From Th' IoF© Library O' Books Dept. - The Fan Man

William Kotzwinkle's The Fan Man is about this guy Horse Badorties, right, and it's awesome, and you should like, read it, well, I don't mean should, right, it's your trip, man, but it'd be kinda cool if you did, or you could just like dig the pictures. Have a nice day!

 

 

 

 

Tripping Thru Th' Kaleidoscope-Scented Pretzel Of Your Mind Dept.

Oboy. Wus I ever wrong about dese guys. I'd tossed these albums into a dump-bin hard drive along with - uh - well, stuff too embarrassing to talk about right now. But as I was rooting around in it yesterday or so, I decided to give them a last spin to confirm the correctness of my judgement, harsh tho' it be. And boy, was I ever wrong. They're swell! Fey as færie underpants, but this ain't The Dictators, so wit' th' sneering, enough awready. It takes a certain kind of courage to be this gentle, especially in Detroit, where Parrish made his album.

The Forest Of My Mind, from '68 because of course it is, boasts a gorgeous, spacious production from Motown's Clay McMurray and features Funk Brothers sessioners (including Bob Babbitt, whose playing graces the Douglas Hendrix albums). Imaginatively arranged by Dennis Coffey and Mike Theodore, it's a long way from funk, and a world away from Detroit. File under baroque psych-folk-pop. Parrish went on to a successful singer-songwriter career, but it's this first, glittering album that's truly special.

 

In '68, because of course it was, Bosstown's own Alan Lorber was busy producing Ultimate Spinach, Chamaeleon Church and a bunch of other first rate second tier psych acts, and had enough clout to bus in Grade A jazzbo sessioners for Bobby Callender's debut Rainbow, including Richard Davis, Bernard Purdie, Eric Gale and Hugh McCracken, and pioneer sitar-strangler Collin Walcott. What they thought was happening is anybody's guess, but it ain't jazz. This is sitar-sodden, effects-drenched psych-pop.

Callender's overt spirituality was not a psychsploitation move, as his utterly sincere and almost unlistenably mystic second album (included in the Freeload™) was to prove. The beady-eyed Lorber was keen to cash in on the hippie craze, but there's not an unmusical note on the album. If you love the first ten seconds you'll love it all. If not, play Go Girl Crazy! Nobody cares! What you like and think is not important here - this is the internet, where no mind is changed.

Both these albums have a distinctively English Whimsydelia™ vibe going for them, which leads lazy online reviewers to claim they're Donovan knockoffs, but neither sounds like him. They're just gently harmonious, tinged with melancholy, and built on beauty, a fine foundation. We've lost something special if we dismiss them as charmingly camp period pieces, a kind of smirking Hallmark© cosplay. They're as authentic in their way as John Lee Hooker.

Addendum post scriptum:

I've been listening to The Way (Callender's second album) and found the length of shrift I'd given it to be too short by a few nautical light years. A tad too much spoken word, but a quality music album (he's backed by Oregon), deserving more attention that it gets. Which is like, not much shading into none at all. Here's what to look for at your local gas station:

Encouraged by my open-mindeness, I dug out his third album, from '72, and I wus shocked, I tells ya! With a title like Le Musée de l'Impressionnisme, the cover, and a load of very short tracks with titles like Nadars (The Baptism Of Impressionism) you'd expect some delicately nervous, Eno-esque meditations on Art and Life and Shit, with washes of ill-advised New Age synthesiser. You'd be way off beam - as I was. This is SOUL MUSIC!!! FUNKIFIED FREAKING SOUL (FFS)!!! His voice has an edge to it - the guy can sing - the full big soul band is smokin' hot, the backing vox wail, the groove is propulsive, the hooks lift you out of your seat, and this is not only the biggest surprise a record's given me for lo these many years, it's MY RECORD OF THE YEAR. Ignoring the fact that it's from '72 (because of course it is). Who's counting?

Batshit bonkers. And astonishing, really.

 

(This post funded in part by the Jazzbo Funkateers For Free Love Society, Pork Hollow, CO)

Crawlspace Collectables Dept. - Jimi's Lost Albums

Album art copyright IoF© Art Department O' Art Dept.

In 1975, five years after Jimi Hendrix's death, producer Alan Douglas painstakingly overdubs A-list session musicians live onto tapes from his vault, using production and editing techniques that Teo Macero used with Miles Davis, and would later win Lennie Niehaus awards and critical praise for his "pioneering" treatment of Charlie Parker's recordings. And in a move he'd regret, Douglas claims composing credits in behind-the-scenes skullduggery, and comes across as arrogant blowhard in interviews.

The two albums sell well. Frothing fanbois cry foul, preferring *cough* "ragged glory" of original recordings.

Albums quickly go out of print as the *cough* "Hendrix Estate" gets her claws into his catalog, becoming sporadically available on import. Douglas haters and Eddie Kramer groupies continue to clutch their pearls, everyone else who gets to hear the music thinks it's swell and can't see what the fuss is about.

 

Five years later, Douglas edits studio jams he'd set up for Hendrix with Miles Davis alumni Larry Young and Dave Holland (among others). Predictably, Nine To The Universe gets sneered at by weirdos who think production techniques are a crime, but again, it's a valuable and enjoyable recording. It's Hendrix, ffs.

 

 

 

 

Suddenly, it's 1995, and Hendrix again enters the charts with Douglas' Voodoo Soup, an impeccably compiled and produced album that had the fanbois frothing at the mouth, especially for replacing Mitch Mitchell on a couple of songs. That's just one of the many things critics still don't understand because they want the anti-Douglas narrative to continue: Douglas brought in Mitchell to replace his own tracks, but he arrived at the studio too drunk to perform, asking to be let off the gig. Another is the oft-repeated claim that this is Douglas' "attempt" to create First Rays Of The New Rising Sun. Well, it just ain't. As Douglas told me, he chose a new title for a new album, as only Jimi could create First Rays - something that didn't occur to the *cough* "Hendrix Estate". Considered by many to be the finest post-mortem Hendrix studio album, and many are right. All these albums are long out of print. They shouldn't be,

12" version of story here.

Box set version of story here.

Link to albums in comments.

 

In spite of my vow to recycle old pieces, I did an Alan Douglas with this one and overdubbed new screed. I love these albums, have a lot of respect for Alan Douglas, and know things about Janey Hendrix (the *cough* "Hendrix Estate") that would make you toss your ribs.

It Crawled From Outta Th' Crawlspace! Dept. - Wilf Brimley's Seatrain

Meet Wilford Brimley [left - Ed.], star of NBC's popular Uncle Ignatz Psychedelic Pshack Pshow!


Hey kids! It's me, Uncle Ignatz! Take a load off! Now what we have here for your delectation is a buncha sweet biscuits from the Psychedelic Pshack, but before we get to them we have to deal with the problem of that final Blues Project album, Planned Obsolescence. Now, a lot of folks round these parts - especially "One Nose" Willa down at the General Store Head Shop - have nothing good to say about that album. They use the term contractual obligation, and they dismiss it out of hand. So let's a get a couple of things straight. The Blues Project - fine band - changed their line-up, changed their name, and signed a new contract. Those were the conditions under which they recorded the album. It was never intended to be a Blues Project album, and shouldn't be considered as one. They were Sea Train by then - two words - and the album wasn't a contractual obligation to their old label but a fresh start at a new one. Turns out things weren't that simple. Life never is, right? Their old label claimed the new album was owed to them, and released it as a Blues Project album, which by whillickers it ain't.

So what we have here is that first Sea Train album, in its *cough* original sleeve [above - Ed.] - ain't that a beaut? - with the single included, as the good Lord intended, both sides. How about them apples? That title is what you might call ironic, seeing as how this fine album has indeed been Lost In The Shuffle. Listening to it now, there's no way this is a Blues Project album, and it's kinda easy to see why folks took the set against it they did. There's so much going on here it makes my whiskers bristle! And next up, this may or may not be familiar to you folks out there in Foamland®, is actually the second Sea Train album. Called Sea Train [left - Ed.]. Which gets a mite confusing later, when they shortened their name to Seatrain - one word - and released an album called Seatrain. One word. Anyways you cut the baccy, it's another rockin' album, and you can hear the smooth transition from Lost In The Shuffle. If you know what the heck is going on with that cover, you be sure to get in touch with your Uncle Ignatz!

1970, they move to Capitol Records, and cut a swell album with George Martin.

1971, their second for Capitol, Marblehead Messenger. 

1973, a change in style for the verrrrry sliiiightly less interesting Watch. Kinda groovy, though. 

Unofficial recording from the Fillmore East, back in '71. Mmm, nice!

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is my fondest hope that you enjoy these albums as much as I do, and hear Lost In The Shuffle as it was always meant to be heard, so many years ago! This is your Uncle Ignatz, saying see ya - back at the Pshack©! [Fake studio applause, twangy teenbeat-style theme under superfast credits]

 

This Crawlspace Legacy Post comes to you from 2019, when some of youse bums was still alive! It has been artificially enhanced with mildly interesting new content, for bogus immediacy and relevance!

From The Crawlspace Dept. - Old Woolhat's Tin Ear

Look, I love Michael Nesmith. In a wholesome, outdoorsy way. I have a dozen-plus albums of his that I consider lifelong friends that never get old. But that doesn't mean I kick all my critical faculties to the curb when listening to his music. He's made a few batshit bonkers moves in his long career - part of his charm - but I've gathered you here again to talk about his weird proclivity (steady at the back there) for fucking up his old albums.

Frank Zappa, another control freak, did this repeatedly, most notoriously with Cruising With Reuben And The Jets and We're Only In It For The Money, which he basically wrecked with his spiteful and hypocritical vandalism at the mixing desk. Nesmith's folly isn't as great; the albums he remixed aren't as important as Zappa's. But still. The Wichita Train Whistle Sings  and The Prison were fine records, and Nesmith should have been Saran-wrapped in the trunk of a Crown Vic with straws up his nose rather than allowed to get his fingers back on the faders. You'd be forgiven for thinking he could make Rays any worse. You'd be wrong.

The story of The Wichita Train Whistle Sings is well-known. If not by you, then look it up. I ain't here to copy-paste shit from the internet. d0 yUr oWn resErch. Oh okay. Basically he gave his song charts to fifty of L.A.'s finest, got them stoned and rolled the tapes as a tax write-off. It's a shitload of pure fun, and I'll take it over The Garden any day. Maybe the balance is a little off-center sometimes, but so was that of the musicians. It's more polished, cleverly arranged, and entertaining than you might imagine, certainly no waste of anyone's time, yet Nez saw fit to remix it for a 2008 reissue program. It remains harder to find, happily, than the original.

Our Allmusic hack gets it, predictably, catastrophically wrong, loftily opining that it "sounds better than all previous incarnations." The stupid fuck clearly hasn't heard any previous incarnations [sic - Ed.], probably hasn't listened to this one, and is regurgitating Nesmith's own liner notes; "the sequence has been altered to reflect the initial intent". Bullshit. It was his own project from ground up, and the original sequencing was his original intent - how could it be otherwise?

The remix sounds like Old Woolhat played the tapes through a walkie-talkie in a bleak underground liminal space, re-recording it onto a dictaphone wrapped in damp underwear. It is that bad. The original remains a crystal-clear transcription of a crazyhappy day spent screwing the I.R.S.

 

The Prison, released in '74, was a beautifully illustrated book with a soundtrack album, handsomely published in a box. The book wasn't the kind of book you'd want to read as, well, you know, a book. It was more like a sketch of an idea that needed a whole lot of work. The length of a CEO's introduction to a company report, and about as engaging, it was padded out with a superfluous French translation. Worse, it had no connection with the few lyrics on the album. Yet you were supposed to read it while listening to the music and let this - finger-waggle - "Third Thing" happen, a holistic synergy if you will, which opened a different state of consciousness. It was bullshit, of course, but an endearing kind of bullshit, well-intentioned and inventive. Give him credit for trying something different, rather than blame him for its failure. It was his first album for his own label, Pacific Arts, and it's unlikely RCA would have risked putting it on the racks.

The music was quietly revolutionary. Mostly instrumental, just him and Red Rhodes, ambling through songs like fields of wheat [oh, very good - Ed.]. A metronomic drum machine pattering like soft summer rain [oh, stop - Ed.], some minimal synthesizer. As if Kraftwerk had produced his previous album, And The Hits. It was a unique sound for unique material. Those wanting more country rock tunes were disappointed. Those seeking a consciousness-expanding holistic synergy were disappointed. But for those who let it take the time to work its magic, it became a much-loved and essential record. With Pacific Arts' limited distribution and mail order, it limped unnoticed out of print.

He clearly thought its commercial failure was the fault of the music, because when he got around to re-releasing the project in 1990, that was the part he messed with. He should have entirely rewritten the book - better yet, just trashed it - and let the music be, but no. He shamefully kicked Red Rhodes off into the distance, barely audible. He slathered on a sticky mess of new age synth washes and faerie keyboard tinkling. He added a mystical reverb to his vocals. And like Frank Zappa, he fucked up. Unable to admit his mistake (Texans don't make mistakes) he doubled down on the ghastliness with another two albums, the irredeemable The Garden and the even worse The Ocean, exhausting our critical leniency. Never mind. We don't have to listen to them, and dammit, we're not going to. But the original Prison is, in its quietly soothing way, one of his very loveliest albums.

 

Rays has never been anyone's favorite Nesmith album, leave alone declared a lost classic by even the most swivel-eyed of his fans [that'll be you, then - Ed.]. It's bizarre, but in a head-scratching way. What the fuck actual was he thinking? It sounds like the whole thing was played on a Casio VL-Tone in a motel room. There are maybe 2.6 songs on it, and they're kinda gnarly.

Coming thirteen years after his last "proper" album Tropical Campfires, it was a desperate disappointment, and it tanked. Hard. Thinking again that all it needed was a bit of folding and fluffing, Nez took a decade or so to nurture the work to completion. Let the great man speak:

“I like it a great deal [ri-ight - Ed.] and have been listening to it the last several months over and over. Something is realized in this iteration that is additive, incremental and moves the work into new territory that I did not intend or expect when I first wrote and recorded it. I am excited by it. In some sense it makes Rays a whole new work.”
 

So additive and incremental was this iteration that it never even made it to a physical format, being given away online, and only about three people have heard it (not me - I accidentally pushed the tone-arm right to the spindle about five minutes in).

From The Crawlspace will be a (very) occasional feature wherein [grammar - Ed.] I remix and remodel old posts to no great effect, hoping to give the bogus impression of making a vigorous contribution to the blogosphere, going forward.