Higher Than A Cat's Back Dept. - Primal Scream

This shouldn't work, but it does. Like the album

Primal Scream has one of the most bonkers, wayward, and inexplicable careers in what we're calling pop music. Every career decision was a betrayal of the crowd the previous album attracted. Fey jangle-pop, hard rock, psychedelia, dance, gospel, house, dub - they ate it up and spat it out. When the planetary forces of drugs and music aligned, they made Screamadelica. It is what it is, and what it is is everything. Some credit producer Andrew Weatherall for its success, but it's very much a group effort. The sound is organic; detailed and sumptuous, as rich and sparkling as anything coming from the West Coast. It's cavernous with burbling synths, spacey drones, exotic instruments, horn charts, FX, and swell chick vox. But underneath this technical mastery and audacious swagger are actual songs. Good songs.


Movin' On Up is the best Stones song they never wrote. There's an accomplished version of Slip Inside This House that shows the taste and class you don't expect from '91. Brian Wilson is here in spirit - an acknowledged influence - and Inner Flight in particular could almost slip onto Friends with nobody noticing. The whole thing shimmers with hedonistic bliss, and of course it couldn't last. Follow-up albums Vanishing Point and Echo Dek are darker in tone, and the thrill is gone. As their drug intake diminished, so did the good vibes. The music became more bitter and shoutier as they got the monkeys off their backs. But they left Screamadelica for us. Never fails to lift me up and blow me away.

I ironed in the Screamadelica single (inexplicably left off the album) and some worthwhile bonus tracks. In 2011, NME voted it the druggiest album ever made. It's also one of the best.

The Obscure Genius Of Paul Giovanni

Nobody with hair this great should look this miserable.

"Genius" is pushing it a bit, as it generally is when used in the context of pop. But Paul Giovanni deserves a little more recognition. Look him up on wiki. Interesting guy - rock musician, singer, playwright, performer, soundtrack composer, he left a body of work so slender if it stands sideways it disappears. But the music is pretty damn extraordinary, starting with the sole album by Side Show from 1970.

Produced by the great Arif Mardin, who didn't squander his rep on just anybody, the album is lush, crafted, beautifully composed and produced, and emotionally affecting. The other guiding light on the album, Greg Kreutz, disappeared from the music business (he was also responsible for the crap painting on the cover). Three years later, Giovanni turns up in the U.K. scoring the cult original version (not the Nic Cage comedy remake) of The Wicker Man, and the music has only tenuous links with the pop-rock of Side Show. Featuring traditional songs alongside Giovanni originals played by a group called Magnet, it has also gained a cult rep. There's a weirdness to it entirely appropriate to the mood of the movie that takes a few spins to establish itself. Unlike many soundtracks, it's a standalone album that works without the visuals.

After that, playwriting, producing, and directing the U.K. tour of Amadeus, then teaching at U.S.C. He died from AIDS-related illness in 1990, aged 57.

New design from original poster

Both these albums make swell additions to any music fan's collection. Especially yours, and you're not just any music fan.

Play "Who's In My Box?" With T.V.'s Joan Rivers! - Dept.

You'll know hilarious, outrageous comedienne Joan Rivers from her hilarious, outrageous appearances on daytime chat show clips on YouTube - or maybe you've been lucky enough to catch her "in the flesh" at one of Las Vegas' prestigious gambling clubs!

"We were getting ready to make love and my husband said, let me help you with the buttons, and I said, I'm naked! He wanted to make love with the light on, but I said, you shut that car door!"

All kidding aside, few know that Ms. Rivers is a keen collector of psychedelic vinyl! She houses her collection in a secure vault originally built for germ warfare, such is her concern for the preservation of this musical genre.

Yesterday, she opened her vault (to call it a "box" is misleading and insulting) to share her favorite obscurity. Download the sample I scraped from her vault wall, and see if you recognize who's in there!

 

Great Classics Of Literature Out Th' Ass Dept. - Edika

Edika is something of a comics hero in France, and unfortunately for Four of the Five Guys© his work is mostly in French, as it is here. But the illiterate and unlearned of you will still glean boffo laffs from his insane artwork. It's sexist, racist, human-beingist, and totally crude and vulgar. That's only part of why it's funny.

Clark Gaybeul is the family cat of Edika's revolting, terrible and entirely typical French family. Like Fat Freddy's cat, he gets his own strips from time to time. He interacts (that's the polite word) with humans in a way that F.F.C. cannot. To preserve his modesty, he wears disgusting underpants. Here's a representative albeum of his adventures. If you get caught reading it, tell her you're learning Farangsay!

NON-CONTEXTUAL EMERGENCY INTRUSION: Check Santana comments below

De-Tuning The Firesign Theatre Dept.

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A while back, I posted an edited version of Phil Austin's *cough* "solo album", Roller Maidens From Outer Space. For the following two reasons: 1) The songs stank up the album. Dull, inessential, pointless, they tainted the rest of what is fine ensemble piece.
B) It qualifies as a Firesign album, because they're all on it, and it sounds exactly like a Firesign album. Ergo - it is what it is.
4) It had the most barfworthy cover of any Firesign album, an !UN-SEE! exercise in wannabe rock star vanity that strengthens the argument for sanding off mens' nipples at birth.

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Four Or Five Guy© Hazy Dave recently requested a re-up (good to see somebody going through the crates in the crawlspace), and mentioned that the Proctor & Bergman *cough* "solo album" TV Or Not TV also suffers from tuneblight. Now, get this, subscribers - I'd already edited the songs out for my personal consumption. Mere chance? Coincidence? Or Dame Fate playing Whack-A-Mole with our souls? You be the judge.

Anyways, here they both are, de-tuned for optimum performance. The shame and the tragedy of this is that you just don't care. Well, that's you for you, isn't it? Hazy Dave and me are cutting the soles off our shoes.