It Crawled From The Crawlspace Dept. - Return Of The Nez

I used this image before it appeared on the official "Different Drum" comp. Just sayin'.

In 1968, Michael Nesmith went to Nashville and recorded an album's worth of songs, mostly his own, with Nashville's own "Wrecking Crew", the studio musicians who constituted Area Code 615. There were no better musicians on the planet. John Sebastian wrote Nashville Cats about them. And Nesmith was an accomplished songwriter with a  bunch of tunes that deserved the best. The resulting solo album, spectacularly lovely as it was, never materialised. Because Music Business.

Some of the songs drifted onto Monkees albums, others waited decades before Rhino anthologised them. Nesmith has denied (in his splendid autobiography) ever thinking he was inventing, or even playing, country rock. "I was playing country music," he says. But here, on several cuts, his pop smarts show through just as strongly as his country roots. Nesmith sings bang in the middle of the note, in the tensile tone so many Texans have, like stretched barbed wire, and the band plays with that country-sprung back-porch beat that never gets old.

So here it is, hi-fi enthusiasts! The best album he never made. That's okay. Don't thank me or nuthin'. I'm having more fun than you are.

 

Always a pleasure to re-up th' Nez, this time in response to a request from Dr. Fu Man Chu.

 

Whatever Happened To Judy Mayhan? Dept.

Judy Mayhan has one of the greatest country/rock/blue-eyed soul voices I ever heard. She has that heartbreak catch, that undersung shiver, like it's all about to fall apart. She has restraint and power, and when she hits the high notes the top of your head lifts off.

She also has the most astonishing lineup of backing musicians on this, her second [sophomore - Ed.] album. Duane Allman, playing with exquisite taste, all over it. Lowell George (rhythm guitar and flute!), and the godlike Richie Hayward. Warren Klein (Fraternity Of Man) on sitar (!), Arif Mardin on string arrangements. The Muscle Shoals mafia on everything else. But this is absolutely Judy's show, she's not drowned out but lifted up by the session talent.

Did I mention the songs? They're terrific, and she wrote 6/10ths of them. The album plays out with versions of You Are My Sunshine and I Shall Be Released that evoke Joe Cocker at his finest.

Oh - nice sleeve, too!

This post made possible by reading about the album in Ben Fong-Torres' book about Little Feat, Willin'. He doesn't mention how great it is, though. Psychfan provides links to two other albums [below - Ed.] in the comments.

 

The Spirit Is Willing Dept.

Lovingly color-corrected from original source. You don't care.

All albums enhanced from raw FLAC files to @193©, using IoF©'s patented Human Ear™ process. You'll discover a new world of sound excitement listening to these swell LP recordings, pre-adjusted for RIAA curve!

Tweaked so subtly [above - Ed.] you didn't notice!

 

Copyright© law makes this [above - Ed.] impossible in the real world, but th' IoF© ain't that.

Tweaked so subtly you didn't notice!

 

This crappy quality [above - Ed.] is the best available. Gee whiz. So much for th' internet.

 

 

A change of pace for a while. Spirit have been guests on th' IoF© intermittently, but they deserve their own dedicated timeshare accommodation. They're just a magical magic band I've loved forever, always found time to listen.

Thirty Minutes Dept. - On Abbey Road

Th' IoF© has played host to many glamorously international stars, but a visit from all four surviving Beatles yesterday came as a surprise! They waxed loquacious anent their controversial last long-playing record album, Thirty Minutes On Abbey Road whilst Kreemé [eighteen my ass - Ed.] served signature dumpster run-off and turtle-dick smoothies, poolside!

FT3 Well, it's fab gear to have you here, lads! Swingin'! Tell us about this new album!

JL Our last album [Aloha, left - Ed.] was meant to be our blaze of glory.

PM Our best-selling album since Pepper.

GH Our only album since Pepper.

PM But anyway, I thought -

GH We all thought, actually.

JL You know, let's get together as a band one last time.

PM Make a proper new studio album.A Beatles album.

FT3 But there were problems with the material?

GH Paul forgot how to write songs, basically.

PM Hey, just fuck off, George, alright?

JL Maxwell's Silver Hammer? Worst. Song. Ever.

RS I liked it.

GH Playing that gave me sciatica.

PM John's love song to heroin had to go, like, first.

JL It was about Yoko.

PM Heroin, Yoko ... same thing.

GH And that fake 'fifties thing, whatever that was. A parody or something?

JL Oh! Darling? Oh shit, more like.

PM And Ringo's song, because if Maxwell's Silver Hammer was cut, well, no disrespect Ringo, but you should have kept that one aside. For kids' parties.

RS I liked it.

JL Nobody else feckin' did.

FT3 So that was like, half the album got voted out?

GH The only reason Old Brown Shoe isn't on it is because it would have made the album look like a George Harrison album.

JL Apart from Come Together, it's just bits and pieces. 

PM It's a suite. A suite. It works really, really, well. So shut up.

JL You feckin' shut yer gob yer feckin' gobshite.

RS Guys! Guys!

[sounds of scuffling, breaking glass etc.]

 

Recreate this classic iconic albumen at home! No irksome download required:

 

 

 

... and here's "anonymous'" prize for getting the right answer:

 

Zed Zed Taupe Dept.

 

"A Little Nostalgia For The Old Folks" Dept.

 

 

Perfect Tens Dept. - Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

Original Japanese vinyl gatefold sleeve

 

After The Goldrush, or Your Choice Here, are as perfect, but this gets my vote. Musical quality aside, it established a signature sound he kept through the decades. It's not like he broke the mold, Nowhere created it. Deviations from the formula tend to be as unsuccessful as they are ambitious. The downside is, of course, diminishing returns; every record that's not as bad as we feared gets called a "return to form", merited or not. But Nowhere is the start of his Imperial period, and where that fades or rusts away is up to the listener.

David Briggs (google image search)

David Briggs [left - Ed.] gets container-loads of respect for his key role in Young's career, but for such a high-profile producer his work for others is pretty thin. I could think of only Twelve Dreams Of Dr. Sardonicus - a fantastic album - and Alice Cooper's disappointing Easy Action, before looking him up on Discogs. There really isn't much else. Today's deliverable is the two late 'sixties albums what he producted you probably don't have; Summerhill's sole album, and Quatrain's sole album.

But yeah. Lower the Consolette tone-arm onto Cinammon Girl and hear rock music catch fire. Every time.

Here's the deliverable. I've undersold these albums, especially the Summerhill (which is kinda wow, actually). Hadn't listed to them for decades, and either they're better than I remembered or I wasn't listening at the time. Downloads @193. Click th' pic!

 

Crawlspace Dept. - Neil Young Talks About Unissued "Break" Track!

The sixtieth anniversary edition of After The Gold Rush will include the previously unreleased track Break, a major archive discovery. Neil graciously agreed to be interviewed by valve radio for an Isle O' Foam© exclusive!

FT3 Hey Neil! You're looking great!

NY Uh, this is radio, man.

FT3 I stuck this picture of Buffalo Springfield over the speaker. When you didn't look like some homeless bum!

NY Can we talk about the track? I'm really proud of Break. Not even the bootleggers knew about this one. Took everyone by surprise! [laughs - Ed.]

FT3 I just listened to it. Kinda puzzled?

NY Right! It's just me and my guitar, man. Purity. I wanted space, you know?

FT3 You and your guitar? I'm not hearing that. Or anything.

NY Me and my guitar, sitting there in the studio, everything turned off. I wanted to turn everything off, see how the world would sound with everything turned off. Noise is pollution, man. Electricity is pollution. It was gonna be one side of the album. It's edited down from, I think, twenty minutes? Nearly twenty minutes. That's what I wanted. Uh ... and then it got kinda lost. But I found it again! The whole track. Gonna release it on the next Archives set. There'll be this, the single edit, and the original album version. Maybe a Pono™ remix.

FT3  It's better than anything on Greendale.

NY We're gonna tour it. The Break Tour. Me and Pancho and Lefty and Dozy and Grumpy. To empty halls, we're not allowing audiences in because it'll compromise the artistic integrity. But you can still buy tickets, participate in the event that way.

FT3 Well, that's one silver lining right there. Hey, I have to go, Neil - microwave just pinged.

NY Talking of silver lining, my hat is lined with aluminum foil. [tape break here - Ed.]

As a Foam Exclusive, the track Break is available to download in the comments.

Perfect Tens Dept. - A Rainbow In Curved Air

 

"Everything's new to someone" as popular wisdom has it, but back in '69 this music was new to just about everyone. Our someone hearing it for the first time today would find it generically familiar, and check the boxes (ambient, electronica, etceteraria) before moving right along.

Back then (yesterday, in any meaningful sense) we didn't have the boxes to check. Little Boxes were stereotypical, aspirational, suburban homes made of ticky-tacky for pod people. Today the boxes are mental compartments for pod people. Everything gets genred, everything is informed by, rinse and repeat.

In 1969, the box didn't exist for Terry Riley to tick. A Rainbow In Curved Air was music, and that's as far as we needed to go. Music of our time. Riley's previous album for the CBS Music Of Our Time imprint, In C, was a little too formally academic for most, although it has become a standard in the contemporary repertoire.

Rainbow was just a record like no other.

The cover, with its Telly Tubbies good vibes, is absolutely right for the music and the times. Terry riding the rainbow and rocking a hairline receding faster than the Summer Of Love, already an embarrassment for the children of the revolution. This was '69, kaftans burning symbolically in the streets. Two albums featuring "electronics" that better mirrored that depressing year were Pierre Henry/Spooky Tooth's unlistenable Ceremony, and Electric Storm, by White Noise, both dark, scary soundtracks that threw the bad vibes right back in our faces. An early cover for Rainbow toed the dystopian line, all skulls and snakes, but got correctly rejected. So here's Terry, smiling like a sunrise over the Elysian fields. And a damned good thing.

Top side, the title track, was the aural equivalent of well, what? It made me unaccountably, unreasonably happy, and proved a fantastic part of the LSD experience. Flipside Poppy Nogood was night for Rainbow's day, without the nightmares. By today's standards, the "electronics" are primitive, the production almost lo-fi bedroom quality, but the music ... 

His sound and technique was quickly picked up in rock music; Colosseum, Soft Machine, the Monkees, and The Who using it as tonal colour. But nobody, including himself, ever again bottled the lightning. A Rainbow In Curved Air is eternally bubbling Champagne, never exhausted. The genuinely new never gets old.

 

Fascinating analysis here:

 https://teropa.info/blog/2017/01/23/terry-rileys-in-c

Happy 90th birthday, Tezza!

Wilf Brimley's Pstairlift To Psychedelia! Dept.

Home Help Perkie "PP" Pumpkins retrieves Wilf's Werthers Originals™ prior to launching him into senior psychedelic experience! Legacy Foam-O-Graph© now available as luxury Art Print encapsulated in Champagne finish Lucite™. Specify key fob or NEW! wallet size.

 

"Hey! Whatever happened to Wllf Brimley?" is a question oft posed in letters to th' IoF©. Here's one from Sturdley Q. Kowznofski, Grease Pit, OR: "Hey! Whatever happened to Wilf Brimley?"sez Sturdley, echoed by Chyronette Fütz, Perineum, ND, who ax "Hey! Whatever happened to Wilf Brimley?" Well, Foameteers®, I'm here to set your fevered minds at rest! Since his untimely death at 107, T.V's Wilf [Bert Bupkiss in NBC's Bert's Bait Shop - Ed] has been riding his Pstairlift To Psychedelia right here on th' IoF©!

Today he has two treasures to share, brought back from his voyages into the Psychotropic Antipodes!

First up [above - Ed.] is Forty Watt Banana! Rare Indo-Jazz-Psych-Fusion from Kiwiland! Handsomely adorned with original sleeve - unavailable elsewhere!

Second helping [above - Ed.] is more sitar-soaked antipodean noodling from Sidney psychonaut Don Robertson! You certainly won't regret downloading today's dual deliverable!

This post funded in part by Kurt's Kangaroo Karnival, Oolowoolobongalong, Jumbuck County, Adelaide.