The Fool's only album remains their first and last. To be fair, they weren't musicians first, or even much at all. They were acid-etched rainbow-eyed harbingers of the Aquarian Apocalypse, and the effect they had on Bakelite Britain, all brown ale and fag-ash, was explosive and over almost before it happened, like the Apple Boutique, like a dream.
The music's infinitely better than you might expect, if you're expecting something quite dreadful, and beautifully produced by Graham Nash. Yes, there's finger cymbals and recorders, bagpipes and minstrelsy, and groovy sounds abound, but it's at least as good as The Incredible String Band and/or Doctor Strangely Strange, better than Black Oak Arkansas, and if you let it float into your mind on a cascading breeze of yesterday's unicorns, you'll be a better person. Allmusic gives it four stars, which seems a little mean.
Light a joss stick. Tie a scarf to your tambourine.
This post funded in part by Wacky Wobblehead's Wildebeest World, Walla Walla, WA
To get yer palsied claws on this polychromatic platter, tell everybody whose guitar that is!
ReplyDeleteShould be "palsied paws". That would have been funny. Timing is. Everything.
DeleteHmm.... Donovan's?!? And, better than Black Oak Arkansas is a low bar (they were a thing in New Orleans in the 70s, and performed there wayy more than there "talent" would dictate).
ReplyDeleteI'm very glad the humor wasn't lost on you, Mr. Mac. And that's a nope for Donovan.
DeleteSchlock Rock.
DeleteI had to look them up. Thank you.
DeleteGo, Jim Dandy, Go. Big in BRLA same time, same place, same channel, always following NOLA. Don't touch that dial.
DeleteWould it be Slowhand's?
ReplyDeleteClapton
ReplyDeleteEric Clapton's Gibson SG; nicknamed "The Fool"
ReplyDeleteYes, it was of course Clappo's. I never really understood why anyone would use an SG, the tone wasn't distinctive, it didn't look as great as a Tele or a Les Paul ... it was like a family saloon in a hot rod race. John Cipollina used one to advantage, but I think he could have made almost any guitar sound like him.
ReplyDeleteNot the biggest fan of QMS, but Cipollina was a great guitarist.
DeleteFV Zappa made good use of an SG.
DeleteSo did Carlos Santana and Dicky Betts.
DeleteRight. So apart from most of my favorite guitarists, who used an SG?
DeleteMick Taylor before he switched to Keef's1959 Sunburst Les Paul (nicknamed the "Keithburst"), which he bought from Keith.
DeleteSteve Marriott
DeleteAlso, Derek Trucks, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Robby Krieger Angus, then there are the players whom are not to my taste Angus Young andTony Iommi.
DeleteAND we can't forget Pete Townshend, who I almost did.
DeleteApart from human paperweight Trucks, Tharpe (who is a nun FFS), Krieger, Young, Iommi, Townshend, Clapton, Cipollina, Santana, Betts, Zappa, Taylor and ... er ... Steve Marriott ... who played an SG???? NOBODY. I think I made my point. Thank you for your attention in this matter.
DeleteSGs are notoriously neck-heavy, they have tuning instability issues (especially on the G string), not to mention a fragile headstock. So why anyone wants to play one is beyond me.
DeleteThat really was my point, and thank you for reminding me. The guitarist in our band (kristalmitey, we wus shite) had an SG and I just disliked it. The looks, the sound ... when you could have a Tele, or a Les Paul or a Strat ... why??
DeleteThinline Tele's 5evah. Light, skinny neck, I was the only punk in Austin playing one, oops.
DeleteThe other thing I recall about the SG was the frets were huge, doing a slide up meant you had to bump over railroad tracks; very rough on the fingers.
DeleteUh....the very first rock act I ever saw was Black Oak Arkansas at the Oakland Arena, opening for Grand Funk Railroad. I wasn't a fan of either, never bought an album. Jim Dandy came out and had mock sexual intercourse with his tambourine. I thought, "This is stupid."
ReplyDeleteIn retrospect Jim Dandy was the template from which David Lee Roth constructed his rock star persona, so I'm glad I saw them.
My roomie played an SG; I had a Rickenbacker but not one of the cool ones, I had a 70's shortlived model that had the "cresting wave" body shape of the bass guitar.
Y'see, Jim Dandy (the Kid Rock of his generation) fucked a tambourine on stage. Davy Jones, an English gentleman, made love to his.
DeleteNormally I'd say that's because you guys are inherently more civilized than us Yanks but then there was that earlier remark about people throwing bottles of piss at a festival.
DeleteIt shows a courtly restraint to hygienically bottle the piss as a courtesy to the recipient.
DeleteDraftervoi, The 1988 Reading Festival was a low point in my festival life. Read all about the bottle throwing (pictures too) in the writeup below.
DeleteI attended three excellent previous Reading Festivals, this one was so bad that I can only remember The Godfathers being any good. Starship were dreadful.
https://www.ukrockfestivals.com/reading-88.html
btw, this item has really made me laugh this morning, thanks.
I went to many operatic performances with my second wife (who found them sublimely transporting) where I'd have found good use for a bottle or two of piss.
DeleteHi, Bambi! I've seen some weird things at American shows but it usually involved vomit; tossing bottles isn't something I've seen before. :)
DeleteThere's ample material to spoof in any decade (in my experience). I personally had the very-most fun in the 1980s (not that I haven't had fun in every decade I've lived!), but...
ReplyDelete80s < 70s < 60s overall, if you have to use arbitrary decades.
Similarly, there's good music in every decade we've had recordings, but one could argue that '65 to '75 (or tweak the parameters a bit to suit) was a real high point for musicians going into studios and/or performing live and making recordings. YMMV, of course.
D, a fool in California
65 to 75 has it all.
DeleteTo me, it's roughly 1925 to 1975.
DeleteThe Roaring Twenties! You must have so many memories ...
DeleteOver the last few years I've explored the 1920s. The 1930s were well known; American television in the 1960s played old films throughout the week at odd hours, plus 1930s cartoons. I had a good grounding in the sound of the 1930s, but the 1920s were more of a blank...one that was filled in by the Bonzo Dog Band. But I didn't know the original recordings, which I've since managed to track down.
DeleteI think I can credit two things for my good attitude towards music of the 20s, 30s, and 40s. First, the Pacifica radio station in L.A. would play music from different eras, and although I don't remember too many sounds that I heard from that source, I am convinced that I got a little exposure from them, at least. Second, my dad was a teenage swing musician, playing in the below-draft-age band at the USO's Hollywood Canteen, called "The Kanteen Kiddies." Dad had mostly moved on from those days in the music he liked, but he certainly had some fondness for swing, and show tunes, and standards.
DeleteSo, while I was really into the "boss sounds" on AM radio in the 60s, I was also hearing some of the roots, too. draftervoi is spot on with TV giving us some of the sound of the 30s, but I like to think that I heard some of the less-popular, higher-quality stuff from "back then," in addition to what played on "The Million Dollar Movie."
D in California
In response to absolutely zero demand or interest, herewith VakumPaked© for your abusement, three (3) fine iksamples of Foolish art, with audio attached! The audio has been enhanced to @193, ensuring ALL OF THE SOUND, NONE OF THE SILENCE! Y'see, hi-fi enthusiasts, careful study of waveform analysis shows that the bloated file sizes offered by "other blogs" (no names, Babs!) contain mostly WHITE SPACE! That's right! FoamRips™ fill that wasteful vacuum of silence with 193% SOUND! Hear the difference! Say NO to NO SOUND!
ReplyDeletehttps://workupload.com/file/VSmLtmcPDuf
Been meaning to listen to this since forever. Now is as good a time. I certainly wouldn't mind fooling around (see what I did?) with those two Amshterdam Carnaby Shtreet damsels.
ReplyDeleteBill Frisell played a SG in the early 80s.
How does this fool download the fool?
ReplyDeleteLink two comments above yours.
DeleteThank you Squire, and the Fool DID make a second album. (which was even worse than the first one)
DeleteSince you know more than the internet, tell us about that second album.
Delete