Wax of the Week #66...American Whitewater: Live at the Red Blazer (1973)

Custom Century pressing from a New Hampshire lounge band, with a notable singer.

Wax of the Week #65...v/a: The American Standard (1971)

I reviewed this for the Acid Archives book, so I’ll just reproduce the review here…

Pretty interesting double college LP that's made up of two sides of poetry and two sides of music. For the most part, even though much of it is given a psychedelic tinge with some trippy studio effects, the poetry sides (which include black, gay, and sci-fi themes) evoke little interest, save for "Death of Ulysses," effectively recited in a Long John Silver accent over a raga psych background. "St. James Infirmary," "Foreign Legion Blues," and "Ninety Nine" are unremarkable basement jazz/blues with long guitar and sax solos, but the instrumental "Death of the Lord High Executioner" gets into decent, Traffic-like jazz rock zones. Side three is where the heat is: "The Arm/Invocation and Main Theme" is a long, interesting piece of lysergic free jazz given additional appeal with more tape effects as the song moves along; modern noise/improv heads would flip if they heard it (Roland Kirk and Sun Ra are thanked). "Havens but Not Much" is a satisfying, almost Dead-like instrumental jam driven by acoustic guitar, with electric guitar, drums, and bass providing a exploratory accompaniment. "John Riley" is a nice piece of British folk with male harmonies. If just the music was issued as a single LP this probably would have gotten a lot more attention, but it's still worth looking for.

Wax of the Week #64...Aerosmith: Draw the Line (1977)

Having peaked on their previous record, the drugs start to finally take their toll, and creatively the band begins a downslide. The record’s mostly filler, salvaged by a couple of good rockers. Classic Hirschfeld cover, though.

Wax of the Week #63...Alan Caddy and Bob Faloon: Songs Made Famous by the Rolling Stones (c. 1972)

Over the years I’ve collected a LOT of exploito LPs (cash-in records consisting of often one-take cheap-o versions of hit songs recorded by anonymous studio musicians), but have been slowly getting rid of them for space reasons, mainly. Had to keep this one though, it was so good. The guitars are nice and fat and the singer has a cool ‘60s punk snarl. Caddy, founding member of the Tornados who passed away in 2000, produced dozens of now sound/exploitation LPs chock full of a mix of rock and orchestral covers of hit songs of the day, mainly through the Canada-based Avenue of America label, for which he was house arranger and producer. Don't know who Bob Faloon was. [Funny; when I tried to upload a song to SoundCloud I got a copyright notice for an entity called Studio Union, presumably the current rights holder to these versions.]