THE RISING STORM

The announcement of the reunion album featuring all five original Byrds raised expectations to the point where whatever emerged was almost bound to be an anticlimax. (Imagine the effect of the Beatles reforming around the same time, if you will.) Despite a general thumbs-down from the critics, fan loyalty and eager anticipation made the new long-player highly successful at the record store: in the States, the biggest-selling new-material Byrds album since Turn, Turn, Turn. Subsequent reviews expressed varying degrees of disappointment, but recent re-evaluation with almost forty years of hindsight portrays the project as fascinating historically and not without merit artistically. Interest in it has never waned and it’s been re-released on CD no fewer than four times. The Wikipedia article on it is almost a book.

The theory behind the reunion varies. According to one version, the famously unreticent David Crosby visited Roger McGuinn in mid-1972 and panned the well-loved White/Battin/Parsons Byrds lineup, saying, “you’ve done some OK stuff but you’ve also done stuff that is pretty bad. Please stop doing it under the Byrds name”. Crosby then suggested reforming the original band to record an album showing where the founder members “are at today”. Another version has the ever-opportunistic David Geffen seeing the lucrative potential of a reunion and planting the suggestion in McGuinn’s mind, noting that McGuinn himself had become dissatisfied with the long-standing lineup and replaced Gene Parsons with salaried sessioneer John Guerin. Either way, McGuinn acquiesced and the other members, all having found themselves between longterm engagements, followed.

The nature of the final work supports the first theory: the album is The Crosby Show in almost every respect. Although on the surface democracy seems to be served by each of the four principals furnishing two original compositions, two of the three accompanying covers are Neil Young songs and the third is by Joni Mitchell, both being longtime Crosby cronies (though Clark takes lead vocal on the Young ditties). It’s been suggested that the other three writers were saving their best material for their own solo projects, but though none of their offerings is a blockbuster they’re all engaging enough, especially Gene Clark’s delicate “Full Circle” and Dylanesque “Changing Heart” and McGuinn’s ersatz-traditional “Sweet Mary”. By contrast, Crosby’s “Long Live The King” is characteristically ebullient, while his “Laughing” is itself actually a cover of the original that appeared on his sublime 1971 collection If Only I Could Remember My Name. Crosby also has the sole production credit; the only tracks that show real spirit in the lead vocals are his; and in the cover photographs he’s the only one who really looks like he wants to be there. (Chris Hillman looks like he’d rather be anywhere else at all.)

The sound of the album is also heavily redolent with Crosby’s aural fingerprint. Acoustic guitars predominate, with the electrics and bass mostly mixed way back and only Hillman’s vibrant mandolin and Clark’s plaintive harmonica forefronted strongly as solo instruments. Apart from “Laughing”, all the songs have short, terse arrangements, never really catching fire. While Crosby’s lead vocals soar, Clark’s and Hillman’s are more subdued and McGuinn’s particularly sombre. The block harmonies are immaculate but display the sweetness of CS&N rather than the engaging rough edge of latterday Byrds. One is led to conclude that with this album Crosby finally achieved, albeit temporarily, belatedly and with questionable success, the domination of the Byrds that he’d craved during the classic years.

mp3: Full Circle
mp3: Long Live the King

CD Reissue | 2004 | Wounded Bird | at amazon ]
Original Vinyl | 1973 | Asylum | search ebay ]

The Rolling Stones may still elicit the soubriquet “the greatest rock’n’roll band in the world”, but in my opinion they’ve produced in a 42-year recording history (to A Bigger Bang, 2005) just two albums really worthy of the full five stars. Both came in the 1960s when they were still comparatively young and hungry, and both interestingly represent periods of transition. Aftermath was a product of their move from faux American R’n’B garage band towards a British pop-psych sensibility motivated by the success of mid-period Beatles and the demand by their manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, that they develop as songwriters; and Beggars’ Banquet the corresponding move back to their roots, post-psychedelia.

Aftermath was the Stones’ first album to comprise only their own compositions, and can be compared to Rubber Soul in its mix of adventurousness and commercial appeal. Although Jagger’s and Richards’ songs are in general not as strong harmonically as Lennon’s and McCartney’s – the Stones lacking the Fabs’ insight into such diverse musical fields as jazz, Tamla, country and showtunes, not to mention a studio Svengali of the calibre of George Martin – the best of them are right up there, and the eclectic instrumentation brought to bear by Brian Jones, Jack Nitzsche and the invisible “sixth Stone” Ian Stewart is every bit as effective as Martin’s baroque embellishments. “Under My Thumb”, “Take It Or Leave It” and “Out Of Time” were all considered commercial enough to be covered immediately as singles by high-profile acts. The eleven-minute bluesy jam “Going Home” (not the Ten Years After song) was unprecedented on a British pop album, yet works brilliantly in the context of the wider work. The one dubious quality is the mysogynous nature of many of the lyrics; “Stupid Girl”, “Thumb”, “Time”, “Dontcha Bother Me” and “Take It” unambiguously reveal Jagger’s prevailing frame of mind.

Despite the classic British Invasion sound of the album, it was recorded in RCA’s Hollywood studios and engineered by Dave Hassinger, who would fall out big-time with the Grateful Dead a year or two later but who got along famously with the Stones if his sleeve notes are to be believed. Production was, as usual, credited to Oldham, but Nitzsche was ever-present at the sessions and the hallmarks of his touch are all over the record. North American readers should note that Aftermath UK is a greatly superior artefact to the US release of the same name, benefitting from omission of the superfluous previous hit single and from the band’s preferred sequencing, not to mention offering fourteen tracks against the US version’s eleven.

mp3: Mother’s Little Helper
mp3: Lady Jane

CD Reissue |  2002 | Abkco | at amazon ]
Original Vinyl |  1966 | Decca | at ebay ]

The Landlocked Sessions were recordings made in 1969/1970 after the Beach Boys left Capitol records and signed on to the Warner/Reprise roster.  The Boys’ new label rejected these recordings, feeling they did not capture the group at their best (in a purely commercial sense).  So fans miss out on great quirky tracks like “Loop De Loop,” “I Just Got My Pay,” “San Miguel,” “Suzie Cincinnati,” and the gorgeous Dennis Wilson penned gem “Lady.”  Some tracks would appear on later albums Surf’s Up and Holland (check out the great version of “Big Sur” or the 5 minute “Till I Die”).  In response to major label demands, the Beach Boys fired back by releasing the masterful Sunflower in 1970, followed by 71’s classic Surf’s Up.  These records were special not only for their quality but because they represented a creative rebirth of sorts - the material on hand was excellent, abundant and cutting edge.  Landlocked is the very beginnings of this early 70s renaissance.  Much of it has never been officially released but it’s all great stuff that’s worth hearing.

Copies (bootlegs) of Landlocked are usually coupled with another unreleased Beach Boy’s album, Adult Child.  Also, some bootlegs of Landlocked include the glorious Brian Wilson penned ”Soulful Old Man Sunshine.“  This track was cut in 1969 and eventually/officially released on 1998’s Endless Harmony.  Its unique brass arrangement gives it a blue-eyed soul sound.

It always amazes me how many great unreleased recordings and false starts the Beach Boys had during their heyday.  Their outtakes and unreleased albums are better than most groups’ best material.

mp3: Over The Waves
mp3: Loop De Loop
mp3: San Miguel
mp3: I Just Got My Pay
mp3: Lady
mp3: Suzie Cincinnati
mp3: Big Sur
mp3: H.E.L.P. Is On The Way

Running Time: 52:27 | File Size 72.1 MB
Download: .mp3
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1.  Help Me by The Kensington Market - 1969 (Aardvark – Pacemaker)

2.  I’ll Be The One by Madd, Inc. – 1966 (45 from The Ikon Records Story - Frantic Records)

3.  Shake by The Shadows Of Night – 1968 (45 from The Shadows Of Night- Rev-Ola)

4.  Little Boy Blue by Tonto & The Renegades – 1966 (45 from Scream Loud!!! The Fenton Story)

5.  Rich Man’s Fable by H.M.S. Bounty – 1968 (Things – Sundazed)

6.   Pretty Things – Oh by The Blue Things – 1965 (45 from Blow Your Mind)

7.  So Easy She Goes By by David Blue – 1966 (David Blue- Collectors Choice)

8.  On Tour by The Chancellors – 1966 (45 from Back From The Grave Vol. 8)

9.  Back Home by Cuby & The Blizzards – 1966 (45 from Singles A’s & B’s)

10.  You Do Things by The 49th Parallel – 1966 (45 from The 49th Parallel Complete – Pacemaker)

11.  I Want Your Love by The Pretty Things – 1965 (Get The Picture – Snapper)

12.  Eagle’s Son by The Electric Banana – 1967 (Electric Banana Blows Your Mind)

13.  Mazy by The Peep Show – 1968 (45 from Mazy: The Secret World of The Peep Show – Castle)

14.  Professor Black by The Lost & Found - 1968 (45 from Everybody’s Here - Charly)

15.  Frustration by Painted Ship – 1967 (45 from Acid Dreams Testament – Past & Present)

16.  Do Re Me by Mock Duck – 1968 (45 from Test Record – Gear Fab Records)

17.  Mr. Greene by The Palace Guards – 1968 (45 from Complete Recordings – Gear Fab Records)

18.  Farewell Aldebaran by Henske & Yester – 1969 (Farewell Aldebaran)

An unlikely classic if you judge by the sleeve, “Christian of the World” is a sweet slab of gospel rock from the one and only Tommy James. Tommy James and the Shondells are an obsession-worthy group, with a slew of memorable hits to their name. I beg you to listen closer next time “Hanky Panky” comes up on oldies radio – it’s one of the nastier garage beats I’ve heard, though it still hit number one, such a killer track. A string of succeeding uptempo hits marred the group with a “bubblegum” label that Tommy hated, urging him to infuse psychedelic sounds into classics like “Crimson and Clover.” His first two solo records continue seamlessly in the marvelous vintage sound of the Shondells.

Apart from Tommy’s brilliant vocals, it’s the production that draws me in on these records. “Adrienne,” the bass is right in your face, with clacky guitars and percussion beefing up the background. This was recorded in 1971 but still has the magic ‘oldies’ sound. Uplifting rhythm and blues grooves like “Sing, Sing, Sing” and “Church Street Soul Revival” will appeal on the first listen. The classic driving Shondells beat that made “I Think We’re Alone Now” a hit takes hold on “Sail A Happy Ship.”  But “Dragging The Line” would become Tommy’s biggest solo hit, for obvious reasons.

I’m not bothered by the religious bent. God is one of the main reasons for song. It’s devotion, sorrow, fear, faith, and madness all wrapped up in one topic. Tommy James is the master craftsman of pop. I’m off on a Shondells bender.

“Adrienne”

2fer | autographed by Tommy James | @tommyjames.com ]

The sudden arrival of British psychedelia threw up some odd stories, but surely none odder or more notorious than that of Dantalian’s Chariot. Like other established acts – the Beatles, the Stones, Donovan, the Pretty Things, even the homely Hollies – these experienced Beat-era musicians drastically changed tack to embrace the new counterculture, yet no others did it so publicly, nor with such apparent commitment, nor did they fail so spectacularly in spite of critical acclaim and huge hype.

Keyboardist/vocalist George “Zoot” Money had helmed his Big Roll Band since 1961, playing fiery R’n’B to enthusiastic Soho Mod club dancers whilst selling precious few records. Seeing the psychedelic scene suddenly burgeon around them, Money, guitarist Andy Somers and drummer Colin Allen threw themselves bodily on to the bandwagon, announcing abruptly in July 1967 that the Big Roll Band no longer existed and that henceforth they would be Dantalian’s Chariot – Dantalian being a Duke of Hell, referred to in The Key Of Solomon. To emphasise the point they kitted themselves out completely in white – kaftans, guitars, amps, even a white Hammond – and put together a light show so sophisticated that the Pink Floyd hired it on occasions. From their first self-penned recording sessions EMI released a single, “Madman Running Through The Fields”. Despite critical approval it stiffed chartwise, and a subsequent attempt to release an album, appropriately titled Transition, on CBS subsidiary Direction also stalled when the label insisted that its psychedelic elements be diluted with more familiar Money fare and the release credited to the Big Roll Band. This too sank without trace, and a miffed Money finally junked the Chariot in April 1968. Retrospectively, “Madman” became THE essential Brit psych track, much sought after by aficionados as it appeared only rarely on anthologies. The other tracks from the initial sessions attained legendary “lost” status for almost thirty years, until compilers at tiny label Tenth Planet decided to assemble them as the “true” Dantalian’s Chariot album, this finally appearing on vinyl in 1995 with an extended CD release the following year.

After the hype and the wait, the music itself turns out to be rather different from the anticipated unrelenting heavy-psych trip: indeed, it’s an eclectic mix that reminds me more of the Strawberry Alarm Clock’s ambiguous psych credentials. The brilliant “Madman” offers scything backwards cymbals, floating flutes and rippling guitar figures as well as suitably lysergic lyrics, but underneath all this is a tautly constructed pop song, not one of your rambling improvs a la “Interstellar Overdrive”. Some songs follow the distinctively British whimsical personal-narrative psych groove: “Fourpenny Bus Ride” and “Four Firemen” could have come from the Kinks or S.F. Sorrow-era Pretty Things. Others seem purely ersatz psychedelia; the instrumental “This Island” resembles a Morricone spaghetti-western outtake lugubriously decorated with Somers’s electric sitar, and “High Flying Bird” sounds almost like a music industry parody of the San Fran hippie scene, like the Flowerpot Men’s infamously insincere “Let’s Go To San Francisco”. “Sun Came Bursting Through My Cloud” is a winsome acoustic pop song penned, along with two other tracks, by the staff writing team of Tony Colton and Roy Smith. Only the thunderous “World War Three” really approaches “Madman” as a heavy psych tour-de-force. And although the musicianship is excellent throughout, Zoot’s brassy, bluesy vocals simply don’t fit the psych template.

An interesting and enjoyable period piece, then, but not the anticipated Holy Grail of psychedelia, despite its enduring reputation. And what became of the musicians who had thrown themselves so wilfully into the psych stewpot? Money went on to work with Eric Burdon’s LA-based Animals and various third-division British prog acts. Bassist Pat Donaldson fell into folk-rock, helping found Sandy Denny’s short-lived Fotheringay and touring with Richard Thompson. Colin Allen drummed on John Mayall’s Blues From Laurel Canyon and subsequently joined Stone The Crows. And after a brief dalliance with Soft Machine, Andy Somers eventually changed his surname to Summers and became one-third of the Police, no less. Listen to his textural backings on “Madman” and hear unmistakeably the genesis of his unique Police guitar style.

“Madman Running Through the Fields”

1996 | Wooden Hill | search ebay ]

I dithered about reviewing Chris Bell’s I Am The Cosmos for months, in part because I was struggling to decide exactly what I wanted to say about it, in part because of its ambiguous status: formerly considered a “lost album” but nowadays a recognised classic (for the measure of its current standing, read the heartfelt reviews on Amazon.com), whilst actually not an album as conceived, but a compilation of tracks laid down over the six years before his death in 1978 and only issued in collected form fourteen years later to cash in on the renewed interest in Alex Chilton’s tempestuous career. Whatever: such an exceptional record deserves a slot on The Rising Storm.

Chris Bell’s history is extensively available on the Internet, so I’ll eschew my usual historical perspective and offer a purely personal appreciation. I bought the CD in 2001 as a clearance bargain, the insert booklet having gone missing; hence I do not have, and have not read, the highly-rated explanative booklet essay by Chris’s brother David. I knew of Chris as an ex-founder member of Big Star, but I knew nothing of his subsequent music, nor of his repressed homosexuality, clinical depression, heroin addiction and untimely ending, and it was mostly the mystique of the title I Am The Cosmos that prompted me to pick the album up. It didn’t turn out to be the neo-psychedelic exposition the title suggested, but one of the most intimately personal and bittersweet singer-songwriter collections I’ve ever heard: twelve absolutely exquisite compositions, mostly despairing songs of unrequited love, barely leavened with a couple of gently evangelical, faintly optimistic near-hymns.

Musically, the album runs the whole gamut from harsh, primitive electric tracks, all splintered guitars, thunderous drum fills and Spectoresque reverb, to sweet acoustic numbers with the softest possible string or woodwind coloration. Among the many original touches, “Speed Of Sound” pitches the acoustics against “violin-ed” lead guitar, marimba and swelling synth, whilst the quirky “Fight At The Table” features barrelhouse piano and an odd, wah-ed bass line, and the gentle Fender Rhodes on “Though I Know She Lies” is complemented by a crying George Harrison-like slide guitar. Despite all this variety the overall feel is homogeneous enough to almost convince you that the album was recorded as a single entity. Chris’s vocal throughout is high and keening, and mostly double-tracked with a dissonance that lends yet further pathos to his lyrical delivery. I don’t often attach the greatest importance to lyrics, preferring to hear the voice more as a principal instrument, but given the nature of this record they’re a quintessential and indivisible part of the package: simple, almost naïve and childlike, but utterly honest and expressive – just incredibly sad, without a trace of the cynicism present in some of Alex Chilton’s writing.

If you feel like getting emotionally wrung out one evening, try playing this end-to-end with Neil Young’s Tonight’s The Night, Kurt Cobain’s In Utero and Elliott Smith’s eponymous second album. It’ll either make you feel much better or have you reaching for the razor blades.

“Speed of Sound”

CD Reissue | 1992 | Rykodisc | at amazon ]

John Foxx was the original lead vocalist, composer, multi-instrumentalist and frontman of the innovative and adventurous Ultravox!, who progressed from their Roxy-influenced art-rock debut through spiky, punk-inflected glam to prototypical synth-pop a la Kraftwerk. Despite its quality, none of this material made a significant commercial impact. When Island dropped the band in 1979 after the third album, Foxx went solo, forefronting his virtuosity on the electronic keyboards which were the mainstay of the UK’s New Romantic scene during the early eighties. His ensuing albums forged an almost opposite progression, from the industrial Europop of Metamatic to the pastoral The Garden and the decidedly romantic The Golden Section, the tunes becoming progressively more melodic and the accompaniments more refined and luxuriant. The new Foxx sound fitted exactly the early eighties electronic zeitgeist, yet commercial success on the grand scale still eluded him (ironically, unlike his former band who went from strength to chart-topping strength under their new frontman Midge Ure). 1985’s In Mysterious Ways proved to be his last venture in music for ten years, as he concentrated on his other talents in abstract art, photography and graphic design.

Never has an album more deserved the description “New Romantic”. The defining features of In Mysterious Ways are glorious washes of overlaid polyphonic keyboards, pulsating monotone synth bass lines pitted against throbbing (mostly) human-generated drum patterns and Foxx’s highly poetic lyrics intoned in his aching, lonesome voice. Most of the brittle rhythms and atonal tendencies characterising the earlier albums are expunged, and the album’s wistful, soft-focus feel befits its title. The harmonic structures seldom extend beyond the three basic major chords, but the melodies are exquisite, the faster rhythms slyly danceable, the bridges Beatlesque in their modulations and the words as warmly romantic as a sexy night under the duvet. The leadoff track “Stars On Fire” is the rockiest, with a shuffle beat and strident arpeggioed keyboards, the middle eight and final choruses boosted by fuzzed chords before a swirling Farfisa organ takes over for the coda. The trio of “Lose All Sense Of Time”, “Shine On” and “Enter The Angel” are dominated by the trademark monotone bass locked seamlessly into the four-beat percussion; “Time” features slashing guitar chords on the bridge, “Shine” fades out to a languorous double-tracked saxophone coda and “Angel” with its singalong lyric has soulful call-and-response ensemble female backing on the choruses. The songs on what was the original second side become progressively more lush and romantic, passing through a slowed-down orchestral reprise of “Enter The Angel” and culminating in “Morning Glory” whose multitracked keyboards and soaring vocals are layered as sweetly as marshmallow.

John Foxx returned to music in 1995, still ploughing his electronic furrow on his own independent label, but his subsequent compositions have been dark and minimalist. Retrospective examination of his work has favoured the more aggressive sound of the Metamatic period, and the sweet romanticism that characterised my favourite of his albums, In Mysterious Ways, is nowadays largely ignored.

“Stars on Fire”

CD Reissue | 2008 | Edsel | amazon ]
Vinyl | 1985 | Virgin | ebay ]

In the wake of pop’s rediscovery of itself, prompted by the blitzkrieg success of punk, 1977 proved to be a splendid year for debut albums, indeed perhaps the best since 1969 kicked off the Golden Age Of Prog Rock. Most of the artists concerned were promising newcomers, but a fair number were veterans in new guises. In the UK, musicians who had cut their teeth in the back-to-basics pub-rock bands of 1973-75 recombined into new units or declared themselves solo artists and, riding on the New Wave of energy generated by punk, sought to combine their established chops with its novelty, brevity and audacity. While the younger hardline punks disdained all previous genres for ground-zero three-chord originality, the second-time-around outfits leavened the new energy with earlier styles; the Stranglers displayed a clear Doors streak, Elvis Costello evinced more than a pinch of Gram Parsons, and the Motors borrowed heavily from both the Beatles and the Byrds.

Former Kilburn & The High Roads frontman Ian Dury took his lyrical influences from the music hall performers of the thirties and the Carry On films of the fifties, filtered through Ray Davies’s wry observations of London society in the sixties, to produce a uniquely English, witty product which nonetheless chimed with the impending social upheavals of the late seventies in true punk fashion. Like the Kinks’ mid-term catalogue, Dury’s songs portrayed contemporary suburban characters and their lifestyles but, eschewing Davies’s gentle, rose-tinted, middle-class mockery, Dury unashamedly painted his subjects in stark black-and-white with all the sexual innuendo, scatology, and profane language of the working-class Cockney. The contrast was heightened by the presence of the Blockheads, a killer backing band who could deploy their formidable and highly danceable playing skills effortlessly in the directions of jazz or art-rock, soul or reggae, disco or doo-wop as befitted the song in hand. Guitarist-keyboardist Chaz Jankel also provided the music and arrangements to Dury’s lyrics; bassist Norman Watt-Roy and drummer Charley Charles were a fearsomely tight rhythm section, whilst seriously leftfield saxophonist Davey Payne took his deranged cues from Roland Kirk and Ornette Colman.

The debut album New Boots And Panties and non-album single “Sex And Drugs And Rock And Roll”, credited only to Dury but featuring the Blockheads throughout, immediately scored glowing music press reviews in Britain, the scribes praising their originality, energy, theatricality and occasional unbridled venom (New Musical Express journo Roy Carr described the album as “Max Wall with a backbeat: Max Miller on mandies”). “Billericay Dickie”, “Clevor Trever”, “Plaistow Patricia”, “Sweet Gene Vincent” and “My Old Man” are all affectionate and occasionally bawdy portraits to characters of Dury’s acquaintance – some with names changed to protect the guilty – while “Wake Up And Make Love With Me” and “I’m Partial To Your Abracadabra”, along with “Sex And Drugs And Rock And Roll” and its B-side “Razzle In My Pocket”, both included on the deluxe CD reissue, are funny and inoffensive (depending on how sensitive you are) homages to Dury’s favourite vices. For an example of Dury’s poetic lyrical talent, in the MP3s below contrast the lazy, loping alliteration in “Trever” with the stroboscopic acapella parts echoing the “black, white, black, white” theme in “Vincent”. The cover art shows The Man posing archly in appropriate Doc Marten footwear outside a typically seedy East End men’s outfitter’s; the equally cocky-looking urchin with him is his son Baxter, who would become a singer himself.

Whilst very much of the New Wave, the highly original, uniquely theatrical and impressive musical qualities of New Boots And Panties render it apart from the best of the rest. Though yielding many more individual gems, notably the tremendous hit singles “Reasons To Be Cheerful, Part 3” and “Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick”, the consistency of Dury’s subsequent work would suffer from the departure of Chaz Jankel, whose relationship with the frontman had always been somewhat spiky, and from Dury’s own physical deterioration as his uncompromising rock’n’roll lifestyle took its toll on his polio-weakened body.

“Sweet Gene Vincent”

CD Reissue | 2005 | Fuel | at amazon ]
Vinyl | 1977 | Stiff | search ebay ]

Head isn’t the best Monkees album; in fact it contains just six pieces of music, only one of which is a copper-bottomed classic. But it does best symbolise the wonderful set of contradictions that made up the Monkees and their brief top-flight career.

The Monkees were first really brought to my attention in 1967 when my kid sister pinned a tearout picture from Fab 208 teeny fanzine on her bedroom wall. It showed the band members goofing around in Victorian style striped swimsuits. Her comment was “Haven’t they got nice legs?”. You can imagine the response she received from this then ultra-serious psychedelia and Memphis soul admirer. Actually I had appreciated the excellent first single, “Last Train To Clarksville”, but had not been impressed by the follow-ups, including the turgid “I Wanna Be Free” and the simplistic “I’m Not Your Steppin’ Stone”. Nothing to lay alongside Pepper, Hendrix and Wilson Pickett there, then. The TV series just irritated me: A Hard Day’s Night reduced to twenty-five-minute knockabouts. And if I did manage to catch the Head movie – I can’t remember if I did or not – its plotless, formless, apparently pointless structure would have had the same effect.

Fast forward to the new millenium, and after decades of derision the Monkees suddenly became hip again in the wake of Britpop, New Psychedelia and other sixties revival movements. I discovered to my surprise that Mickey Dolenz was a peerless pop vocalist, and Mike Nesmith a confident, strident songwriter; that the best songs had been penned by the aristocracy of Goffin and King, Boyce and Hart, Neil Diamond, John Stewart and the Harries Chapin and Nilsson; that with musical backing by Glen Campbell, James Burton, Clarence White, Ry Cooder, Tommy Tedesco, Neil Young (yes, that one) and other A-team sessioneers from both coasts, those tracks were, in retrospect, sublime nuggets of pop; and that Head the movie was a definitive sixties cinematic experience. I came to sympathise with the group’s struggle to escape from the straitjacket of the exploitative entertainment industry, so splendidly satirised in Head in “Ditty Diego – War Chant”. From witless boy-band to The Next Beatles via psychedelia and country-rock, I saw the Monkees for what they really had been: a genuinely ambitious and progressive outfit with real musical integrity, their career cut short by their inability to shed the ludicrous image they’d been saddled with at the start. (OK, maybe scratch Davy Jones, who had zip musical or vocal talent, but provided eye-candy in the same way as Paul McCartney did for the Fabs and Brian Jones did for the Stones, and also shared Macca’s unfortunate penchant for Vaudeville. Nobody’s perfect.)

Head the movie and Head the album represent the Monkees’ final, ill-fated, attempt to break through the cultural barriers. Read about the movie on Wikipedia, if you will; the entry is very good. The album comprises the aforesaid six songs plus a bewildering collage of dialogue and found sounds from the film, deliberately reassembled, reverbed, varispeeded and otherwise twisted to produce a supremely trippy experience not unlike Frank Zappa’s experiments on Uncle Meat. (In fact Zappa also has a cameo in the film.) Of the songs, “Porpoise Song” (Goffin & King) is possibly the best psychedelic single ever released. The live version of Nesmith’s “Circle Sky”, unaccountably passed over on the original album for the inferior studio version, is good enough to have been included on Nuggets. And the reissue CD also includes the original mix of Peter Tork’s “Can You Dig It”, his homespun vocal fitting this deeply psych song better than Micky’s smooth, poppy delivery as used on the final version.

Both movie and album bombed, of course. But the Monkees’ true legacy can be found in the excellent psych artifact which is the reissue CD of Head, and on the absolutely stunning 2008 Rhino 4-CD compilation The Monkees Music Box. Also indispensible is Andrew Sandoval’s definitive book The Monkees: The Day By Day Story. Go explore, and happy hunting.

“Porpoise Song”

CD Reissue | 1994 | Rhino | at amazon ]
Vinyl | 1968 | Colgems | at ebay ]

From an unlikely source comes this burst of pure, live country rock and roll. Born into stardom, the younger son of Ozzie & Harriett was a teen idol with big hit singles by the age of 17. More than ten years later, the grown-up and rechristened “Rick” Nelson had developed into a Californian country rocker as fine as any, but his child-star status would forever bar him the proper recognition.

Other artists of this time, like the Byrds on Sweetheart, are accused of being a rock band that merely played country – there wasn’t a strong sense of synergy. Whatever the true definition of “country rock,” listening to Rick Nelson on stage at the Troubadour, debuting his new sound in 1969, adds a significant layer of depth to my understanding of the country rock cross section. There’s no doubt this is a piece of the puzzle.

While it’s hard to ignore some of Rick Nelson’s nerdier lyrics, especially on the album opener, “Come On In,” (“we’re gonna sing our songs for you, hope we make you feel good too”), the Stone Canyon Band captures you straight off the kicker. Tom Brumley (ex Buckaroo) on steel, Randy Meisner (Eagles) on bass, Allen Kemp and Pat Shanahan (both future New Riders) on lead guitar and drums. This was a mean assortment and they deliver an authoritative rock sound with deep seated country leanings.

Nelson manages some hipper originals with “Who Cares About Tomorrow” into “Promises,” a medley, vaguely recalling Del Shannon’s Charles Westover sound. The Stone Canyons manicure Bob Dylan’s “She Belongs To Me” a la Beau Brummels‘ tightly knit Nashville rock, and reveal one of the concert’s sweetest spots.  The whole record builds like a sweet crescendo and suddenly you remember why you came to see the show tonight. Another Dylan gem, “If You Got To Go, Go Now” shifts things to high gear. Even Ricky’s monster hit, Fats Domino’s “I’m Walkin” gets it cool with an irresistible honky-funk treatment. Tim Hardin’s “Red Balloon” is another highlight – what guitarist wouldn’t want to play this lead 100 times on this stage? “Louisiana Man” has that tongue-in-cheek hillbilly groove but it’s nice enough.

Another Nelson original, “Easy to be Free,” written “a couple of weeks” before this was recorded is another piece of songwriting fluff (“did you ever want to fly, over rainbow skies so high”) but the dreamy mood is what counts this late in the night. The record closes with one final Dylan masterpiece, “I Shall Be Released.” Class act. I wouldn’t use my “timeless” stamp here, but this is no doubt a classic, and as bona fide a country-rock performance as any I’ve heard. Good show, Ricky.

“Red Balloon”

Original Vinyl | 1970 | MCA | search ebay ]
MP3 Album | download ]