Brazilian crooner pop single. Don’t know much this guy. He co-wrote songs on records by Eduardo Gudin, Alaíde Costa, and Jane & Herondy. Pretty sure this was just a blind buy off the Bay. Nothing too thrilling but the Portuguese gives it a faint whiff of bossa.
I think the first time I saw this movie was on the classic never-watch-it-straight weekend overnight anthology/variety barrage Night Flight on the USA Network, back in the mid-’80s. It was very European and pretty disturbing. Was happy to see Criterion issue the disc. Finally scored a nice copy of this soundtrack at a fair price. It’s an appealingly tense blend of Euro jazz/funk cues (most a minute or less) that wouldn’t sound out of place on a contemporary giallo. Goraguer (born 1931 in a suburb of Paris) also did a crime jazz EP I’m trying to find for less than mortgage payment rates.
First solo LP from Olve Eikemo of Immortal. If you like their later records, you’ll probably dig this one. I do. Some strong riffs and catchy arrangements; high energy music. Of the original Norwegian black metal bands, Immortal seemed to have run with the Bathory sound more than most, and this is on the same path. The fine pre-Immortal death metal act Amputation appears in my upcoming DemoLition book, as does Old Funeral, which featured Eikemo and other future Immortal members (along with Varg Vikernes).
The mighty Norton empire reissues four 1960s tunes from a tiny Michigan label, highlighted by the spooky, Link Wray–like instrumental “Banshee” from the Jerry Lee Trio. Tasty sleeve design by Pat Broderick.
Noise release from veteran Japanese artist K.K. Null. Back in the ’90s I was buying a lot of these types of records on small experimental labels out of the UK; this one’s on Fourth Dimension, which was affiliated with Grim Humour zine. There was also Dirter (still going), Broken Flag, Shock, and Dying Earth. Anyway, this two-sider provides a nice head soaking.
Fine little spy jazz record by this busy session guitarist from Long Beach (1930–2012). He played on and arranged records for Elvis, both Sinatras (that’s his guitar on Nancy’s “Bang Bang”), The Beach Boys (Pet Sounds), The Everly Brothers, and tons more.
Monster Wire and Germs covers. Brian Egeness was one of the most original guitarists to come out of the hardcore scene, and has never gotten enough recognition. But we’ll get more into that later when their LPs come up.
Solid crime jazz soundtrack from May, a Pittsburgh native. He’s the big band–era guy who wrote the themes for The Green Hornet and Naked City. He was also known for being a long-time Sinatra arranger.
The thing that strikes me about this British metal single (from their debut LP) is how much it sounds like Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell record from three years later; Tony Iommi produced this, and it makes you wonder if he didn’t pick up some ideas. This is the 1980 reissue version. Singer Mike Taylor died in 2016 at age 68, and future Sabbath keyboardist Geoff Nicholls was a member.
Very sincere, Texas-based (?) lounge singer does three early ’70s standards (“American Trilogy” is always a treat to hear on these records). The back cover reprints newspaper stories touting connections with Kris Kristofferson in Nashville and Glen Campbell in Vegas.
Born in 1937, the adopted son of Harpo Marx here makes a fine jazz record, with help from Paul Horn on sax and Dick Nash on trombone. I don’t know enough about jazz to tell you what specific kind it is; maybe someone can chime in. I just like it. Marx composed several film scores for director Bob Kelljan (including both Count Yorga films), plus stuff like DEATHMASTER and TERROR AT RED WOLF INN. He’s lived in the Palm Springs area since 1992, and still performed at a local restaurant with a trio in recent years.
Mostly pleasant but fluffy orchestral pop of the “world tour” variety, but includes some good cuts that excite the exotica nerve. Dig the abstract cover art.
An album of instrumental Gilbert O'Sullivan covers? Besides the expected easy listening, this inexplicably contains a couple of pretty cool 1970s cop show funk cuts. Sullivan (born James Tomkins in 1941) was an in-demand session guitarist, played the first recorded fuzz guitar in Britain, and appeared on records by Dusty Springfield, Bowie, Small Faces, and hundreds of others. He died in 2012. By the way, “Little Jimmy” was fellow session guitarist Jimmy Page.
I still like their last record best, but this one has a few standouts, including probably their best-known song, “Kerosene,” about the self-destructive behavior driven by boredom of nimrods out in the sticks.
A sultry, moody crooner ballad from the king of song poems.
This is one of the records that showed me that “heavy” didn’t have to be metal. There’s some filler, but the good stuff is good.
The 12” EP grooves on this are nice and loud. Happy songs concerning child beating, grinding the face of someone who messed with your tools, strike breakers, and racist cops. A “heavy” guitar paired with one that sounds like a big chain smashing against a cyclone fence. Granulating roundwound bass groove. A thumping 808. And a killer Savage Pencil cover illustration.
Comp of their first two EPs from ’82 and ’83. The first one (Lungs) is pretty weird; sounds very homemade (it was a one-man band at this point). There’s not much hint of the fury they’d unleash later on. The second one (Bulldozer) is more aggressive, accentuating the darkness in the lyrical content.
I have no idea what pinup queen Betty Page has to do with the this picture disc other than cynical marketing or a tangential connection to striptease music, but nonetheless it’s a pretty cool collection of short suspense and crime/spy jazz library tracks from the Chappell organization. These records can be difficult to come by, and are usually pretty expensive.
They pump out records, but generally the quality ratio is decent. However, this double LP is mostly filler, with the exception of the epic, side-long head-soaking psych of the title track. These guys can take the classic spaced-out Gong sound and run it through a field of shrooms.
Sappy lounge crooner from parts unknown, wimpy enough to do “Evergreen” and “Weekend in New England.” I did enjoy his versions of ”Copacabana” and “MacArthur Park” (I’ll buy any private lounge record that has this song on it).
Not a lot of records come out of French Polynesia; here’s one that’s mostly traditional, happy Polynesian music that’s pleasant enough, but of no lasting interest personally. But there are three cool, surf-like instrumentals that are nice to hear.
One thing I love to hear on easy listening records is plucky electric bass, like it was picked or plucked close to the bridge. It creates a tight foundation for the more airy elements to soar. In general, so many of these LPs have thick, clear, lush production sounds (especially the German ones). Picture yourself in a Kmart in the mid-’70s, munching on popcorn while Mom looks for husky bootcut dungarees for your new school year.
Kaempfert, born in Hamburg in 1923, was a songwriter (“Strangers in the Night”) and bandleader whose most famous footnote is probably (while working A&R for Polydor) hiring The Beatles to back English singer Tony Sheridan in 1961. He started releasing LPs in the late ’50s, and some of his material starting a decade later falls nicely into the Now Sound genre (middle-aged, mostly white orchestra leaders covering “hip” rock and pop sounds of the day), with a plucking electric bass underpinning pleasant brass melodies. He died in 1980. The label on this one brags “Recorded in Europe.”
A demented desert island disc in this home. This was the first collection of song poems, short-run records (mostly 45s), the result of the “send us your lyrics” shuck found in gossip magazine ads back in the 1960s and ’70s. The king of this strange corner of the record world was the sad genius Rodd Keith (aka Rod Rogers and many other names), a musical prodigy who met an early demise, the result of drugs and/or mental imbalance. He could bang out multiple one-take songs per day, a lot of them sounding genuinely good and catchy with an air of someone having actual fun at their work, so he’s since had several anthologies of his own. Other singers come across as d-level lounge crooners, and hearing them sing these bizarre poems sent in by suckers who paid money to have a record of their own often results in some strange accidental works of sick inspiration. Released by Byron Coley’s Carnage Press label, which was created for that cool Jim Jones Trading Cards set.
Now here’s what they call one of them ironical situations. As a rule I’ve always loathed that whole precious, “cuddle-core” strain of independent rock music that flourished in the 1980s. You know, fey liberal arts majors in sweaters from upper middle class households strumming chimy chord changes, so shy they might just urinate their $100 jeans if you so much as gave them the stinkeye. Surely never grew a callous due to manual labor. I remember, when living in North Carolina in the 1990s, waiting for the buyer in a Chapel Hill used bookstore to raise some spending cash by selling some records, and off to my side was this delicate little creature of a student, singing his mousy little songs to a smug audience of coffee drinkers. It made the blue collar metalhead in me want to go Belushi on the kid.
SOOO, imagine the situation as someone so in contempt of this species of entitled sleeve-wipers to be into a band like Beat Happening. A band from one of the steaming breeding grounds of this musical archetype, Olympia, Washington. A band with two jock-looking normies and a dykey chick right out of Art School Confidential. An intentionally-amateur-sounding band who write songs with two chords and nursery rhyme melodies, and switch instruments to sound “worse.” Does not compute, but there it is. Since their earlier stuff never hit me, I’m thinking it’s the deft touch of producer Steve Fisk who sprinkled the right shades of musical fairy dust on this record that did it. Also, these guys were one of the earlier artists of their generation to reference the non-teen pre-hippy sixties as cultural touchstones (it took me years to realize Calvin Johnson took his whole baritone singing style from Lee Hazlewood). I get nauseous and angry when hearing any other groups that sound like this, but Beat Happening makes me happy. Go figure.
Remarkable instrumental French trio that’s hard to classify. Their roots are in black metal (all three were in Diamatregon), but they play a sort of exploratory (like The Julie Mittens), heavy and rhythmic (like Guapo) propulsion prog (they’ve gigged with Faust and Magma), with touches of dark psychedelia in the washes of guitar (like some of Davis Redford Triad or even Caspar Brotzmann Massaker). Really well done and impressive. When I bitch about how Metallica have petered out and are running on creative fumes, while graybeard metallers shrug and stretch with an apologetic “It’s OK, I guess” at their new music, THIS is the kinda shit I’m trying to draw attention to: new sounds that stretch the boundaries of metal from artists that are following their muses and taking chances, not whipped by management into pretending to care so they can pay for personal chefs and shopping sprees in Paris. Hrmph.
I’ve long had the feeling that Quorthon did the first Bathory recordings on a lark, and, pleasantly surprised by the positive reaction, continued to bang out strong albums with a seemingly offhand effort, tongue slyly in cheek. Many Swedes seem to have this very dry, lightly cynical sense of humor, and I could just imagine this booze/blow/women-loving punk rocker saying, Fuck it, let’s have a go at this metal thing. And without being totally serious about it (though not everyone picked up on this), he cranked out these kickass records, helped define whole genres (black metal, Viking metal), and became a legend in the process. Says a lot about his innate talent. Musically, this was savage thrash metal with grunting Gollum vocals; remember, back in the ’80s black metal was defined more by lyrical content and image, not really by musical qualities (bands like, say, Venom and Mercyful Fate really had little in common). Bathory was not influenced by Bay Area crunch, but more German thrash with an infusion of varsity-level evil juice. Rumors about drum machines have long surrounded this band, and I do wonder if they were used here. Maybe it’s better not to know, and just enjoy the many mysteries of Bathory.
This Seattle punk band straddled the grunge and hardcore scenes—melodic enough for one, powerful enough for the other. They had a couple of good singles, but I never got around to their sole LP. Anyone rate it? Cover art by Joe Newton.
Dreamy pop psych cover of the Doors classic, backed with a similar sunshine pop psych b-side.
Also known as Los Bandidos, from a renowned 1972 live LP (well, renowned to lounge collectors, anyway), they were a midwest Native American band with an incredible guitarist who wrangled weird, scratchy noises out of his instrument that sounded like insects, plus a child singer/drummer.
The second album I have by this local Texas barband. Cool versions of “Mr. Soul” (with variable-tempo drumming), Teegarden & Van Winkle’s “God, Love and Rock & Roll,” and CCR’s “Hey Tonight,” along with others: Ten Years After, Booker T & the M.G.’s, and Tin Tin (!).
A group who went against the Frisco ballroom psychedelic sounds of the time, in a more organic way than, say, CCR. Very influential on the rural/rustic rock to follow, in a different way than country rock. This isn’t country, it feels older, like a rock band from the late 1800s if that makes sense. Old sepia tones. Long rifles. North woods. Not a huge Dylan fan (I have a couple albums filed), but I often like when others cover his songs, which is the case here. Another tragic musical venture that was crippled by drugs and booze, along with management ripoff schemes. Robbie Robertson seems like the uptight, egotistical Don Henley of the group. Plenty of Upstate New York connections with these guys, also.
Third of three albums they recorded in three days in Paris (still need #2). Nice stuff, especially for finger-pickin’ guitar players.
The first one in the series I heard (and my favorite so far). Immediately fell for the moody rock & roll of The Beaux Jens (from Michigan), the frantic twang of The Barracudas (from Louisiana), and the driving groove of The Werps (from Jersey).
A pleasant Beatlesque pop record, though only three (very good) songs stand out for me. Love the smooth slide guitar in “Day After Day” (that’s singer/songwriter Pete Ham and co-producer George Harrison; Leon Russell provides piano), bassist Tom Evans’ “Money,” and the arpeggiated riffs of Ham’s “Baby Blue”; so catchy. Yet more tragic victims of the gangster music biz; Ham and Evans both eventually took their own lives after getting fucked over by management for years.
One of my earliest Brazilian records, and one that still fascinates me. I couldn’t even figure it out for the longest time; it was in such an alien musical language, I couldn’t grok what was going on at all. Obviously bossa nova–based, it also had a classical vibe in parts, and African influences, and featured what sounded like a children’s chorus (actually the Quarteto Em Cy; more on them down the road). Even knowing a little more about Brazilian music now, there’s still an air of mystery and sophistication around this record, which certainly heightens the interest. Collecting Brazilian records is an expensive hobby, but also a load of fun, as there were so many great records that were only pressed in South America, never making it to the Anglo world until collectors got them here. For a few years in the 2000s I listened to every bossa soundclip on eBay, making for a rather large want list. But hey, this is why we get up early to make the donuts. I’ll get more into guitarist Powell in coming posts; de Moraes (1923–1980) was a famous poet and lyricist from Rio de Janeiro. He was there at the birth of bossa nova with João Gilberto and wrote a bunch of standards.
Slightly tongue-in-cheek easy listening with a Mexican flavor and slight exotica touch, but played mostly by pasty white guys. Band was led by Julius Wechter, the guy who replaced Arthur Lyman in Martin Denny’s band. He played on Herb Alpert’s Lonely Bull album, and wrote the hit “Spanish Flea” for him (as heard on The Dating Game TV show). So to help cash in on the Tijuana sound (and the bossa nova craze, à la Brasil ’66) he formed his own band for Alpert’s A&M label, accompanied by seasoned session vets like Hal Blaine and Leon Russell. This is their first album. The Chicago-born Wechter died in 1999, aged 63.
A recent one for me, has three decent tunes. By this time, Lyman had brought EZ pop hits like “Sunny” and “Goin’ Out of My Head” into his repertoire. Anyone know the name of the typeface here?
