ONE MILLION DOLLARS* - tax free! PLUS a swell boiled ham dinner with all the trimmings! Oboy! Some fun, huh?

 

*Offer void where prohibited by local law or just plain good sense on my part

The Right Stuff Dept. - Paul Simon

A carousel horse's one trick is to go round and around ...

One Trick Pony didn't sell too well, and there are various theories as to why; a sense of more-of-the-same disappointment after the five year wait since Still Crazy, material not up to par, and a sense of him not keeping up with the times (the eighties! a whole new vital decade in pop!), yadda yadda. All of which is just so much hornswoggling flapdoodle, if you'll pardon the salty vernacular. The lesser status granted the album has nothing to do with the music.

It's the association with the film of the same name, a vanity project seen by nobody but projectionists. But even more toxic than the taint of "side project/not real album" is the cover [left - Ed.], which we need to study before consigning it to the Furnace of Forgetfulness™. An obviously airbrushed shot of the great man pretending to be a young rock star - you know, acting. Imagine him going through the movie stills with the art director; "I like this one. I look young, a street punk, kinda vulnerable. Are you getting a young Pacino vibe from this?" It's an exercise in fakery. We all know Simon doesn't and didn't look like that. The shouting typography and floating silver discs work hard to shift our focus, but we know a sidewalk oyster when we step on one.

The insensate human tragedy of this is it's a quietly wonderful album, one of his better solo outings. It's a band album, and that band is basically the awesome Stuff, who graced Joe Cocker's Stingray. Their subtly virtuosic [is this even a word? - Ed.] funk is the perfect setting for Simon's voice. It's also something of a guitarist's Summit Meeting - Eric Gale, Hugh McCracken, Hiram Bullock, Jeff Mironov, and Joe Beck all strut their very considerable stuff. It's gawjuss, dammit!

The album works perfectly without any references to Simon's misguided fantasy. He should of lissen to me an' forgot his lousy one trick horseshit movie. But dat's his problem. Haw! Too late now, pally!

 

 

This post sponsored in part by Orange-U-Tang© "The real fruit-style drink that's 100% sweetener!"

Zappa Recovered Dept.

 

Wotta guy. Wotta guy. Wotta guy.

Zappa's late 'seventies tri-ology, intended to comprise in part or whole the aborted multi-disc set Lather, was issued as three spiffy standalone albums in disappointing sleeves. There's nothing wrong with Gary Panter's primitive technique, but it's an ill fit for Zappa's music. Cal Schenkel's genius artwork for that early and perfect run of albums was was considered, composed, and always on the money. Panter's punk graphics are immediate, raw (SWIDT), and oddly dislikeable. So I spent some happy hours - nearly three - coming up with replacements I prefer. I've given them a series look and copied a certain photo library's watermark style, as a kind of barely amusing in-joke. One of the images is a composite - guess which! Or not!

You probably already have the albums in some form, but if you don't, ax in a comment! 

 

 

Fascist Theocracy? He got that right. And he was right about it starting with Reagan. Zappa would have been righteously appalled at America's supine embrace of the New Order, the feebleness of its resistance at every level. For fuck's sake, America. It's not like you couldn't see it coming, not like you weren't told.

This post sponsored in part by Al Banian's Bunion Buster - available wherever footcare products are sold! (Butane not included)

 

 

Crawlspace Collectables Dept. - Little Feat

"HEY!! MISTER BUSINESS MAN!! Weather it be that new PAMPHLET, a must-read Windshield Flyer, or afordible Corporate Identity Logo, let th' IoF© Department o' Art™ Art Department Dept. be your one "stop shop" for all your graphic Design solutions! Call for a Portfolio presentation and FREE Holiday Inn-style pocket protector*!"

Adam Weishaupt, Founder IOFDOAADD [Left - Ed.]

 

When this first got posted way back in RSRCH DATE PSE ED [No - Ed.], it got a little lost in a FeatFlurry™. It deserves its own post and something in the way of elucidatory exegesis, seein' as how I left it up to youse bums last time, which was in retrospect a grievous mistake, on account which the subtle irony of the title got lost.

What we have here is a post-Lowell collection most of which could have skidded sideways onto a primo Feat album without causing conniption fits (and all of which is way better than Dog Races). It's subtitled The Best Of The Shaun Murphy Years, see - yet there are no Shaun Murphy songs on it!

*pause* 

She makes a peripheral appearance as a swell back-up singer, but she's otherwise been kicked to the curb to no appreciable detrimental effect. The band needed a fat blues shouter (of any sex or body mass, I'm nothing if not inclusive, so quit yer woke whining) like SUITABLE SIMILE HERE PSE ED. [How about "blow it out yer ass, Farq?" - Ed.], and this one was foisted on the rhythm section without prior discussion or approval. Barrere and Payne just pulled the tarp off and said voilà! Our new singer! Gee whiz.

They didn't need a new singer at all after Lowell registered his dissatisfaction with the band's new direction by being dead. They didn't need dull boy bible-sniffer Craig Fuller either. They should have had confidence in what they had and what they could do, which was ample and beaucoup. Granting Fred Tackett EMBED SUITABLE IMAGE AT LEFT PSE ED [I quit, and fuck you - Ed.] full membership privileges was necessary and right and enough.

If you kind of wandered away to the bar during the all-too brief fifteen years Shaun was onstage, you can wander back. Thrill anew to some First Tier Feat that maybe got lost in the shuffle. I guarantee you won't want to lift the tone arm at any point while this (unfeasibly long) elpee album is spinning on th' Consolette. By turns thrilling, weird, adventurous, beautiful, and funky as a back seat bong water douche, Jackalope Jesus should be part of any serious collection of anything.

 

Or, you know, listen to Shaun Murphy! Nobody cares!

 

 

This post sponsored by Lou's Lousy Louse Lounge, Louisville, KY "Liquor In The Front, Poker In The Back!"

(*WHILE STOCKS LAST)

 

Thirty Minutes Dept. - Cheetah Beat!

There's nothing obscure or unique about any of this, and there's no complicated edits or immersivity or whatever - it's just straight mainstream pop, some massive hits. But there's an overall mood of thumping great beats and giddy optimism, and you might find it a swell soundtrack to the shit/shave/shower trifecta, or Hoovering or whatever token gestures you make toward the housework. Definitely not headphone music - turn it up until the kids complain!

 

This post funded in part by Francene's Frug Factory, Knucklebutter, OH. "Ask for our senior's rebate package!"

Crawlspace Collectables Dept. - John Hartford

 

By request, eight by the late and great J.H.

 

Have a weekend! 

 

 

"I Am Not A Fag Hag" Avers Society Dame (Dept.)

Baby Jane oversees clearance of prime tract investment, yestiddy!

You'll know Baby Jane Holzer as Palm Beach Heiress, Park Avenue Show Pony, and Andy Warhol Arm Candy, but did you know her favorite waste of time is thumbing thru boxes of old albums in thrift stores? We axed her to bring a treasured collectable with her during her fact-finding visit to th' IoF© to assess its viability in her real estate portfolio! We chatted poolside whilst [grammar - Ed.] Kreemé served her signature knob cheese blintzes and shots of sandwich ham water!

FT3 Heyyyy Baby baby! Lookin' swell!

BJH [looking around with thinly-veiled expression of disgust] Yeeuch. This place.

FT3 I always admire how you never got yer schnozz fixed. Real strength of character, carrying that hooter around. Those rumors of you being a Factory Fag Hag - any substance to th' innuendo?

BJH I'd have to raze everything. We're talking Ground Zero. Beachfront property in Yemen is sexier.

FT3 Did you actually, like, literally do anything except inherit zillions of dollars and spray your hair and hang off Andy Warhol like a garbage man off a truck? Are you a man?

BJH I'm going to be honest. I can't see th' Isle O' Foam© featuring in my portfolio anytime soon.

FT3 Didja brung a yalbum?

BJH Oh, yeah ... The Cryan Shames, A Scratch In The Sky. Massively underrated.

FT3 Yay! From Illinois, too. Like the antecedently FoamFeatured™ Shoes and th' Buckinghams!

 

[interview drowned out by sound of Holzer's helicopter powering up]

 

 

Great British Tenor Players, Nope, You Read That Right Dept.

Tubby Hayes? Who he? Hoo hah? And he's a Brit? Can't play for shit, right?

Unlikely as it may seem Hayes was a truly great tenor player. Ronnie Scott (showrunner of the UK's most important jazz club - take a wild geuss what it was called) said: "This little boy came up, not much bigger than his tenor sax. Rather patronisingly I suggested a number and off he went. He scared me to death".

One of the very few UK players to hold his own in the US and A, Hayes cut some iconic classic sides [NB jazzbo terms "cut" and "sides" - Ed.] with American superstars, like this here album. You really, really, don't have to be a serious collector of jazz records - or anything - to enjoy this swell album. It's full of energy and happiness and swings like a donkey's nuts. Give Davis [Miles - Ed.] and John [Coltrane - Ed.] a rest for a while. Spin this on th' Consolette next time unexpected guests drop by! Roll back the rug and strut whatever stuff you can muster after a lifetime of debauchery and excess!

This post sponsored in part by MrDave's Fishhead Incinerator Family Fun Center, Pismo Beach, CA

 

Perfect Tens Dept. - Soft Machine Third

By the time Soft Machine stopped counting their albums, they stopped counting for anything much, becoming just another super-proficient jazz rock combo, losing the indefinably fluid quality that made them unique, even after line-up changes that would have crippled any other band.

Third was a monster of an album. Even the sleeve seemed somehow massive. A double album with only four tracks? Yow! What could that sound like!? Even in an era when side-long compositions weren't too rare, Third was pioneering, uncompromising, and out-bloody-rageous. It came with a gold price sticker on the front - I remember 39/11 but that's probably wrong [39/11 is around 23c US today - Ed.].

Flashback to the party to which [grammar - Ed.] I lugged my newly-purchased copy of Third, in the absence of a girlfriend (the two would prove to be incompatible). Anyway, you didn't take girlfriends to parties, you went to parties to get free drinks and impress girls with your toxic masculinity and deep knowledge of blues rock guitarists, then miss the last bus and walk home alone in the rain. What a time to be alive! Waiting for the ideal moment, I cued it up on the stereo only to discover there is never an ideal moment to cue up Third at a party. In my blissful ignorance, I thought the three minutes of tar pit anteater gargling that introduce the thrilling main theme of Facelift would be appreciated by teen revelers tiring of T Rex and Slade or whatever it was and I would get nods of respect from the guys and come-hither glances from the girls. My wrongness became immediately apparent. The scratch over that intro remained a useful reminder never to try that shit again.

In retrospect, maybe I should have played Moon In June, or Slightly All The Time. Or Out Bloody Rageous. Better I should have taken Motown Chartbusters, because Christine Williams was into Tamla, and I was desirous of getting into her pants. Anyway, joke's on her because I still hunker down in my headphones for the duration of Third and I bet she's entirely forgotten Motown Chartbusters and harbors to this day a secret regret she never let me get in her pants.

Here's the inner gatefold, showing my guys waiting for some girls to show up. Note groovy beverage table, Wyatt's groovy shirt, Ratledge's groovy shades.

"What time is it?" "Ten." What time you tell them?" "EIGHT FUCKING THIRTY for the fiftieth fucking time I told them HALF PAST EIGHT!" [pause] "Where are they then?" "I don't fucking know." "Fancy a pint?"

 

Third, as you may have guessed from the title of this piece - assuming you read that far - qualifies as a Perfect Ten because no part of it can be improved, including the cover. It is an astonishing piece of work. But because this is th' IoF©, where quantity is quality, I'm throwing in a bonus contemporary album of them at the Albert Hall - the first rock group to ever play at the prestigious BBC Proms (Promenade Concerts). Pearls were clutched.

 

Iconic cover by Isle O' Foam© Art Department o' Art Dept. That's a full-color photograph - London was like that in 1970.

Added to the deliverables, this here swell Cuneiform archival collection, from the Third era:.

 

Better Than The Beatles? YOU Decide!

Who needs three shoes? You do. Lensed for their Ignition comeback, 2012

The Shoes (that is, the individuals who constitute the band Shoes, no definite article) are all in their eighties now, except for founding member - well, they're all founding members - Gary Klebe, who will be ninety-four years young come September! Long-time residents of the Where Are They Now home for elderly power-poppers, they are unique in having released at least three first albums, the latest of which, Heads Or Tails, is actually the first, recorded in '74! I don't have this, so if you do, frisbee it over to th' Isle o' Foam©!

Extensively FoamFeatured© antecedently, (the) Shoes are arguably better than the Beatles! Hear me out! In addition to releasing three first albums, where the Fabs could manage only one:

👞 Still legally alive

👞 Never copied anyone else, covered show tunes, made a shit movie, or even a shit album

👞 Avoided marrying oriental scag pandas and finagling amputees

👞 Didn't write Maxwell's Silver Hammer

I rest my case, but th' IoF© is nothing if not a platform for diverse opinion, and if you're loopy enough to think The Beatles were a better band, light your tiki torch in the comments!

Today's freeloads pick up from where we left off, way back in May 2022, and represent the band's Imperial Period (which was and is still always) with five, maybe, fantastic platters! Details in comments!

IMPORTANT NOTE: For those of you feeling betrayed by the lack of Fab Four content:

https://falsememoryfoam.blogspot.com/2021/06/beatlemania-dept-thirty-shades-of-gray.html

https://falsememoryfoam.blogspot.com/2019/05/compleat-beetles.html

https://falsememoryfoam.blogspot.com/2021/04/hello-goodbye-george-martin-interview.html